Our Purpose

Faith International Partners exists to mobilize national church-planting pastors in the 10/40 window and beyond to preach the Gospel, plant churches, and disciple their own people.

There are four billion people in this area of the world, and virtually all of these 67 countries are either Buddhist, Communist, Hindu, or Islamic. They are 95% un-evangelized due to the vast majority of them forbidding western Christian missionaries to do long term work, yet we will still be held accountable at the Judgment Seat of Christ for His mandate to “...preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15).

Since the door is closed to western missionaries, we are going through “the window” of raising support for these indigenous men of God. As Saul from Tarsus, Celicia, partnered with the church of Antioch, Syria, we are creating partnerships between the church-planters of third-world countries in the 10/40 window and the churches and Christians of America.

National Church planter accountability

Many Americans have been wary of helping support nationals because they fear misuse or abuse of donated funds. Faith International Partners exists to be that accountability link between your gifts and the national pastors’ ministries on the foreign field.

1. Recommendations for applications for assistance are only accepted through a trusted source, such as a western missionary, a mission board, or a currently assisted national pastor who has a long term, personal relationship with the pastor being recommended.
2. Completed applications will be used to help evaluate their doctrine, training, ministry experience, work ethic, and family situation.
3. Written accountability comes in the form of regular ministry reports sent to the sponsor.
4. Accountability trips are made regularly by Faith International Partners’ staff to encourage preachers and document their ministry reports.

Advantages of helping national church planters

1. Advantage of Language

   It takes years for an American to effectively learn the language of another country. The national pastor has grown up speaking that language, and he is often able to speak several local dialects as well.

2. Advantage of Citizenship

   Many nations do not allow traditional American missionaries to enter, but the national church planter has the privilege of citizenship.



3. Advantage of Culture

   The greatest cause of defeat listed by western missionaries is “inability to adapt to the culture.” The national pastor will not experience culture shock, and he is also trusted by his own people.

4. Advantage of Economics

   Faith International Partners compliments the work of our American missionaries by raising support for the men they have reached with the gospel and trained for ministry. It is not our purpose to raise their standard of living, but to replace their source of income so they can minister full time to their own people. Therefore, we can support 40-55 national church planters for the same amount of funds required for each American missionary.

5. Advantage of Time

   It takes an American missionary an average of three years to raise his support for the field. The National church-planter is already on the field and serving, though on a limited basis due to the responsibility of providing for his own family. He is ready to go full-time immediately upon acquisition of his partnership by Faith International Partners.

6. Advantage of Furlough

   The average, Western missionary will spend at least 20% of their time (one year in five) reporting to their sending churches. The Indigenous church-planting preacher is held accountable on the field by both National Director and American FIP representatives allowing him to spend 100% of his time in local ministry, outreach evangelism, discipleship, and church-planting efforts.

Ben and Linda Bounds, Founder/Director

FAITH INTERNATIONAL PARTNERS

c/o Metro Baptist Church, 322 East Cedar Street, Goodlettsville, TN 37072
Ph. 615-822-4229 E-mail bandlbounds@yahoo.com

MY BACKGROUND

I was born in Hattiesburg, MS and grew up on a small farm 10 miles east of Lumberton in what is known as Carnes and Pistol Ridge Communities…so far back in the woods they had to pump sunshine in…and moonshine out! I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home in a rural setting in south Mississippi where my father (1923) taught the Adult Sunday School Class at Sand Hill Baptist Church until June 2007. I cut my teeth on the backs of the home-made, yellow pine pews and the Modern Favorites and World Wide Songs song books (published by Stamps Baxter Music Company) of this church. I accepted Christ at age 11 at a Baptist youth camp one summer at the Paul B. Johnson State Park off highway 49 in south Mississippi and was later baptized in Mill Creek in Carnes community. Of course as usual, we had to chase the cottonmouth moccasins off before we could baptize. My Dad not only taught us how to live by the Bible but also how to earn a living. He instilled the ethics of hard work, the value of a dollar, honor, loyalty and honesty in me as well as my older sister Sylvia and younger brother Chaplin Lt. Col. Steve Bounds. Dad helped us to develop strong healthy bodies through athletics with which to serve the Lord. Though I participated in many different forms of athletic competition, amateur boxing was our family traditional sport. I was very successful as I won several state and mid-south Golden Gloves Boxing Championships. Dad and I did much hunting and fishing as well. We kept the table well supplied with quail, squirrel and fish. Dad saw to it that our grandmother taught all three of us siblings how to play the piano so we could use our musical talents for the Lord in church. Besides all this, I was in the Boy Scouts of America and earned two palms over Eagle…. Scouts honor! These many varied activities prepared me well for my lifetime of ministry both here in the states and in third-world countries

