"Reaching Colombia for Christ"
What We Believe
Mission Statement
Board of Directors
Brad Williams
Mr. Williams is a 1983 graduate of Baylor University in Waco, Texas. His business career has spanned over 30 years and includes various executive leadership positions in several Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Williams currently serves as Chief Accounting Officer for one of the largest emergency revenue cycle management companies in the United States. Mr. Williams is married to Patricia, a beautiful citizen of Colombia and has five children. Mr. Williams has committed himself to be a servant of his Lord Jesus Christ. He takes seriously God’s Great Commandment to GO and make disciples of ALL nations. Mr. Williams has been involved in five mission trips to India where on his last trip he led a regional crusade. In addition, Mr. Williams has taken the Gospel to Brazil seven times and has been leading several mission trips a year to Colombia since 2008. Mr. Williams has a passion to reach Colombia with the Good News of Christ. As such, Mr. Williams formed the ministry “Across Borders Ministries” with the vision to evangelize, plant churches, train pastors and key leaders and provide humanitarian assistance to the peoples of Colombia. Mr. Williams’s desire is to finish strong the race that God has given him.
Pastor Truman Herring
Pastor Truman Herring began his pastoral ministry in 1970. He was blessed of God to pastor Mt. Hood Baptist Church in Oregon for eight years. For the past 27 years he has been the senior pastor of Boca Glades Baptist Church (BGBC) in Boca Raton, Florida.
BGBC began sending mission teams to India, Brazil, and Colombia and established partnerships that included church planting schools, crusades, church revivals, video ministry teams, as well as humanitarian efforts.
Besides his pastoral and mission ministry he is a Christian author and conference speaker for Pastor conferences.
Dr. Greg Kappas
Greg starred for a high school national championship baseball team (1972) and was a record setting pitcher for Marshall University (1973-1977) where he graduated with a B.A. in Speech. He was inducted into the Marshall University Hall of Fame in 2012. Sensing a strong call to preach, teach and train others in the Word of God, Greg turned down a free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox (1977) and went into full-time ministry with Campus Crusade for Christ. Dr. Kappas has served the Lord full-time in Christian work since 1977. He has three earned graduate degrees, M.Div., Th.M. and D.Min. from seminaries in Southern California and Oregon. He has studied with his wife in Israel and worked as a teaching and executive assistant for 2 seminary presidents.
Dr. Kappas has been selected by his peers as one of the top 100 U.S. evangelical influencers in leadership development (1999, Leadership Network). He speaks and teaches regularly for many ministries, including The Timothy Initiative, Palm Beach Atlantic University, Exponential, Leadership Network, Mosaix Global Network and Grace Global Network. He has served on the adjunct faculty of numerous evangelical seminaries teaching Hermeneutics, Preaching, Bible, Theology, Leadership, Church Health and Growth. He is a cofounder of the International Church Planters Summit. He also is a cofounder of Heart of Grace Ministries (heartofgrace.com). Greg has led, pastored and served on the Executive and Preaching teams of some of America’s fastest growing churches and consults with churches around the world, including strategic mega churches. Greg has authored or co-authored numerous works, including the highly regarded Twenty-five Questions for Planting a Healthy Church, Five Stages for Multiplying Healthy Churches, Recapturing the Art of Shepherding and Somewhere Inside the Rainbow. He recently served as General Editor and author for The Timothy Initiative’s Foundational 11 book Curriculum. Greg has over 300,000 volumes in print.
In December of 2004, Greg founded Grace Global Network and serves as President. GGN partners with other evangelical reproducing church planting movements in multiplying new churches around the globe (graceglobalnetwork.org). GGN also assists turnaround churches to greater health through a creative process of ministry. His family resides in Phoenix, Arizona where he teaches part time at Golden Gate Seminary while continuing his work on the Leadership Team for The Timothy Initiative (ttionline.org) where he has served since 2009. Mr. Kappas also served on the Grace Fellowship Executive and Preaching Team (2009 – 2013). He is humbled by the grace of God upon his life.
Greg met his wonderful wife, Debbie in graduate school in 1981 and was married in 1982. Greg and Debbie have 2 beautiful children, Michele and Tiffany. The family is rounded out with an energetic Australian shepherd, Cookie.
Gabriel Matos
My name is Gabriel Matos, I am from Salvador, Bahia, Brazil. I love my country and my people very much! I grew up in a Christian family going to church every Saturday, Sunday and Wednesdays. I was always involved in church activities since I was a little child. My grandfather was a pastor and I grew up hearing all the stories from the Bible and all the testimonies about missionaries. That was my environment my whole life. However, although I was involved in church activities my whole life, my heart was never (or almost never) into what I was doing. I knew about God, and maybe there was not a single story that I had never heard before. I was aware of my sin and the separation it creates towards to God and for a long time, I did everything because of this fear of being away from God and being punished. Until the days that I had so much pain in my life, my father got divorced from my mother and it was the hardest time in my life (maybe it is not a big deal in your opinion, but it was a huge impact in my life). During that time, I understood there was a lovely God who would never leave me, nor forsake me. I understood in my heart that so many people around me were suffering for not having this love. I went on my first mission trip here in my State in 2002 and in 2007 I went on my first international mission trip to Bolivia. God has given me a passion for South America and I had the chance to lead some groups and run soccer camps and share Jesus through soccer in those missions -Bolivia(2008), Paraguay (2008) Chile(2010) and Colombia (2008-2015).
