Among the missionaries with whom First Free Rockford partners are Keith and Judy Anderson of ReachGlobal. They’ve worked in missions since the 1970s in Venezuela, Costa Rica and the U.S. From 1998 to 2020, Keith directed ProMETA, an online seminary based in Costa Rica, offering master’s level education for Spanish-speaking leaders. He continues to teach and mentor students.

As the Andersons near retirement, they’ll visit our church this Sunday (April 13) for a conversation with some of our adult communities starting at 10 a.m. in the Chapel. All are invited. We spoke with them via Zoom recently from their home in the Chicago suburb of Palatine.

First of all, tell me about your retirement. That’s coming up very soon, right?

Keith: Yes. We’ll be we’ll be stepping out of our current part-time status with ReachGlobal at the end of July, and on August 1 we’ll start volunteer status. In many ways we will continue doing what we’re doing, but at a reduced level. We see ourselves working with Hispanic leaders throughout Latin America, but not as busy as we have been.

So it’s an effort to power down a little and yet continue to keep a hand in the work?

Keith: Powering down is a good way to say it. The ministry itself, ProMETA, is at a very critical point in terms of its programs and students and things like that. So, it’s hard to step away completely right now. But we will be reducing our time commitment to both ReachGlobal and ProMETA and spending more time doing some other things that have been on the back burner for a while, related to missions and family.

What changes have you seen in the Latin American church, particularly during your ProMETA experience? From a distance, it has looked like a flurry of new activity and church growth.

Keith: The church in Latin America has matured tremendously. And so the need for church planters from up north is not as great as it was. We always will need church planting, and missions should be involved in church planting as pioneers or as support staff or involved in discipleship, things like that. Where the critical need is right now is in theological education. Whenever we’ve asked Latin American leaders, “What are your greatest needs?” it’s training the leaders who are planting the churches. Sometimes the models that they’ve been using for discipleship are the same models that previous generations were using. The newer models are more relationally centered, more than just straight memorization of biblical verses and things like that, which are important. But the discipleship where you walk with the leader, where you are an example to the leader, you spend time with the leader—those are the models that are having an impact now in Latin America. And if those models don’t have a strong theological foundation, they’re not going to go too far.

That’s why ProMETA was created back in 1998 (with the first course being in 2002). 

You said that your greatest need is theological education. How does that look today as compared to 25 years ago?

Judy: We don’t need brick and mortar schools in every country now. God kind of showed us that we had a computer and we needed to use it. And in that way, we’re able to reach globally wherever they are, and help many different groups of growing leaders. We can make a greater impact in a larger space.

Keith: The “how” you do education has changed tremendously. In the early 2000s, we visited in Guatemala, Costa Rica and Colombia, to encourage them to think of the new technologies that could be used as tools for training leaders. In the early 2000s, the answer was a resounding and very clear “No, you can’t. We like the lecture method. We like the expert to tell us what we need to know.” So really the message fell on deaf ears for many years.

We even talked to schools in the U.S.: “You guys have good content. You have good trainers and teachers. Put it online and expand your base.” And the answer was, “No, because then you’ll lose that personal contact, that personal mentoring.”

And we said, “Well, OK, but somebody else is going to do it, then, and take your students.”

So that’s what’s changed. The content hasn’t changed so much as the technology and what we emphasize now in our content.

COVID was a tremendous accelerator for some areas of mission, especially in technology. Was that your experience, too?

Keith:  You know, during COVID we never lost a student. We gained students during COVID because we were already doing what everybody else said wasn’t working.  COVID was an accelerator for all of our partner schools. That was a game changer and I don’t think schools are going to go back now. They’re going to keep some traditional, but they’re also going to do online. So we’re getting a lot of good hybrid models that combine the strengths of both.

And that’s what ProMETA is moving into. We had done everything online. Now we’re starting to do in-person also.

Judy: COVID actually helped ProMETA learn how to be more touchy-feely, more personal, develop relationships because they craved it during that time, and we realized this is a very important part of ProMETA. We cannot just do a content dump and then take the test. We have to mentor them personally as well.

What did that change look like for you?

Keith: We offered free, monthly webinars. We would get over a hundred people coming into those webinars on specific subjects that were either COVID-related or ministry-related. Then we noticed other schools starting to do the same thing. … we were already thinking of going in this direction. But now, every ProMETA student has three mentors who walk with them through the entire program. Imagine going to school, whether it’s secular or Christian, and having three experts walk with you the entire program—guiding you to make help you make decisions, help you become a lifelong learner, checking your character to make sure that when you graduate your character has also improved throughout the process.

And it’s not just a logo by saying we’re going to transform the world through biblical character development. It’s actually putting feet to those words, where your character is being checked by somebody who’s walked with you the entire program.

Would you say that’s something that works particularly well in Latin America or is it a global development?

Keith: It’s very limited right now to not many schools. We three-year partnership with a university called Kairos. That partnership has led to accreditation of our programs. It has given us a certain level of academic status and acceptance now among Latin Americans.

And the partnership requires mentoring. It requires that you graduate with competencies. So not only can you talk the talk, but you can walk the walk as well. If you can’t demonstrate that you are competent in a certain area, then you’re not going to graduate. And if you can’t demonstrate your character is more like Christ when you graduate than when you entered, you’re not going to graduate. You’re going to have to show growth.

And the mentors are the ones who determine the growth. They determine whether you have achieved those competencies, those skills, those ministry skills that you’ve learned. … So, it’s very labor intensive, but we believe that it pays off in the long run.

