Beauty & Phillip Ndoro trace their journey into cross-cultural missions, and how God is stirring a similar movement throughout Latin America
As Servant Partners celebrates 30 years and looks toward Vision 2030, we are highlighting longtime staff members whose years of faithfulness pave the way for the next decade of transformation. Read Beauty and Phillip Ndoro's story, and how their own journey in cross-cultural missions set the stage for national movements today.
In 1999, Phillip Ndoro attended a conference with the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students exploring "Missions in the New Millennium." It was there that he first learned about holistic ministry. “I knew then that God was calling me to ministry among the less privileged, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like.”
Beauty didn’t know either. After accepting Christ through her college ministry, she too felt God call her to a life of missions. She married Phillip and they promptly began ministering together among the urban poor in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital city. Phillip planted churches, and Beauty trained community members in business development. At the end of each day, they returned to their middle-class home. While discerning their future in missions, they received a letter from Servant Partners, inviting them to live and minister in an informal settlement in Mexico City, Mexico.
“I was afraid of having to speak Spanish!” Beauty recounted her hesitation. But after several weeks of discernment and prayer, they realized that God was indeed calling them to leave their home of Zimbabwe and live and serve in Chimalhuacan—a crowded, resource-deprived urban settlement in Mexico City. And they went.
“For the first time, we were living amongst the people we were serving,” Beauty said. Living in an urban poor community brought health challenges and unpleasant lifestyle adjustments, but also sparked beautiful experiences of transformation. Phillip helped start 11 new house churches in the area and Beauty empowered neighbors through several small business projects. When community members shared about their spiritual and emotional trauma, the Ndoros began hosting inner healing retreats and training.
“God was so faithful in enabling us to communicate in the language of the people,” Beauty said. “His faithfulness in building trust with people created a pipeline for us to build relationships with others—relationships that have sustained the ministry in Chimalhuacan until now.”
“God used our presence in missions to bring other people into the work. When people get to know that we are Africans doing ministry in Latin America, that inspires them to go beyond their comfort zone too. We must realize that we are God's children, playing in His garden, and we can play in whatever corner of the garden we so desire.”
In 2015, the Ndoros felt called by God to leave Mexico City and go to Managua, Nicaragua. This decision would come at the cost of significant donor relationships they had through a Mexican partner organization, but they wanted to be faithful.
“God has called us to walk with him and do whatever he is doing in a given moment or context,” Phillip said. “In that decision, we lost more than three-quarters of our supporters and started from the bottom again. But God has been faithful in providing for us, as we walk with him, listen, and try new things.”
In Managua, they kept busy. Phillip mobilized churches for holistic ministry and Nicaraguans for international missions. Beauty pioneered a women’s ministry and inner healing groups. They also started a tutoring program for youth and trained up leaders. When COVID-19 struck, they facilitated a meal program, feeding up to 100 children every day.
“When we left Managua after four years, we realized that we weren’t really needed anymore—there were about 20 committed leaders working in these various projects,” Beauty said. “God was faithful in causing that work to continue, and sending us key people to carry the vision of God in Managua. God was already working when we got there, and he is still working now.” The Ndoros returned to Mexico to strengthen the ministry they started a decade earlier, which was being continued by several of the leaders they originally developed.
"All across Latin America, Africa, and the developing world, there is an awakening for holistic ministry among the urban poor."
14 years since they first stepped foot in Mexico, the Ndoros are now participating in another amazing movement of God—this time, a national one. They are leading the movement in Mexico City, which is now actively transforming three different urban marginalized communities. Beauty leads the Spanish Certificate of Community Transformation (CTC) program, which is currently training 35 leaders from seven different Latin American countries. As part of Servant Partners’ Vision 2030, they are collaborating with partners in Honduras, Colombia, Chile, and Peru to start national movements of holistic ministry among the urban poor. They have also visited Ethiopia to train graduates in urban ministry.
“All across Latin America, Africa, and the developing world, there is an awakening for holistic ministry among the urban poor,” Phillip said. “There is a great movement of the Holy Spirit towards missions, and our desire is to help strengthen that movement in Mexico and parts of Latin America, as the Lord leads us.”
“There is a great excitement and hunger in the Latin American region to learn and work with the urban poor,” Beauty said. “Through our Vision 2030, I see how God is extending justice and Shalom, drawing people into His mission, and extending the work of transformation on a global level.”
Looking back at their many years of ministry and looking forward to Vision 2030, the Ndoros see God using their own story in a special way.
“God used our presence in missions to bring other people into the work,” Phillip said. “When people get to know that we are Africans doing ministry in Latin America, that inspires them to go beyond their comfort zone too. We must realize that we are God's children, playing in His garden, and we can play in whatever corner of the garden we so desire.”
“I now understand that God wanted me to be in community with others of different ethnicities, cultures, and all the labels created to discriminate against people made in the image of God,” Beauty said. “The history of missions hasn’t always involved the sharing of resources, so there’s this new understanding that working with others brings about richness. We are breaking cultural and traditional barriers, working together for the extension of the Kingdom of God in a broken world. It has not been an easy journey, but embracing the Word of God has helped us to continue, even without knowing how things would end up.”
Phillip added: “We have gotten this far because we had steady, consistent leadership through Servant Partners. This leadership gave us solid ground and wisdom to stand on, guiding our work and helping me be anchored in Christ.”
As Servant Partners celebrates 30 years of ministry and looks forward to Vision 2030, we praise God for the faithfulness of the Ndoro family in choosing to follow Jesus wherever the journey takes them. You can support the growing national movement in Latin America through our Vision 2030 at www.servantpartners.org/vision2030.