Rev. Sonam Kabo – BMI Regional Director for Nepal and the Nepali Diaspora
Rita Kabo – BMI Women’s Director for Nepal and the Nepali Diaspora
We are so thankful for the over 25 year relationship we have with Rev. Sonam and Rita Kabo. They are warm-hearted, faithful servants of the Lord! All attention is on Ukraine in the world today, but Nepal continues to face many challenges. There is ongoing recovery from the 2015 massive earthquake which killed upward of 9000 people. Nepal has a continuous struggle with poverty and challenges the government poses to the spread of Christianity. In fact, Sonam and Rita actively meet with government officials, including the Vice President of Nepal, to remind them that Christians are good Nepali citizens and need to retain their rights of worship. Sonam and Rita not only minister all over Nepal, but the also minister to Nepali people living in the countries of India, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates, Bhutan and Malaysia. See below for additional updates:
ELIM WORSHIP CENTER AND SCHOOL
After the Covid-19 subsided into normality, church services resumed running physically, with more than 100 believers participating. The Elim Christian Academy also resumed physically and has more than 200 students from primary to tenth grade and 28 full time staff. Rita Kabo is the principal of the school.
SEVEN STEPS TRAINING and ENCOUNTERING CHRIST CONFERENCES
Dr. Jonathan Burnham has visited Nepal twice in 2022. He taught Seven Steps of Christian Living and Encountering Christ to key Nepali Christian leaders, selected by Rev. Sonam Kabo.
In addition, Sonam has taught these courses in Eastern Nepal, Far West Nepal, and in the Pokhara region. All the training events have been done in partnership with local Bible schools and seminaries.
MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS: multiplying national leaders for sustainable national mentorship movements
Sonam is currently developing mentoring relationships with eight leaders. Each relationship is unique. Some are new, some are long term. Some are in person, and some on Zoom. Sonam makes it a ministry priority to develop and to partner with key leaders. These relationships are already bringing fruit not only in Nepal, but also in Bhutan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and United Arab Emirates!
WOMEN’S MINISTRIES
Rita Kabo has been highly involved in developing women’s ministries in Nepal. She is one of the top, Christian women’s leaders in the entire country and is a very effective trainer in women’s Bible studies, training events, even national days of prayer, educator conferences, and leadership gatherings in both Nepal and India.
The Global Nepali Speaking Christian Fellowship, which took place in November in India, was a unique event: for the first time in their history GNCF had a woman speaker, and it was Rita! Rita powerfully spoke on the role of women in global ministry!
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RUSSIA AND BELARUS 2022
Sergey Naboychenko – BMI Regional Director for Russia
Sergey Drozd – BMI Belarus Ministry Partner
Ivan Kozorezov – BMI Russia Ministry Partner
MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS: a key priority
BMI has been involved in Russia and Belarus for many years; Russia for over 30 years! In both Russia and Belarus our partners make it a priority to intentionally and personally disciple other Christian leaders. For example, Ivan is building the ministry of his entire church around the ministry of mentorship. Twice a year he leads special training workshops for the leaders of his church. They in turn invest into the members of their congregation. Sergey Naboychenko is mentoring a group of local pastors and church leaders as well as a young businessmen. The goal of these mentoring relationships is for each Christian to mentor others and so on, and so on.
SEVEN STEPS TRAINING: in high demand and keeps growing
Training conferences on the Seven Steps of Christian Living remain in high demand in Russia and Belarus, and is a top ministry priority for our partners. Sergey Naboychenko is a true leader in this effort. He personally travels all over Russia bringing the training to remote areas of Siberia, North and Far East. An important focus area of this training ministry is follow up on the leaders who have been trained. Sergey hand picks the most talented among them and continues to invest in their leadership formation.
BTMP: an example of partnership with seminaries
Sergey Drozd is the vice president of Minsk Theological Seminary. We have partnered with him since 2012. Sergey integrated Seven Steps of Christian Living and Encountering Christ to the curriculum of the seminary. Now, Seven Steps is a core course for all seminary students. To be effective in the training, the seminary even hired a young professor who is dedicated specifically
to training on mentorship. Not only the students listen to lectures, they are required to work with a personal mentor between the sessions, and they also have specialized workshops. Encountering Christ has become a special 2 credit hour course on Christology. It is taught by recognized Byelorussian pastors who had earlier been trained by Dr. Burnham.
WOMEN’S MINISTRIES
Recently BMI has been focusing on developing women ministries training on discipleship in Russia. Sergey Naboychenko’s wife, Dianna, has been very effective in leading it. She personally trains women leaders in her regional Baptist association. She is also modeling it by personally mentoring young women. Dianna, in turn, is being mentored by BMI Women’s Ministries
Director for Eastern Europe, Nadia Morokhovets.
TECHNOLOGY AND YOUR FAMILY: in high demand
Technology and Your Family is a rather unique course for BMI. We wrote it to help young Christian families make wise decisions on the use of technology in their families and with their children. This course quickly became one of our most popular ones internationally. Sergey Naboychenko, who himself has an impressive background in technology and aerospace engineering, leads the training all over Russia. He is a frequent speaker on the subject at multiple conferences and workshops.
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VIETNAM, THAILAND, CAMBODIA, MYANMAR, LAOS, INDONESIA, PHILIPPINES 2022 UPDATE
Dr. Joshua Nguyễn – Regional Director for SE Asia
Dr. Joshua had the opportunity to see Dr. Minh Dang, a long-time friend of the Burnham family!
BTMP/MBMP is taught in Bible schools in 4 SE Asia countries
Dr. Joshua Nguyen together with his ministry partners have incorporated BTMP/MBMP in Bible schools in four SE Asia countries: Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar. This year also marks the seventh MBMP graduation of marketplace leaders in Vietnam: 22 students have graduated this unique program, with the plans for over 20 new qualified students to graduate the class of 2023 in early March.
