Central & South America Adventure

Iris Ministries under the leadership of Heidi and Rolland Baker has commissioned a group of Iris missionaries to carry the love and glory of God through Central and South America on a one year missions trip. This blog is the documentation of that trip.

September 11th, 2011-September ??, 2012

We have contacts in every country in Central and South America and are still working on the Caribbean as that will be the last leg of our team's journey. It is exciting dreaming about our teams carrying the love, glory and power of God through all of Latin America and the Caribbean. We will be focusing on bringing the gospel to the remaining unreached people groups, as well as ministering to the poor and broken of bigger cities. We will also be partnering with other chuches, ministries and organizations along the way when possible, helping them establish more permanent works among the unreached people groups. Please see below where I have marked possible routes for two teams to split up in order to cover the most ground. Team #1's route is marked with black lines while Team #2's route is marked with grey lines. The black squares are cities or areas where we have made contact with churches, ministries or organizations and will most likely be staying with them from three days to one week, depending on how the Lord leads each team. The orange and yellow arrows contain the names of the ministries in that city. There is a possibility that we will actually add a third route for a third team, depending on the number of missionaries we will have. Also notice that both teams will meet up at different points along the way, and these routes actually look a little bit like a DNA strand, as this is what was prophesied over this journey at the Iris Harvest School of Missions in Pemba, Mozambique.

Possible Central America Routes

Both teams will be tentatively entering Mexico through the border at Nogales. Team #1 will mostly stay in western and central Mexico, then will head into Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Team #2 will start in western Mexico but then drive inland and stay mostly in central and eastern Mexico, into Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. Both teams will meet up in Colon, Panama where they will ship all of the vehicles on a ferry around the Darien Gap and into Cartagena, Colombia.

Possible South America Routes


Tentatively, both teams will start off together in Colombia,and weave throughout Ecuador and Peru, meeting up at various points. At times the team will leave their vehicles and by boat and plane, enter the interior of the Amazon to get to unreached tribes. Then Team #1 will head to Bolivia, Paraguay, meet up with Team #2 in Argentina, head back north into Bolivia again and then into Brazil where they will meet up again with Team #2 in Santarem. Team #2 will travel through Chile and Argentina, even to the southern tip of South America near Antarctica, then back through Uruguay and Brazil. Once both teams are in Santarem, they will either with or without their vehicles, take a ferry to Manaus, then travel north. Team #1 will head into Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, then fly into Caracas, Venezuela to meet up with Team #2. From Caracas both teams will fly to the Caribbean islands to end the year long journey.

Again this is only a tentative plan. Proverbs 16:9 says, "A man's heart plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." We hold our plans so loosely as we know that Holy Spirit can, and most likely will lead us on adventures we can't even imagine.