Dustin Benton

Sophomore, Panama City, Fla.

Most ministerial students don’t picture themselves serving at a church perched atop stilts in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, 45 minutes from the nearest landmass.

But that is exactly what Boyce College students Dustin and Mary Benton did on a two-month summer mission trip to some of the remotest parts of the Philippines.

Leading a team of evangelism and church planting missions volunteers in conjunction with the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, the Bentons spent 63 days sharing the Gospel with residents of the Philippines—less than three percent of whom have ever heard an evangelical witness, Dustin Benton said. Their trip included several days spent working with the pastor of a church forced to move 45 minutes out into the ocean because of the intense persecution it faced on the nearest island.

“When we went there it was probably the most difficult situation I had ever been in,” Dustin said, describing the persecuted island. “Very, very dirty. No electricity. No running water. The fresh water that they drink was all left over from the rainy season in April. … The island was so tightly packed that you couldn’t even put a tent on the island.”

Despite the difficult conditions, Dustin’s team established a friendship with the leader of the island’s wife and conducted an evangelistic campaign that saw 47 people saved. The residents of the island had not seen a white person in 20 years, so the novelty of Dustin’s presence made it easy to gather a crowd and share the Gospel through a translator, he said.

“It was hard,” Dustin said. “We didn’t sleep much at night. … A lot of us really came to the end of our ropes. But the awesome thing is that God worked through that, and the greatest number of people on any island that we visited got saved there.”

On each island, Dustin’s team had a similar routine, building relationships with the people for three days followed by a Gospel presentation on the third night and follow-up with new converts on the fourth day.

The trip reminded Dustin that Christians in every nation are united in their worship of the one true God, he said.

“One night I just stopped in the middle of a Bible study and looked around and thought, ‘There are Americans and Filippinos and we’re all intermingled and we’re singing worship songs to the same awesome, powerful God,’” Dustin said. “Even though we were singing in different languages, we were all singing to the same awesome, powerful God.”

Throughout the trip, the Bentons drew upon their training at Boyce for theological insight and practical knowledge about how to conduct ministry, he said.

“Boyce equipped me to go on this trip and be a leader of a team,” Dustin said. “It has not only equipped me in knowledge, but it’s equipped me in practical ministry matters. Boyce doesn’t just teach you the things you need to know. But it teaches you how to do them.”

The Bentons are uncertain where God will lead them in the future, but they know that their lives will involve missions in some form.

“We are all called to missions,” he said. “It’s those few that are called to stay. And I haven’t felt God call me to stay yet. … God hasn’t shown me exactly what I’m going to be doing. But I know He hasn’t exempted me yet from going onto the mission field and reaching unreached people.”