SEVEN STEPS TRAINING has taken place in 5 countries
In addition to BTMP/MBMP, BMI’s flagship course Seven Steps of Christian Living remains in high demand all over SE Asia. This year Dr. Nguyen has taught the course in Cambodia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. Most times, the training takes place in partnership with leading Bible schools or seminaries.
Jonathan Burnham traveled to Vietnam and Thailand this year for Encountering Christ Part 1: Click to view short video on Facebook:
MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS: multiplying national leaders for sustainable national mentorship movements
BMI believes in mentorship – intentional personal investment of life in growing Christian leaders. Our Regional Directors and Ministry Partners model mentorship relationships as their ministry priority. Dr. Nguyen is focusing on building up key Christian leaders who in turn will mentor others in Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia.
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AFRICA 2022
MINISTRY PARTNERS:
Dr. Kioko Mwangangi – Kenya
Dr. Lincoln Chirochierwa – Malawi
Pastor Pascal Ndagijimana – Rwanda
Joshua Magwesela – Tanzania
NEW AFRICA MINISTRY PARTNERS
Early in 2022 Vitaliy Sorokun began to mentor four potential BMI Africa Ministry Partners: Kioko Mwangangi (Kenya), Lincoln Chirochierwa (Malawi), Pascal Ndagijimana (Rwanda), and Joshua Magwesela (Tanzania). The leaders have been spending much time focusing on BMI mentorship multiplication philosophy, strategic planning, and learning the BMI training materials. Towards the end of the year each leader has been released to launch their own mentorship movement. Between themselves, these dedicated leaders run projects in eight countries, including Zimbabwe, Zambia, Uganda and Congo.
MENTORING RELATIONSHIPS
Each of our Ministry Partners has been modeling our mentorship multiplication philosophy in personal relationships with growing Christian leaders and marketplace professionals. Indeed, these are amazing stories of mentorship! Many of their disciples are already discipling others. This is exactly the outcome we want to see – disciples who reproduce!
SEVEN STEPS TRAINING
Each Africa Ministry Partner has conducted multiple training conferences on the Seven Steps of Christian Living. We believe that effective ministry flows out of good relationships. As we follow this principle, we see wonderful results of partnership: pastors and seminary leaders whom we had trained earlier have been opening doors of opportunity for our Ministry Partners to go and
train. In turn, they have started to develop their own networks of mentorship.
ENCOUNTERING CHRIST
Our Ministry Partners have been trained in Encountering Christ directly by Dr. Jonathan Burnham during his conferences in Africa. Now they are prepared to use it in their extensive mentorship networks, in Bibles schools and in training conferences in the countries where they serve. One of the exciting projects we are praying to launch in Kenya is partnership with DayStar
University where Encountering Christ can be used as a Christian formation course for all the students.
Jonathan was accompanied in Africa this year by his son, David Burnham, and son-in-law, Dr. Alex Levit!
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BMI WOMEN’S MINISTRY 2022 UPDATE
BMI has incorporated women leaders into all of our conferences, including the Seven Steps of Christian Living and Encountering Christ. Women want to know theology, and women want to learn how to mentor other women! Beyond this, we have designed a special program geared for women. WMP, the Women’s Mentoring Program, consists of the 7 Steps, Encountering Christ and 5 other training materials. It is designed as a curriculum for women to learn through churches, community groups, one on one, and as seminary courses. The 5 training materials consist of: Women’s Ministry, Small Group Ministry, Children’s Ministry, Living with Your Emotions, and Technology and the Family.
We have several women who are directing the ministry in their part of the world, Rita Kabo in Nepal, Nadya Morokhovets in Ukraine, and Dianna Naboychenko in Russia. Faith Burnham is in process of mentoring and training several other women. We encourage women in all walks of life to live the mentorship life.
Rita Kabo has been highly involved in developing women’s ministries in Nepal. She is one of the top, Christian women’s leaders in the entire country and is a very effective trainer in women’s Bible studies, training events, even national days of prayer, educator conferences, and leadership gatherings in both Nepal and India. Rita and her husband, Sonam, also represent the Christians of Nepal before the government. They have even had discussions with the Vice President of Nepal regarding the rights of Christians in Nepal to worship.
The Global Nepali Speaking Christian Fellowship, which took place in November in India, was a unique event: for the first time in their history GNCF had a woman speaker, and it was Rita! Rita powerfully spoke on the role of women in global ministry! She is also the principal of Elim Christian Academy, a Christian school for 200 children.
Nadya Morokhovets lived in Kharkiv, Ukraine, before the war. Now she and her husband, Vitaliy, are refugees in western Ukraine. Vitaliy is the president of Kharkiv Bible College and also pastors a church. At the beginning of the war, Nadya and Vitaliy were supporting many church parishioners who were all taking shelter at the church – much of the time in the basement. Vitaliy risked his life for many weeks going out to find food for everyone amongst the bombings. Their adult children begged them to flee to western Ukraine when the bombing increased where it was no longer bearable. There, they found refuge, and to their surprise, great need to minister amongst other refugees! Among the ashes of war, this has been a great joy! Vitaliy preaches to the people multiple times a week, and Nadya has had limitless opportunities to encourage the women there and in many other areas of western Ukraine, and even Kiev. Please pray for them; the tragedy of war continues.
Dianna Naboychenko, wife of our Regional Director of Russia, has recently been focusing on developing women ministries training on discipleship in Russia. She personally trains women leaders in her regional Baptist association. She is also modeling it by personally mentoring young women. Dianna, in turn, is being mentored by BMI Women’s Ministries Director for Eastern Europe, Nadya Morokhovets.
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