Bob Barrows brings his extensive counseling and teaching experience to the mission field in a new and enlarged capacity.

For five years, he served with SIM as a teacher at the Igbaja Theological Seminary in Nigeria, West Africa. Then, in 1983, he became the senior pastor of the Pawleys Island Community Church in Pawleys, SC. He retired after 23 years to return to school at Liberty University. After earning a Masters’s Degree in Counseling in 2007, he opened a private counseling practice in Murrells Inlet, SC.

But the Lord had other plans for him. In the Spring of 2023, Dr. Bill Rhodes invited him to visit Kapsowar, Kenya. During his month-long stay, Bob realized God was calling him to meet two critical needs.

First, the hospital chaplains urgently needed a mental health professional to help them address their patients’ many emotional needs beyond their physical healing. Second, the theological school in Kapsowar that prepares regional pastors needed someone to train their students to deal with the mental health issues they would face in their pastoral roles.

Bob specializes in various counseling areas, including addiction and mental health issues. He hopes to introduce tools such as Celebrate Recovery in the region and develop a mental health curriculum for the theological school.

Bob, and his wife Lydia, raised four children, who have given them three grandchildren. His extracurricular passions include staying fit, hiking, the ocean, his small sailboat, and his cat. He’s a history buff and loves reading about how people tick and relate to our Creator.