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MOSCOW,  January 2015

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On January 28-31, 2015, Dr. Vitaliy Sorokun traveled to Moscow, Russia, on the invitation of the Russian Baptist Union, to participate in a special youth congress. The congress gathered 1,000 participants, including pastors and Christian leaders from all over Russia. The purpose of the congress was to call the young generation of Christians to commit their lives to God’s call and to actively participate in the transformation of their society for the glory of Christ.

Dr. Sorokun conducted a special three hour meeting with the participants of the Sochi Encountering Christ conference. During this meeting he shared about Biblical Training and Mentoring Program. The leaders discussed the details of its potential implementation in Russia and agreed to continue to pray and to dialogue about it.

During the congress days, Dr. Sorokun also taught two large workshops for the youth leaders. The first workshop was about Small Group Ministry. The second one was about Personal Evangelism. Both topics were the actual lessons from “Seven Steps of Christian Living” – the new discipleship course from BMI.

 

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Pastors, College Professors, Seminary Presidents from

Seven Countries Will Attend

 

 

 

 

September 2014

BTMP  –  Biblical Training and Mentoring Program

Christian leaders – including pastors, seminary presidents and college professors – from seven countries will fly to Bangkok, Thailand, to attend training sessions and strategic planning with Jonathan Burnham for the BTMP, Biblical Training and Mentoring Program.   This is a new package of training curriculum put together by Jonathan Burnham with the assistance of Vitaliy Sorokun to help Bible colleges, seminaries and churches train Christian leaders.  This unique program will supply students with the training they need to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the regions in which they live.  It will be first taught by the BMI representatives who will then train others, and so on, and so on.  This will provide for the  exponential growth of well-trained, biblically literate leaders and teachers in many different countries around the world.   The BTMP materials include the 48 hours of practical BMI training plus the Encountering Christ curriculum and the new 7 Steps of Christian Living.

This program is already being utilized in different parts of the world at Bible colleges and seminaries as part of their accredited curriculum.  These leaders will expand this and be trained to institute the BTMP into their part of the world.  

This leadership summit will include our National Directors, Vitaliy Sorokun (Ukraine and Soviet States) , Sonam Kabo (Nepal and South Asia) and Joshua Nguyen (Vietnam and Southeast Asia).  The additional leaders who will become BMI Representatives to their region of the world come from the following countries:  Rwanda, Vietnam, Cambodia, India, and Belarus. (Some pictured below.)  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nepal Marriage Conference and Strategic Planning

Kathmandu, Nepal February 2014

A marriage conference was held by Jonathan Burnham and Sonam Kabo in which many of the area’s pastors and their wives attended.   This trip was also an intense strategic planning session with the Kabo’s.  

 

Nepal Marriage Conference 2014

Nepal Marriage Conference 2014

 

 

Encountering Christ Conference, Year 2, New Testament

Kharvov, Ukraine, October 2013

This year, the Christian leaders returned to Kharkov with their wives for a week.  These leaders came from seven different countries and three continents.  

Conference Opens Doors into Many Countries

 

EC Conference 2013

EC Conference 2013

 

Strategic platform to advance the ministry to the former USSR countries.

This two-year conference was a strategic platform to advance the ministry of BMI to the former countries of the former USSR. Interacting with the pastors allowed us to investigate strategic training opportunities in their regions and to package the existing training materials into a new discipleship program. Our plans are to take this program and to initiate special discipleship movements in Russia through the new partnership with the Baptist Union, Belarus, Armenia and Georgia. We will use this program to train Chinese Christian leaders in Ukraine. The conference and its unique content has also opened doors of opportunity into the Central Asian countries where Christian leaders and churches live under persecution and are in need of practical ministry training.

The majority of the leaders represented Ukraine (including the Vice-President of the Baptist Union, the largest and oldest Protestant denomination of the land. BMI has partnered with the Baptist Union in the former USSR, and our Ministry Center is registered under the Union). The other pastors and teachers were from Vladivostok (Russia’s Far East, a city on the shore of the Sea of Japan near the border with China and North Korea), Minsk (Belarus), Tbilisi (Georgia), Yerevan (Armenia), as well as two leaders from China and Nigeria, both living in Ukraine and associated with our Ministry Center international outreach.

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Jonathan (with Vitaly Sorokun interpreting) taught the 2nd year of the EC material, and Faith (with Anna Sorokun interpreting) taught the women from the BMI Women’s Ministry material and her own material on Internet Safety called Home Invasion.  On the final day of the conference, there was a special marriage emphasis with a renewal of marriage vows.  

 

View Video Testimony from a pastor from Belarus

 

“Spiritual truths neatly focused on Christ.” 

Comments from the leaders: 

 “My heart is filled with pleasure because of the abundance of spiritual truths so neatly and beautifully focused on Christ. He taught us in a bright, simple, vivid and practical way. I am going to to use these truths as I prepare my sermons, council people and teach theology, because this material is universal, biblical and very practical from the theologial perspective as it was centered on Christ. This is the focus which is lacking today in lives of many Christians. I am going to reread Jonathan’s book with a pencil in my hand.  

“My wife and I were one of the first couples whom Jonathan really wedded on the last day of the conference. We got married when we were still in the world. Back then, I did not make any commitments to Olesya, because nobody asked for any commitments. It was our first vow in the 20 years of our marriage!”

Special Additions:   BMI Board Member, Kerry Olin and his wife Kathy joined the conference as well as David Snyder, from BMI partner Sustainable Medical Missions.

Click on picture to view larger:

 

 

 

Encountering Christ Conference, Year 1, Old Testament

Bangkok,  Thailand  2013

The first Encountering Christ Conference for Vietnamese and Cambodian National Leaders was held in Bangkok, Thailand in April 2013.   Twenty of the countries’ top pastors and Christian leaders attended and were blessed by Jonathan Burnham’s teaching of the Old Testament portion of Encountering Christ.  They were so thrilled with the material that they anxiously await next year’s conference on the New Testament.   (See below for pictures and testimonies.)

  Vietnam

 

Video Testimonials:    (Click on the name to view)

Pastor Nhat Pham

Pastor Hourng Vandy

Pastor Phuc Lam

Pastor Vinh Vinh