Gabriel is currently attending a Christian theological seminary in Recife, Brazil and is one of the founding Directors of ABM.
Pastor David Nelms
David serves as Founder and President of TTI. He casts vision and gives direction to TTI as we impact the world for Christ. David is a former senior pastor and has had success in growing three different churches in Maryland, Iowa and Florida. He has served as a trustee on the board of Luther Rice Seminary and taught all over the world. David received a Master of Arts from Moody Bible Institute, a Master of Divinity from Luther Rice University and his Doctor of Ministry from Luther Rice University. David is married to his lovely wife, Loretta. They have three grown children and five grandchildren.
Pastor Chip Stallings
Pastor Stallings is married to Brittni and they have a son named George. Pastor Stallings whose full name is George Barry Stallings, Jr. goes by the nickname Chip. Pastor Stallings has known the Lord since the age of 13 and has committed his life to His service. Pastor Stallings obtained his Bachelor degree in Religion (with a specialization in youth ministries) from Liberty University in 2000. Pastor Stallings went on later to obtain his Masters of Divinity Degree (with a specialization in Christian Leadership) from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary. Pastor Stallings has served over six years as Associate Pastor, Middle School Minister for FBC of West Palm Beach and for two years as the Director of Center of Pastoral Leadership at Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary in Lynchburg, Virginia. Pastor Stallings also served as the Lead Pastor of the Discover Church, a church he planted, from May 2009 until August 2016. Pastor Stallings is currently serving as an Associate Pastor with the Family Church in West Palm Beach, Florida. Pastor Stallings has participated in several mission trips stateside, the Caribbean Islands, Honduras, and most recently, to La Guajira, Colombia where he is evangelizing and teaching the Wayuu Indians, an Unreached People’s Group as defined by the International Mission Board.
Pastor Marshall Walcott
Marshall Wolcott has been a Christ follower since 1982 and has served a lay person in leadership positions wherever he has been. He has also been blessed to preach the gospel on multiple continents in several countries. For the last six years he has pastored at CrossWalk Ministries, a new church start in LaPine, Or., his home town.
Pastor Wolcott also serves on the board of the Colombia Grace Foundation. He has been married to his wife Rhonda for 41 years, has two children and three grandchildren. he was formerly a homebuilder, enjoys fishing and hunting and being a grandfather.
Ministry Partners
Boca Glades Baptist Church
Led by Senior Pastor Truman Herring, Boca Glades Baptist is a modern church, alive with God’s word, active in the Southeast Florida community, and passionate about growing stronger spiritually. Pastor Truman has been a mentor and a strong supporter of ABM and lends his spiritual guidance to ABM by being a member of its Board of Directors. Boca Glades is very active in foreign missions and a partner with ABM in its outreach to world. Boca Glades website is www.bocaglades.org.
Colombia Grace Foundation
Orphanage started in Cartagena, Colombia by 2 families that served with ABM on its first mission trip to that city. The CGF’s mission is to glorify the name of God in Colombia by sharing His love with orphans and widows and by planting a church through the preaching of the Glorious Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ to all who will listen, by the Power of His Spirit, to the Praise of the Glory of His Grace! The CGF blog may be found at www.colombiagracefoundation.blogspot.com.
Crosswalk Ministries
Crosswalk Ministries is a La Pine, Oregon based ministry led by Senior Pastor Marshall A. Wolcott. It is a ministry of imperfect people serving a perfect Savior. The Ministry’s purpose is to proclaim the good news of salvation in Jesus Christ locally and to the ends of the earth. ABM is pleased to partner with Crosswalk Ministries in proclaiming Christ to the nations. Crosswalk Ministries is located at www.crosswalklapine.com.
Fellowship Tract League
The Fellowship Tract League is a local church ministry of the Fellowship Baptist Church in Lebanon, Ohio. This specialized ministry is reaching the world for Christ through the printed page. FTL provides the material that is needed for God’s people all around the world to fulfill his command. ABM has distributed over 25,000 tracts produced by FTL in Colombia. FTL ‘s website is www.fellowshiptractleague.org.
Fellowship Travel International
Offers travel assistance for Christian ministries around the globe. ABM has been well supported in its overseas travel plans by Fellowship Travel. Fellowship Travel website is www.fellowship.com.
International Mission Board
IMB is an entity of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation’s largest evangelical denomination, claiming more than 40,000 churches and nearly 16 million members. IMB’s mission is to make disciples of all peoples in fulfillment of the Great Commission. ABM began its work in Colombia by partnering with IMB missionaries. Where possible, ABM’s strategy is to partner with existing IMB missionaries as it considers new locations and countries around the world. ABM will also post its short term mission opportunities on the IMB website. IMB website is locate at www.imb.org.
The Timothy Iniatitive
TTI is an international church planting organization which was established with the purpose to train and equip “Timothy’s”(Pastors/Church Planters). TTI specifically targets church planters who lack the means and/or availability to receive a balanced Biblical and theological training throughout Asia, Africa and the Americas’. Each church planter trained is expected to plant at least one multiplying and reproducing church. AMB and TTI have partnered together to train 12 directors and open 4 pastor schools in Colombia. TTI may be found at www.tti.org.
Grace Global Network
In December of 2004, Greg Kappas founded Grace Global Network and serves as President. GGN partners with other evangelical reproducing church planting movements in multiplying new churches around the globe (graceglobalnetwork.org). GGN also assists turnaround churches to greater health through a creative process of ministry.