Beverly and I just completed the launching of the new model church plant outside Islamabad, Pakistan.  In the last four years the Lord has helped us to sharpen our church planting ministry and the five weeks we spent in Islamabad were extremely effective. We were able to accomplish as much in a month as we did in four months in our first church plant, four years ago.

In the Pakistan church plant we are working with a young man, Safeer Akhtar, who is 32 years old and has three children.  He was a successful architect who resigned from a lucrative position in a national Pakistani firm to serve the Lord.  He has worked for 7 years as an associate pastor and has a proven and effective ministry.  I have kept him under the authority of his senior pastor and am serving him as a coach, mentor and overseer to develop the new work.

Beverly and I spent four to six hours a day with Safeer and his wife, teaching lessons on leadership, developing a long range strategy and building a leadership team around him.  We were able to purchase a piece of property in the community we have targeted and have begun the first phase of the building construction.  We plan to build in three phases and will eventually have a sanctuary that will seat 1,500.

 The Lord provided $50,000 for this project which we used to buy land and start the first phase of our building construction.  I have committed to support Safeer for three years but expect that this church will be fully self supported within two years.

We finalized the purchase of the property on April 1^st and held our first meeting on the new ground the evening of April 2^nd.  In this open air event we had over 600 adults attend.  What a beginning!   Without your partnership none of this would have been possible.  ―Thanks!

Rick