DALLAS (ABP) — Kent Parks, a 20-year veteran of Baptist mission service in Southeast Asia, will become international director of Mission to Unreached Peoples, effective November 1.
Parks, 50, will establish an international office in Dallas, Texas, and will work closely with the group's bases in Seattle, Wash., and Abbotsford, B.C. His wife, Erika, will also join the interdenominational organization as a missionary.
The 25-year-old agency focuses on providing spiritual and physical care for people groups around the world who have not been exposed to Christianity. It currently has 300 personnel who raise their own support and work in 22 countries.
As international director, Parks will focus on creating a global movement to raise teams to reach un-evangelized people groups. The network will continue to multiply its connections with like-minded organizations and churches in the United States and other countries, Parks said.
“MUP is multi-denominational, but part of our hope is that we could offer another option to Baptist churches who still want to prioritize sending long-term workers to unreached people groups,” Parks said. “We will retain our strong Baptist ties and identity.”
Parks, born in Indonesia to Baptist missionary parents, brings a lifetime of experience to his new position, including 12 years in Indonesia and seven years in Malaysia. He has served since 2002 as co-facilitator of Ethnê, a global cooperative to reach un-evangelized people, and since 2001 as co-facilitator of SEALINK, a core group associated with Ethnê that networks among people in Southeast Asia.
The positions derived out of Parks' role as Southeast Asia regional facilitator for a Cooperative Baptist Fellowship-affiliated network. The Parkses joined CBF in 1995 as strategy coordinators for an unreached group in Indonesia. Before that, they worked in Indonesia with what is now the Southern Baptist Convention's International Mission Board. He also served for six years as pastor of Megargel Baptist Church in Megargel, Texas.
Parks completed his undergraduate degree at Hardin Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, and earned both his master's and doctoral degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
The Parkses have two daughters, who are in college.
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