Our Story
Empowering Communities
Through Faith and Service
KILGORE, TX – As a faith-based nonprofit, Vital Global is working to connect communities worldwide with resources they can use to transform themselves, their families and their home towns and villages.
Our organization is focused on community development and spiritual transformation by helping fill a fundamental need – access to clean water – and equipping leaders on the ground to draw their families, friends, and neighbors to Christ.
Spearheaded by a volunteer board helmed by Dr. Glenn Young, pastor of First Baptist Church of Kilgore, Vital Global is working to extend the church’s impact beyond its walls and its reputation. “Vital Global came out of some of the ministry work we’re doing in this church,” Young said. “We realized that a lot of the work didn’t need to be tied to First Baptist.
“A lot of what we’re doing is community development, not just spiritual development. That’s why we created a separate organization,” to provide a platform for focused outreach beyond the church and its traditional role in the mission field.
Our ultimate goal is just to be a vehicle when we see a need globally that we can meet it for people who are underserved.
Honduras was Vital Global’s starting point, but the organization’s work isn’t limited to a single location.
“Our ultimate goal is just to be a vehicle when we see a need globally that we can meet it for people who are underserved,” says Beth Price, Vital Global board member and treasurer. “Predominantly, that is people who have tangible needs. In the meantime, while we’re ministering to their tangible needs – be it dirty water, lack of food – we want to minister to them in their Christian walk, too.”
The organization’s global emphasis on the universal needs of communities begins with the truly vital, tangible resource of potable water. Through clean water projects, pastoral training, and other efforts, the nonprofit is ensuring communities have the resources in hand to make their own lasting impact.
“Through some construction we’re helping these remote villages in Honduras, and we are absolutely training pastors there,” Young said. “Part of that is a change from the way the North American church for years has done it. We train people to go as a ‘missionary,’ and they don’t know the culture they’re going into.” Vital Global’s stakeholders agree it should be the Honduran church leading efforts on the ground, fueled by the efforts of Vital Global and similar organizations. “We’ve set ourselves up to resource these foreign, usually underserved communities. It is Christ-based but it can be anything from humanitarian to education to clean water to construction. That is what Vital Global is. It’s not just Honduras, that’s why we made it global.”
The cornerstone of Vital Global’s outreach centers on providing clean water to those in need by connecting them to equipment they can install, maintain, upgrade, replace, and share.
It’s not a novel approach, Young said, but rather it’s following the good example developed by others and working to improve it along the way: The Sawyer Water Filter has proved to be the most efficient method. “For $30, I can connect a family with clean, potable water up to 100,000 gallons.” This approach empowers families, granting them control over their water source, unlike centralized, equipment-heavy systems – “If it breaks down, that’s a $5K-10K fix. If it works perfectly, somebody in town becomes the water authority, they control clean water for the town,” Young said. With the Sawyer filters, “Each family controls their own water. If your filter breaks, it’s just $30 bucks to fix it. In five years I give you another filter.”
The impact of clean water is immeasurable, Price added.
“We also hope we’re showing Jesus’ love on top of meeting their physical needs. That’s our ultimate objective that can’t be measured, really.”
Beyond clean water initiatives, Vital Global is deeply invested in nurturing the spiritual growth of local communities. Through training programs, the organization is equipping pastors in Honduras to lead their congregations as effectively as possible.
Initially working with about half a dozen pastors, Vital Global’s connections continue to grow, centralized through one trainer helping local pastors using the nonprofit’s resources and personnel. On the education front, sometimes it’s necessary to start at the ground-level, Young said: “Some of these guys are illiterate. We’re a text based faith. How do I teach you the tenets of the gospel when you can’t read a Bible and you’re leading this small group of people?”
By meeting the pupils where they are, he said, equipping them to train themselves with resources tailored for their needs. With the resources we’re putting into this, we can put in a church,” Young said, but that’s not truly an effective solution long-term. “Instead, we’re finding these guys who have been forgotten and we’re helping them out.”
It’s a reality for people around the world – how do you focus on growth when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from? With support at home and outreach in the field, Vital Global is working with other nonprofits around the world to make that question less relevant in the 21st century.
“The average annual income in Honduras is $700. They’ll farm a little bit, do this or that,” Young said. “These small churches in these villages – sometimes we’re in cities, but usually we’re in small villages – they’re people are living at the subsistence level. These little churches will provide a hot meal or a little snack for these kids once a week.
“It’s a weekly contact with the community. That’s how we get to know them, that’s how they get to know us, and we try to make the focus on the local church, not us. The day to day is going to be their local pastor,” not visitors from North America. “They’re our direct contact to these churches and these feed programs.”
When a mission team has construction experience, it’s not uncommon to see them lending a hand there as well, Price said. Every resource available is going to be put to work for the people Vital Global is striving to serve.
“There’s so many people in this world who are displaced out of their home, I think the need is great. The more we help others, the more we are blessed.”
It’s a reality for people around the world – how do you focus on growth when you don’t know where your next meal is coming from? With support at home and outreach in the field, Vital Global is working with other nonprofits around the world to make that question less relevant in the 21st century.
“The average annual income in Honduras is $700. They’ll farm a little bit, do this or that,” Young said. “These small churches in these villages – sometimes we’re in cities, but usually we’re in small villages – they’re people are living at the subsistence level. These little churches will provide a hot meal or a little snack for these kids once a week.
“It’s a weekly contact with the community. That’s how we get to know them, that’s how they get to know us, and we try to make the focus on the local church, not us. The day to day is going to be their local pastor,” not visitors from North America. “They’re our direct contact to these churches and these feed programs.”
When a mission team has construction experience, it’s not uncommon to see them lending a hand there as well, Price said. Every resource available is going to be put to work for the people Vital Global is striving to serve.
“There’s so many people in this world who are displaced out of their home, I think the need is great. The more we help others, the more we are blessed.”
“We’re the go-between, a small NGO, working in the name of Christ. It is community development, a people development in out-of-the-way places that are too small to be on the radar screen for large organizations.”
Vital Global leans on one board member’s medical expertise, another’s professional experience in administration. Board members sit on other boards that become new partners. They have connections to warehousing space for filters and other equipment. By cultivating basic contacts strategically, a myriad of needs are being met, time and again.
“We’re not unique,” Young said. “There are hundreds of these small organizations. Since it’s not-for-profit, there’s this informal network. There are other churches that help out. They get the mission of Christ in this. You have an asymmetrical impact.”
Clean water is easiest target and the most essential.
An old story Young likes to tale is of a fifth grader in Kilgore who learned a Sawyer filter could be sent to Honduras for just $30 bucks. He earns that much mowing a lawn, and in the blink of an eye a Texas middle-schooler is helping a family in South America gain access to clean water.
“When there’s not a profit mode, it’s always service oriented.”
Vital Global aims to be a vital resource for individuals and churches seeking to make a difference.
“Quite honestly, this is what denominational mission organizations do all the time. We’re doing it locally,” Young said. In the mission field in Honduras, and with other locations in the works, “We’ve set ourselves up to be a resource for anyone – any church or individual – who wants to help. We’re the go-between. We’re resourcing these communities in the way that large organizations do,” developing personal connections that are bearing fruit for the real people on the ground.
As a go-between, the organization is ready to connect people with resources to people with needs and vice versa, Price said. It’s as simple as reaching out and making contact via VitalGlobal.org and the nonprofit’s social.
“Lots of folks say, ‘It’d be great to help people in Honduras. How do I do that?’ We’re the connection to do that.”