MY CALL TO THE MINISTRY

I also attended Gospel Singers of America School of Gospel Music in Pass Christian, MS (washed off the map by Hurricane Katrina in August, 2005) for four summers before each of my high school years. At a campfire prayer service on the beach on Wednesday evening, God called me into full-time music ministry. As a high school student, I was already serving as my church’s music director. Late in my senior year of high school my pastor, the late Charlie Herrington, Founder of Baptist Medical and Dental Missions, Petal, MS, encouraged me to enroll in the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO and major in Church Music. This I did with God’s clear stamp of approval and blessings.

MY LOVE LIFE

I married my college sweetheart Linda (Harwell) three months after graduation on August 30, 1968. Linda was born at home, as were her older sister and two brothers, in Mobile, AL. Her parents were not as active in church as mine but they always encouraged her and her siblings to attend. She accepted Christ as her personal Savior and was baptized at age 7 in the Wilson Avenue Baptist Church of Prichard, AL. Shortly thereafter her family moved to Saraland where she began to faithfully attend Shelton Beach Road Baptist Church. She taught Sunday school and sang in the choir there from the time she was 15 years of age until she left for the Baptist Bible College in Springfield, MO where God had called her to prepare for a life of full-time Christian service. We met the first week of school and both of us worked in the school cafeteria where our romance blossomed and bloomed. During our senior year, we were elected as “King and Queen” by our classmates for our annual Valentine Sweetheart Banquet. Before we were married, we both agreed that if God chose to bless us with children she would be a stay-at-home Mom. Besides this, she has truly been my help-meet in all areas of our family life and my full-time ministry for these 42 years that God has given us to serve Him together.

MY MINISTRY EXPERIENCE

During my first 33 ½ years of ministry I wore two to four hats simultaneously in such ministries as music director, nation-wide T.V. broadcast director of “The Old Time Religion Hour”, youth director, Christian school music teacher/choral director/Bible teacher, athletic director, soccer coach, track and field coach (3 state championships!), young married couples class founder/teacher, and evangelism outreach director, bus director, custodian…well, you get the picture. Over the course of those years I had led youth groups on three foreign mission trips, and had gone with my current senior pastor Phil Martin on a mission trip to Southeast Asia. Linda and I have supported foreign missions regularly since childhood, and weekly (yes, that’s spelled with two “e” ’s) since 1970 when veteran Korean Missionary Jack Baskin introduced the Faith Promise mission plan to the Olivet Baptist Church of Lynwood, CA where I served as Youth and Music Director under the Dr. Eli Harju, our MOST favorite Bible college professor.

MY CALL TO MISSIONS

In 1997 my youngest son Brian was about to be graduated from seminary and I wanted him to have another close look at foreign missions, so I took him and two other men from my church on a short-term mission trip to Belize, C.A. to help my boyhood friend Wayne Anderson teach a one-week pastors’ school to a group of Maya Indians in Pueblo Vallejo up in the Maya Mountains. It was there that God called me…not my son…into foreign missions work. Thinking at first it was to go to Belize, I took my wife there three months later to do a further survey of the field and let her see Wayne’s pastors’ school in progress. Though she had compassion for the people, she did not have the same compelling to go as a missionary as did I. I knew God had to call us both, or it just wouldn’t work. Hence followed six months of prayer and fasting (intermittently) as we were earnestly seeking God’s will for our lives for the future. We had already been supporting three national church-planting preachers in Africa through Gospelink, Inc. at that point in time. Getting up off our knees one morning, Linda said to me, “Ben, have you ever considered working with Gospelink?” I answered, “Yes, but I have never voiced it. Your bringing it up confirms that I should check into the possibility.” The rest is history, as we served with Gospelink for five and half years. I made seven extensive trips to Africa, Russia, and the Ukraine for accountability and exhortation purposes with the pastors for whom we have raised support, plus participated in a wide variety of exciting and blessed evangelism outreach venues all the while gathering the invaluable training and experience needed for the next stage of the ministry for which God was preparing us. God has now led us to organize Faith International Partners to continue this ministry to indigenous church-planters within the countries of the 10/40 Window starting in Thailand, then expanding into India, Myanmar, and Vietnam.

