Its first three mission congregations were founded in marginal communities of the internally displaced who migrated from rural areas to the periphery of Guatemala City to escape the political violence, economic oppression and poverty caused by 36 years of civil war.

Since the 1996 peace accords, the ILAG has been starting new parishes among former refugees in Peten and in Quiche, with the indigenous people who fled to Mexico during the worst violence of the civil war in the early 1980’s, spent a decade or more in U.N.-sponsored refugee camps and eventually returned to Guatemala in organized blocks during the mid-1990’s.

In each setting, the ILAG seeks to provide holistic pastoral accompaniment, working collaboratively with local leaders to meet the spiritual needs of church members and to improve the basic living conditions of the larger community in which the ILAG parish is located. In its community development programs, the ILAG places a major emphasis on securing legal land titles for the landless, educating poor children from marginal communities in Guatemala City (where it operates two accredited elementary schools) and offering skills training programs to indigenous women from rural communities in areas such as traditional weaving, gardening and bread-making.

The ILAG is strongly committed to the formation of pastoral leaders from its existing parishes so that it will be a church led by Guatemalans who historically have been marginalized by the larger society, particularly indigenous leaders from the Keqchi, Quiche and Mam ethnic groups. The ILAG also participates in ecumenical initiatives designed to foster genuine peace and reconciliation in post-war Guatemala.