If you have been around for the past month or more you have heard the term "Field Visit" used by a few people, often as a prayer request. Others of you know that KSBC has been sending teams to visit some of our global partners in various parts of the world for the past three years. But what exactly are Field Visits, and why are we doing this?
Before going on, it may help to know these three things:
1. The KSBC Mission Team is headed by one of our elders, Mikel Berger. Dean Zimmerman, the deacon of missions, Matthew Rodibaugh, Zach Weniger, and Mitti Wilson complete the mission team at this time.
2. Our global partners, also known as missionaries, live in many areas of the world and proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ through church planting, business endeavors, and English classes, to name a few ways. KSBC has 17 partners around the world and locally. These partnerships, and our financial support for them, were voted on by the members of KSBC.
3. Barnabas Teams have been an established part of our church for nearly 10 years now. Community Groups are assigned a partner and in this way become the Barnabas Team for that partner. The goal of a BT is to concentrate on one of our partners to get to know them, to communicate regularly with them, to pray for them, and to occasionally bless them in practical ways with ministry supplies or special gifts.
The heart of a Barnabas Team is to uplift and encourage - following the example of Barnabas in the New Testament - coming alongside our missionaries to support and strengthen them in their calling.
Acts 4:36 - "...Joseph, who was also called by the apostles Barnabas (which means son of encouragement), a Levite, a native of Cyprus..."
One of the benefits of this is that if there is news that the mission team or elders should know about in the life of the partner, the BT is able to let them know quickly because they have been communicating regularly.
Now back to explaining the Field Visits. Over time the Barnabas Teams have been able to generally know their global partner through the various means of communication now available (letters, emails, text messages, and at times, video calls). But even though these are great ways to communicate with our partners, there are limits. Seeing partners that return for a home assignment is also helpful but their schedules don't always leave enough time to interact deeply with them. Just when you are getting comfortable talking they have to leave to visit others. Going to visit them in their field of service fills the gap - offering the kind of encouragement that only the ministry of presence can fully provide.
Several years ago the mission team set a goal of sending a select team to visit each partner on their field of service. These teams are made up of one elder, one mission team member, and one Barnabas Team leader. The Barnabas Team leader is the person from the community group that does most of the communication with the global partner.
After a global partner is selected for a visit by the mission team, a date is set. Next, careful thought and much prayer is given to select a team to go on a Field Visit. The best case scenario is that the team has 9 months to a year to prepare to go. There are travel plans to make, culture to learn about, gifts to gather, books to read, and more. All of these preparations are made in order to attain the goal of being a team of encouragers.
Once on site, the biggest encouragement to our partners has been when the team gets to know their family, spends time learning about their ministry, meets people that they are involved with, and discusses many topics in the course of the few days that they are together. This is also a time that our partners are able to learn about the individuals that traveled to visit them. No longer are they just names and faces but they become friends. Now that is an encouragement!
In 2023 the first field visit took place a bit more quickly than expected and, because an elder was not able to travel, the group that went included a mission team member and two Barnabas Team members. It was an encouraging time for both our partners, Andrea and Emmanuela Artioli, and the team that visited. Southeast Asia was next, in 2024, with three partners and their families being visited. Each global partner felt loved and encouraged by the teams that came. Regarding our goals in 2025….. as you know, a team just returned from Peru after visiting David and Kandie Stilwell. The ministry of the Stilwells spans generations and seeing it up close, for the sake of learning, was an encouragement to David and Kandie as well as the team.
As you can see, Field Visits are not just opportunities to travel, or just to see the world and visit people. These are carefully and prayerfully planned trips with specific purposes. The trips are budgeted each year to be able to send the teams from Kossuth Street Baptist Church as representatives of all of us. As Jon has been preaching through Philippians this summer we have seen that the apostle Paul was very encouraged by the team that visited him from the church in Philippi. When you are a long way from home a visit from people back home is a great encouragement. And it is even more so when you know that they have come with the specific goal of seeing how you are doing, experiencing first hand a slice of your life and ministry, as well as bringing news and gifts from home.
The following statement from Matthew Rodibaugh’s evaluation of the Field Visit to David and Kandie Stilwell’s ministry in Peru is worth sharing here. It so aptly reflects the core reasons we invest in Field Visits.
“These trips are essential for missionary care. It's really hard to know what a global partner is experiencing without walking where they walk and seeing life from their perspective. It allows us to ask deep, hard questions and offer encouragement. It helps us know how to better pray for them. It lets us know how we can support them.”
Now that you know what Field Visits are, please pray for the 2026 trip that is currently in the beginning stages of planning.
Written by Mitti Wilson and Sue Svensson