MY CHILDREN

We have two sons Eric (1973) and Brian (1976). Eric, his wife Jennifer, and our grandchildren Brianna and Noah Benjamin, live in the Cane Ridge community of Nashville. He works as a “computer data analyst” for Healthways, a fortune 500 company in the Coolsprings area. He also owns and operates his own tree service company. Eric was led to Christ one evening by his mother at age 5 while I was out on soul-winning visitation. They are active at Grace Community Baptist Church in Brentwood, TN. Brian owns a business called “Sunsation” in Goodlettsville,TN and another one called “the BIZ” in Pleasant View, TN. It is a combination Pizza take-out and/or delivery, Tanning Salon, and DVD rental. Brian and his wife Cassie are also active members of the Grace Community Church. Brian was also led to Christ at home at age 5. Both boys were baptized at Bible Baptist Church in Hendersonville, TN where I was on staff for 17 ½ years. Brian and Cassie are expecting their first child on May 6th, 2010.

MY TRADE

The Apostle Paul often had to resort to his family trade of “tent-making” to support himself and his ministry when the missionary offerings from his supporting churches ran low. Having grown up on a tree farm in south MS, I climb trees. I learned the “in town” business while working on my days off with my lay-youth workers, Eddie and Kay Walker, owner/operator of Walker Tree Service of Bellflower, CA. I own and operate Busy Beaver Tree Service in Hendersonville, TN, and do just enough work since we are only at 65% of our needed support to make ends meet, then send the excess to third world countries to help support the indigenous pastors in their ministry needs and projects. I taught the tree service trade to my two sons who exercised it to work their way through college and now supplement their family income as well as help support national church-planters in third-world countries. Thanks a million, Eddie and Kay, look what a blessing you have been to my family and to the spread of the gospel!

MY REFERALS

Upon request I could supply you with the names and addresses of the 5 churches in 3 states I served with for the first 33 ½ years, or any number of the 400+ churches in 17 states from Florida to Alaska, and from Maryland to Southern California in which I have presented the ministry of supporting indigenous church-planters in third-world countries for the last nine years.

MY PASSION

I am looking forward to the possible opportunity of assisting churches in their endeavors of carrying out our Lord’s Great Commission “to the utter most part of the earth” (Acts 1:8). My purpose is to compliment their foreign mission efforts and the work of the missionaries they have sent by raising support for the national church-planting preachers in third-world countries that our missionaries have reached with the gospel and trained for the ministry. In these poverty stricken countries, unemployment ranges from 70-80%. 90% of the families in the 67 countries of the 10/40 Window live on an average family income of $250 per year. “And how shall they preach except they be sent?” (Romans 10:15) The 10/40 Window is teeming with two-thirds of the world’s population (now over 4 billion) and is 95% un-evangelized!

OUR PURPOSE

Faith International Partners’ mission is to mobilize indigenous, church-planting pastors in the 10/40 Window to preach the Gospel, to plant churches for, and to disciple their own people. There are four billion in this area of the world, and virtually all of these 67 countries are either Buddhist, Communist, Hindu, or Islamic. These countries are only 5% evangelized due to the vast majority of them forbidding Christian missionaries to do long term work there, yet we will still be held at the Judgment Seat of Christ for His mandate to “...preach the gospel to every creature” Mark 16:15. Since the door is closed to our western missionaries, we are going through “the window” of raising support for these indigenous men of God. As Paul of Tarsus, Celicia partnered with the church of Antioch, Syria, we are creating partnerships between the church-planters of third-world countries in the 10/40 Window and the churches and Christians of America.

In the service of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords,
Benjamin R. Bounds, Director
Faith International Partners Mission Agency