Where in the world in Kazakhstan?

For those of you who are unsure of where Kazakhstan in located take a look at the map above. Kazakhstan is located NW of China and directly to the south of Russia. Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan  border Kazakhstan on the south. 

Kazakhstan's land mass covers about 1,049,155 sq. miles of the Earth's surface - that's about 3.5 times smaller than the U.S. (roughly 4 times the size of Texas).

The climate in Kazakhstan varies drastically between seasons. The summers are quite hot and winters are extremely cold. It's not uncommon for the temperature to be below zero degrees fahrenheit. 

A word from the President of Kazakhstan

Here is an interesting article with quotes from the President of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev. In short, he is wanting to "suppress the activity of religious movements" in Kazakhstan. He comments that "there are too many missionaries." -- imagine that! Click here to view the entire article.

It will be interesting to see how Nazarbayev follows through with his comments. We've heard word from our contact in Kazakhstan that they are being watched closely by officials. This will not change our plans for this summer, but it is possible that our team will need to divide into smaller groups in order to avoid the attention of the government. 

Be praying for a breakthrough and favor!

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Video from 2007... check it out!

Here are some images from our trip last year. Images include our travels to/from Kazakhstan and the camp that we held while there. Thank you for making this possible! This would not have been possible without your prayers and financial gifts. God bless you!

(It may take several minutes for video to play on slower connections)

What's the plan?

Our primary goal and purpose for going to Kazakhstan this summer is to help develop a missions team within the local churches. Christianity (in the area we are traveling to) is considered a cult by the locals and by the government. In many ways this false perception has discouraged churches from evangelizing. As sad as this is, change is inevitable. This will be our third year back to Kazakhstan and we believe that Jesus will prevail. We had an amazing response from the churches last year; they were encouraged and had an opportunity to reach out to their community. This year we will continue working with them in reaching their friends, neighbors and government for Christ.

Kazakhstan here we come!

Today we finalized our decision to join the Kazakhstan team. After prayer and seeking God's will, we all feel led to join the team and assist in continuing the work that we've begun over the last few years.

At this point it appears that the primary purpose of this year's outreach will be to empower the current leadership in Pavlodar and help them know how to lead a missions team. We will be spending a few days training and working with the current leadership and then, (the best part) spend time with them and their church on outreach - although this concept is familiar to them, "sending out" missions teams is a new concept for them. Although we will be doing lots of "hands-on" ministry, our team's primary role will be to coach and guide the "new" leadership and their missions team in Kazakhstan.

The three of us have begun saving and are strategizing on how we can raise the money for this trip. Looks like it will cost us about $3,000 per person - that's roughly $9,000 for all three of us and well over $50,000 for our entire team. We need God's provision!