1999–2001: Asheninka Team – Jungle Beginnings
Location: Amazon Basin, Peru
In 1999, J. Taliaferro stepped into the unknown as a 22-year-old journeyman missionary to the Asheninka people. He was passionate, bold… and wildly under-equipped. But what he lacked in preparation, God supplied in grace—and in mentors like Chris Ammons, who believed in sharpening young missionaries through real-time guidance.
Together, they began experimenting with a radical strategy: instead of sending full families into the jungle, they sent single missionaries deep into tribal villages for months at a time. It was immersion. It was raw. It was incarnational.
In just two years, they witnessed a movement:
✅ 6 churches planted
✅ Dozens baptized
✅ Multiplication along the river
Chris and J began to ask the big question:
What if we could scale this?
The jungle was only the beginning.
2002–2011: Xtreme Team – From River to Region
Location: Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Brazil
The dream became a blueprint. Xtreme Team was born.
Instead of one or two missionaries, dozens were deployed into isolated regions across Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, and the Andes. Each one was paired with a national partner and assigned a UUPG (Unengaged Unreached People Group) to engage.
Training evolved.
At first: 5 months at a 4-star church camp.
Later: intensive field-based bush training, closer to the people they would serve.
The impact?
🔥 26 UUPGs engaged in just 8 years
🌱 A generation of missionaries trained and still serving today
Xtreme Team became a model for frontier missions. So much so, that in 2011, the strategy was invited to Africa—a new frontier with new challenges.
2012–2022: Echelon Team – Gospel at the Edge
Location: Northern Uganda & South Sudan
Africa was different.
The rivers became deserts. The tribes became nomads. The challenge became survival. Echelon Team was launched in 2012 to pioneer a version of Xtreme Team in Sub-Saharan Africa, focusing on war-torn regions and unreached pastoralist groups.
It wasn’t easy. The soil was harder—spiritually and physically.
But the method stayed true:
👣 Go deep
🤝 Go together (West + national missionaries)
🔥 Train for what’s real—not what’s easy
For 10 years, the team trained and launched missionaries into the hardest places. And they watched the seeds, planted in hardship, begin to bear fruit.
2024–Present: Anchored International – Back to the Roots, Forward with Purpose
Location: USA
After more than two decades on the edge of the map, the team saw a crisis too big to ignore:
Missionaries weren’t staying.
Some left after 3–4 years. Many never returned. In places where it takes a decade to earn trust and fluency, this short-term mindset was killing long-term fruit.
No matter how strong the strategy, if missionaries burn out and leave, the mission suffers.
So we asked again:
What needs to change?
The answer:
✅ Prepare them better before they go
✅ Care for them when they return
In 2024, Anchored International was launched in the USA.
We don’t exist to duplicate what others do—we exist to fill the gaps.
To train for resilience, spiritual grit, and real-world chaos.
To equip missionaries for the long haul.
To be the place where they can come home and not fall apart.
