The last day of the mission trip to Mexico was as focused on evangelism as the first day. Nick Walburn and a small group of pastors made a stop at a local souvenir shop and, as they had been doing through the week, struck up a conversation with the shop owner and shared the Gospel.
“She accepted Christ right there,” Walburn said. Zoro Baena, a Hispanic pastor who led the trip, asked the shop owner if she had a Bible. When she said no, he gave her his own. When the group passed by her shop an hour later, they saw she was reading the Bible.
“Not only was she saved, but she began doing the things that a disciple does,” he said.
The encounter in the shop was one more way God answered Walburn’s prayer before the trip: “God, work powerfully among the local people of the region.”
Over a week-long trip, in partnership with local Baptist pastors and churches, the team witnessed 22 transformations as people responded to the Gospel.
Walburn and his wife, Carrie, serve as International Mission Board missionaries. They lived in Mexico for six years before they began new roles for the IMB in Richmond, Va. In their current role, they help churches in the U.S. connect with missionaries overseas.
Because of their placement in the U.S., Walburn was able to attend IMB’s Missions College training event in January 2026. While there, he connected with a group of Hispanic pastors and met Baena, pastor of Ministerio Reconciliación, a Hispanic Southern Baptist church in South Carolina that is part of the Northwood Baptist family of churches.
Baena invited Walburn to join his church on its upcoming trip to a southern region in Mexico, where Baena and his wife, Jessica, have been ministering alongside local pastors and churches for the past three years.
In past years, the Baenas have witnessed baptisms of new believers. Walburn was able to meet those new believers and witness how they are now actively leading and serving in the church.
He also saw the fruit of years of the Baenas’ investment in the community. Reflecting on their time of evangelism during their recent trip, Walburn recalled Baena saying, “we witnessed something supernatural.”
Much of the local ministry in the region centers around service to the community. Walburn and the mission team partnered with the local Baptist church for ministry that included a visit to a juvenile detention center and the distribution of essential items to families of hospitalized patients.
As an evangelism-focused trip, they trained pastors from the area in effective methods that are easy to learn and easy to use. One primary method they used was the Three Circles tool, that is available in multiple languages, including Spanish. It is a tool commonly used by churches in the U.S.
Throughout the week, Walburn said the team was intentional to practice what they were learning. As a result of their faithful sharing, 22 lives were changed in one week, including the woman in the souvenir shop. Some placed their faith in Christ for the first time, while others recommitted their lives to Him.
Walburn described a common spiritual condition for many in Latin America. People often come from a faith background but do not have a saving faith. “Many ministry contacts have a connection to the Catholic Church. Perhaps when they were an infant, they were brought to the church and baptized. That experience is different than having a personal relationship with God and salvation through faith in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
“Some ministry contacts we encounter don’t think about God at all and don’t confess any sort of spirituality. In cases like these, we invite them to place their faith in Christ through the Gospel and become a disciple.”
Yet even where faith may be a formality in someone’s life, God still pursues them. Walburn explained that when believers are faithful to share the good news, God uses these opportunities to let others hear and understand the Gospel.
“It’s in that moment the Holy Spirit enlivens their minds to obey and respond. That’s what we saw over and over during our time in Mexico,” he said.
An example of this is Daniel, a young man from Honduras, who works as a waiter. The mission team met him when they came in for a meal. While Daniel has family in Mexico, he still has faced adapting to a different culture.
“Building community in a new area can be kind of tough,” Walburn acknowledged. When members of the team shared the Gospel, Daniel accepted the good news and became a believer.
Walburn was encouraged to partner with a “motivated, missional Southern Baptist pastor and his wife” to take the Gospel and share it in Mexico.
“We shared the Gospel in the most straightforward and clear presentation that we could, and taught others to share it, too,” he said. “We saw so much fruit during our mission trip. This is something anyone can do anywhere.
“Missionaries are an expression of what God wants Southern Baptists to do among the nations. Partnering together with pastors and the local church for mission is a beautiful thing.”
The ministry fruit, he said, would not have happened without Baena’s initiative to serve or without the relationship he had with local pastors in Mexico.
