At age 70, with 50 mission trips under his belt, Leland Browder can spin fascinating tales about his world travels.
Leland Browder poses with a child at an orphanage in Honduras, one of the many countries Browder has visited over the course of 50 mission trips.But it’s stories like that of an 8-year-old burn victim from Honduras that solidify the reason behind his years of volunteer missionary work. The child was burned so badly that she had no nose, ears or fingers. Browder looked around for something to give the girl and found a sucker. She grabbed it with her two fingerless hands and held it to her heart.
Browder fought back tears as he explained that it doesn’t take a special person to give a little girl a sucker and change her life – it just takes a willingness to be used by God. “Everyone can do something,” he said.
The Travelers Rest resident has been to Poland, China, Belize, Romania and more than a dozen other countries spreading God’s word. Along the way, he has built churches, distributed medication, given away food and clothing and has been a friend where one is needed. He has faced gunfire and a variety of dangerous situations, which he said allowed him to put his full faith in God.
“How do you build your faith if you never step out of the box?” he asked. “The thing is, the box is very comfortable. You see God deliver you time after time.”
About 20 years ago, he started bringing old tennis balls donated by Furman and North Greenville universities on his mission trips. He passed them out to children along his journeys. For many of them, it was the only toy they had.
“I’ve had so many doors of the gospel opened up just because of the tennis balls,” Browder said. “It’s not so much doing stuff – a lot of it is meeting people.”
He credits a tennis ball with a Muslim family welcoming him into their home to pray for their imprisoned son. He spent several days throwing a tennis ball with a young boy, and one day the boy invited him to meet his family. Despite being Muslim, they sought Browder’s prayers.
“It all happened because of a tennis ball,” he said. “A lot of missions is just planting seeds, giving tennis balls. If rubber and fuzz can open the door and get the work done -“
The son of a preacher, Browder became a contract painter despite going to seminary. He never felt a calling to do missions work until 1987, when a missionary visited his home church, Tigerville Baptist, in 1987. The man showed slides of a Honduras mission trip, and Browder felt a strong desire to go despite the lack of funds. The man advised him to sign up and see if he had the money for the trip the following year. Sure enough, he was able to save enough, and a lifetime of mission work was begun. After that first trip, he was hooked.
“I said, ‘Lord, you provide the way and the funds, and I will commit [to mission work],’?” he said.
Browder said being self-employed allowed him the flexibility to go on the trips. At first he went on one trip a year, sometimes taking his wife, one of his three children or his father. He now he takes two or three trips a year. He formed Missions Unlimited in 1995, a non-profit organization.
He said he would never hesitate to revisit any of the countries he has been to, despite some of the dangers he had faced. And he simply can’t choose a favorite trip.
“I really don’t have a favorite,” Browder said. “Every one is unique.”