Collection One
The Founders
Dr. John LaNoue, Dr. Kaywin LaNoue, and the early leaders who shaped the character of Amigos.
Preserving the people, purpose, and documented history of Amigos Internacionales from 1967 to today.
For nearly six decades, Amigos Internacionales has served vulnerable people around the world through disaster relief, medical missions, clean water, education, church partnerships, and community development. This archive preserves the books, podcasts, photographs, documents, stories, and primary sources that tell that story.
Three simple commitments have guided this work since the beginning.
This three-fold purpose has guided Amigos from its earliest disaster relief work to today's MissionPoint communities. While the places, programs, and methods have changed, the heart of the ministry has remained the same.
Foundational Purpose of Amigos Internacionales · Documented in the Amigos archive
Whether you come as a friend, a researcher, or a stranger to this story, these are the most natural places to begin.
Dr. John LaNoue, Dr. Kaywin LaNoue, and the early leaders who shaped the character of Amigos.
Forty-eight Friends Helping Friends podcast episodes preserving Dr. John's voice, memories, theology, and field stories.
Books, blogs, newspaper articles, photographs, mission documents, and archival records documenting the story of Amigos.
From the first mobile clinics to today's MissionPoint communities, the through-line has held.
Six curated entry points into the archive, each anchored in primary sources.
Charter records, early correspondence, and the documents that established the mission and purpose of Amigos Internacionales.
A biographical record of Dr. John’s life, ministry, writings, and decades of service—assembled from primary sources.
The life, work, and partnership of Dr. Kaywin LaNoue—newspaper records, photographs, and personal history.
Forty-eight episodes preserving Dr. John’s voice, theology, and field stories in his own words.
How the MissionPoint model was formed, the communities it serves, and the continuity between yesterday and today.
Research-grade dossiers tracing the historical context of Walking with God in Broken Places. The HEC series cross-references Dr. John’s eyewitness account with denominational records, contemporaneous journalism, and scholarly sources. All 25 dossiers now available.
Research-grade companion dossiers to Dr. John LaNoue’s memoir. Each dossier cross-references his first-person testimony with denominational records, contemporaneous journalism, and scholarly sources. All 25 dossiers are published here, spanning the full arc of the memoir from the 1967 founding through Peru, Iran, North Korea, and Bosnia.
The institutional founding of Amigos Internacionales in Athens, Texas — the organizational decisions, the first volunteer physicians, and the doctrine of layperson-led ministry that has governed the organization for nearly sixty years.
Rio Grande Valley flood response. Hurricane Beulah spawns record tornadoes; the first mobile clinic deploys, and the convergence of medical, disaster-relief, and church-partnership skill stacks forms the organization's founding methodology.
The formalization of Baptist disaster relief. Texas Baptist Men institutionalize the mobile-unit model, establishing the operational tradition Amigos would carry across the world for the next six decades.
A chapter of family and providence — the answered-prayer account woven into the early ministry years, documenting the LaNoue family's role in the work.
A field account of ministry at the human scale — the birth of Celia's child, preserved as testimony to the personal dimension of the disaster-relief and medical mission.
Bob Dixon's single-service doctrine and LaNoue's one-night drafting session that produced the design for the Texas Baptist Men mobile disaster-relief unit — the machine that would feed hundreds of thousands.
The $26,000 WMU pledge against a $25,000 need, the Sears tractor faith-bid, and the six-week Mesquite build that turned the mobile-unit blueprint into a working disaster-relief kitchen.
May 1972: the maiden deployment of the newly built Texas Baptist Men disaster-relief unit — the first field test of the design, and the proof of the model.
The Thanksgiving 1972 vocational calling — and the striking account of an identical prophecy delivered 200 miles away the next day, documenting the transition that shaped LaNoue's ministry path.
The TBM mobile feeding unit — designed by LaNoue — makes its first international hurricane deployment in Honduras. 6,000 meals twice daily at El Progreso. Wikipedia documents it. The 25-year fruit is confirmed in 1999.
The Tucson mobile-clinic years — learning to move in step with providential timing and relationships as the ministry matured beyond disaster response into sustained community medical work.
The Barney Bus and the Kansas-Nebraska Convention work — a chapter on obedience over analysis, documenting the mobile ministry's expansion into the American heartland.
8.1-magnitude earthquake. TBM deploys to Tepito — the most dangerous neighborhood. 150,000 meals served. Jim Philpot killed mid-operation. 10,000+ accept Christ. The methodological exemplar for all subsequent international deployments.
Dr. John LaNoue's prostate-cancer years, carried alongside his international deployments — the chapter in which physical brokenness and continued obedience are held in the same hand.
The 1991 Texas Baptist Men Peru cholera airlift, running in parallel with the Kurdish refugee mission in Iran — one disaster season yielding two simultaneous international ministries.
Operation Desert Shower — a 12-man Baptist civilian team, including Dr. John LaNoue, serving Kurdish refugees at Dolenav, Iran. Carefully distinguished from the separate U.S. military Operation Provide Comfort.
Thirteen years after Desert Shower, Dr. John LaNoue commands a Texas Baptist Men relief crew back to Iran after the 6.6-magnitude Bam earthquake — a diplomatic and humanitarian return across a frozen relationship.
Dr. John and Kaywin LaNoue at Ground Zero for 3+ months. SBDR base management, the teddy bear ministry by Mayor Giuliani’s personal request, 1.29M meals, 643 apartments cleaned. Named by Baptist Press November 15, 2001. The only US-soil chapter in the memoir.
Amigos Internacionales coordinates an $8M+ relief vessel to Chongjin during the Arduous March famine. Named by Baptist Press January 22, 1999 in consortium with World Vision, Mercy Corps, CARE, and Catholic Relief Services. The strongest direct Amigos documentary corroboration in the repository.
The Washington groundwork and PVOC consortium founding — the diplomatic and logistical preparation, including a 60,500-metric-ton cereal deployment, that opened the door into North Korea.
The twelve-to-fourteen-day journey from Texas through Seoul and Beijing into Pyongyang — the physical threshold of the North Korea mission after a summer of Washington approvals.
The negotiation breakthrough and the Sinuiju field survey of Typhoon Winnie damage — the moment relief work inside North Korea moved from approved plan to operational reality.
Fifteen journal vignettes from inside the North Korea work — including Ruth Bell Graham's church visit and the founding of Global Resource Services, preserving the human texture of the mission.
The 1999 NATO-bombing evacuation from Belgrade and the decade of Balkan ministry that followed — documenting Amigos' work through one of Europe's hardest modern conflicts.
Dr. John LaNoue's four-day decompression regimen and a 43-year career retrospective — the closing reflection that frames the entire arc of Walking with God in Broken Places.
The Amigos Internacionales archive is being organized as a research-quality collection for future leaders, churches, universities, foundations, historians, and documentary producers. Selected materials are public, while deeper research collections may be made available by request.
This archive preserves the history of Amigos, but the story is still unfolding. Today's ministry continues through MissionPoint communities, medical outreach, clean water, education, and child sponsorship.
Visit AmigosII.org