Baxter Institute names new president, mourns loss of Goodwin

Churches in Honduras are welcoming a new administrator to their longtime ministry training school as they mourn the loss of a dedicated worker in the Central American country.

In July Baxter Institute, a Tegucigalpa-based school for training church leaders, announced the appointment of Steve White as its third president in the school’s 40-year history.

White follows Calvin Henry as chief administrator. Henry and his wife, Linda, left Baxter in December of 2003 after seven years of service to the school.

White has a doctorate in accounting and has taught and administered at Harding University, Searcy, Ark. and Western Christian University in Canada. He has served congregations in Farmington, Ark., and Bowling Green, Ky., and has served as Baxter’s treasurer for the past two years.
Baxter Institute, sponsored by the Westover Hills church, Austin, Texas, was founded in Mexico City in the 1960s and moved to Tegucigalpa in 1978. Harris Goodwin, longtime missionary to Latin America, served as Baxter’s first president.

Goodwin’s adopted son, Edwin, died July 16 in Nashville, Tenn. Edwin Goodwin, described by friends as a tireless worker for churches in Honduras, was hospitalized in Nashville in the weeks before his death.

Edwin Goodwin was the administrator for the James Moody Adams Clinic, a medical mission facility located on property adjacent to Baxter. He was active in the operation of Jóvenes en Camino, a new home for abandoned children in El Zamorano, a village 20 miles from Tegucigalpa. He served as vice president of the ministry’s board of directors.