How many students does ProMETA have?

Keith: About 40-some students in the certificate programs, which includes training missionaries for the Middle East and things like that. Then there are close to 70 students in the master’s programs and between 23 and 30 in the doctoral programs. So approximately 150 students. And we have applications — we had 200 inquiries at the beginning of this term and we only accepted 19 of those students.

So, God is leading us in the right direction. I think this particular way of doing theological education is going to resonate with students because they’re walking with mentors throughout either the two-year master’s or the three-year doctoral program.

Is students’ time split between being live and online, or is it strictly online?

Keith: It’s based on the student and the nearness of the mentor. So, if there are mentors who live in the same city, which is quite often the case, then that’s an in-person relationship. But the academic mentors are normally not in person. They’re virtual.

I’m the academic mentor of two students. I meet virtually with them on a monthly basis, making sure they’re following the steps. Making sure that all their I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed for academic accreditation standards. Making sure the courses that they’re selecting are helping them to prepare to fulfill their calling from the Lord.

What’s the geographic area that you’re pulling students from?

Keith: Latin America, Central and South America are the main sources for students, but we have a doctoral cohort here in the U.S. There are Hispanic, Free Church pastors, mostly from the EFCA West District out in California, Arizona, New Mexico and western Texas. And then there are students in Spain, Switzerland, we have one student from Africa. And many of these folks are on the mission field already. They’re Latin Americans already doing church planting. They’re frustrated because they haven’t had the training to do an adequate job at church planting.

That’s exciting, then.

Keith: It is.

You mentioned the measuring stick of whether a student is more Christlike than when they began. That must be very satisfying to see, right?

Keith: It is. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say that we accept a student and the spiritual mentor realizes that this student has anger issues. That student will not graduate with anger issues. He’s got two to three years to take care of that.

Judy: But we will help them.

Keith: Yeah, the mentor will walk with that student to help them deal with the anger. And that would be the case for any kind of a character issue in a student. When they graduate, they have to be sensitized to their own character flaws, their own inabilities. They’re not graduating as academic theologians with these big heads, saying, “I know it all.” Yes, you may know it, but can you do it?

I think that’s why ProMETA’s model is going to resonate with a lot of denominations, because they want their pastors to graduate with those kinds of competencies.

As the two of you look back on your long years working in all this, how do you think God used you? What have you learned? How have you changed? Those are huge questions, I know.

Judy: It was good to have had the years that we did living among them (in Venezuela and Costa Rica). Keith grew up there (Venezuela as a missionary kid), but I know when I went, I needed to learn how to live with them, how to live in their culture, how to respect their culture. And I think that’s really necessary in order to connect with them.

Keith: For me, one of the greatest joys has been like the apostle John said in his third letter, that it gives him great joy to see his children walking in the Word, walking in truth. Because of our long-term relationship in Venezuela, we’ve actually been able to see the children of the people that my folks worked with. Their children are now leaders in Venezuela.

We saw two of them in Brazil this past week. One is the former president of the Free Church of Venezuela. He was a kid in one of the churches that one of our missionaries pastored. Now he is doing ministry with the indigenous tribes in the Amazon jungles of Venezuela, doing a lot of Bible translation there. And the other one was the son of a Venezuelan who became a great lay leader in the local church. His father was a very good friend of mine, and his father was very close to my father. They worked together in different projects. And now we see his grandson as part of an area leadership team for ReachGlobal. There’s something about history where you can look back on the foundations and see the results through the children of the pioneers and see them walking faithfully. It just gives great joy.

What a gift of affirmation for you guys that your work has been so valuable to get to see that.

Keith: Yes. In fact, the current academic dean of ProMETA was one of my students in Venezuela. He and a ReachGlobal Brazilian missionary are planting a church right now.  And in fact, his wife babysat one of our kids when we were at the seminary in Venezuela.

So just to see them—they’ve been faithful for 40-some years and going strong.

What else would you like First Free Rockford to know about your work or your current stage in life?

Keith: I think one of the biggest ones is the transition that we’re in right now from missionary-led to national church-led. I’ve mentioned in our prayer letters Dr. Sepúlveda, who assumed the role that I had for 20 years. That transition has gone well. But he is living in Canada and doesn’t have a visa yet to stay there. So we’re praying for that visa to come through. They need to know by April 18.

The second thing is an overworked team. The ProMETA team is mostly volunteers, and volunteers have limited time. So just pray for the very overworked staff. Pray for good health, for strength, for wisdom for the team, that they can persevere until we can get a solid foundation where they can be full-time workers, not just part-time volunteers. They’re pedaling as fast as they can and doing a great job.

Judy: I would say thank you to First Free for being a very important leg in this project. It could not have been done without their prayer support. God heard their prayers. God answered their prayers. There were many times when we felt support, that there were people behind us so we would keep going. And for their financial help to allow us to be there and to impact those who we did, who are now the leaders. So they have been a very vital tool, and still are, in God’s kingdom work. And we just say thank you for partnering with us.

Keith: First Free has been such an important part of this project. And it’s because of that persevering support over the years that we’ve been able to arrive where we are today.

That’s great to hear, that we’ve gotten to play such a role in important work like this. And just to hear that things are moving in such a good direction with local leadership. That’s exciting.

Keith: It really is. I mean, that’s the way God designed outreach and kingdom expansion to work, through those kinds of partnerships.

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Next time: The conclusion of our conversation with ReachGlobal’s Jim Snyder.