Balliew’s summer fueled by missions and ministry
Landon Balliew, a 2025 Albany High School graduate with a heart for missions, recently returned from his second trip to Guatemala – one of several mission efforts he’s participated in over the last few years.
A member of First Baptist Church Albany and current intern with East-West Ministries International in Dallas, Balliew has served on mission teams to multiple destinations, but says his latest trip sharing the Gospel with the Achi people was unlike anything he’s ever experienced.
Balliew traveled July 1-7 with a 12-member team from East-West Ministries International, where he is serving as a summer intern. Partnering with Mid-Way Young Adults from north Texas, the group worked in San Ines, Guatemala, sharing the Gospel with the remote Achi people.
“Last summer we were building houses in Guatemala, but this time we were sharing the Gospel hut to hut,” Balliew said. “We were able to distribute about 50 Bibles – Bibles these people could actually read for the first time.”
According to Balliew, the Achi people read and write in their own language. The Bibles, translated over a period of 60 years by a local pastor’s father, were the first the community had ever received.
“None of the people we met had ever seen a Bible in their language because one had not existed before now, and 90 percent of them had never seen white people before,” Balliew said. “It was a very remote area – six hours by bus from Guatemala City, then 40 more minutes up the mountain in a cattle trailer.”
The team shared the Gospel with 93 people, resulting in 48 recorded salvations. Local ministry partners will continue discipleship with the new believers. The mission house where the group stayed is an East-West partnership site based in San Miguel Chicaj.
Balliew said his team’s departure from Guatemala came just in time.
“The day after we left, Antigua – the town we’d been in – was hit by seven earthquakes,” he said. “It destroyed the markets we’d just been in.”
Next, Balliew will travel to England August 2-9 for a youth-focused sports ministry event before starting classes at Dallas Baptist University this fall.
In England, East-West will partner with Next ministries, and Balliew will be working with former Albany youth minister Thomas Aly, who now directs the Next Teams ministry.
In the last part of his whirlwind summer, Balliew plans to move into his DBU dorm August 10 and begin a week-long summer bridge course August 11, with fall classes beginning immediately after that.
