Astana, Kazakhstan Had Leaders Conference
Title: “You Give Them Something to Eat.” (Mk 6: 37a)
On June 5 to 7 we had a Kazakhstan Astana leaders’ Bible conference at "Nura" resort in a suburb of Astana, with the title: "You give them something to eat” (Mk 6: 37a). In particular, M. David Kim from Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, served this conference as the main lecturer.
On the first evening, M. David Kim shared his life testimony and gave us a special lecture: "The Spirituality of The Cross." Through his life testimony, we especially learned his pioneering spirit as St. Paul had. And by his lecture, we were all moved by his love for the cross of Jesus and could not but kneel down and earnestly pray to restore the spiritual meaning of the cross from our hearts.
On the morning of the second day, we listened to a lecture on "The Spirituality of Mission." We learned the best example of missionary life and serving God’s ministry which was shown by our Lord Jesus who is the best model of missionary life. In the afternoon on the same day, we learned how to serve fruitful invitation ministry and faithful 1:1 ministry. In the evening, we had a lecture about the importance of serving house church ministry, which pleases God.
On the final day, Sh. R. vigorously gave us the main lecture entitled, "You give them something to eat" (Mark 6: 37a). Through this message we all repented our self-centered mind and were able to learn Jesus’ compassionate heart for the sheep. We made a decision to serve our students harder through offering our morning devotion and fishing as our five loaves and two fish.
A feature of this conference was that we had a time of making questions and answers discussing the contents after each lecture, which helped our leaders share their practical problems and to solve them, making the conference even more meaningful. Through this, some native shepherd families repented and made a decision of molding a vessel of the Holy Spirit with each other. And after the conference the work of the Holy Spirit like restoring of the morning devotion and serving the fishing ministry together among the shepherd families is amazingly occurring now.
I sincerely thank God for sending M. David Kim to us and abundantly blessing this conference. I pray that the native shepherd families may continue to firmly form a vessel of the Holy Spirit together. May God help each family to pioneer one campus in God’s time and richly bless Kazakhstan to be a priestly nation toward the Islamic world.
M. D. B.