Our goal has been to train and equip nationals to do God’s work in their own country. After all, isn’t that at the heart of Jesus’ command “go and make disciples…” Disciples are those who have been led to Christ and taught, who then lead others to Christ and disciple them. It is the difference in addition (evangelism only) and multiplication (evangelism+discipleship).

It is the essence of 2 Timothy 2:2, as Paul instructs his own convert and disciple Timothy to take what he has learned and impart God’s word to “faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” 2 Timothy 2:2 is actually the theme verse of our discipleship program: “And the [instructions] which you have heard from me, along with many witnesses, transmit and entrust (as a deposit) to reliable and faithful men who will be competent and qualified to teach others also.” (Amplified) [click here to learn more about "Building the Disciples' House" program]

When we began ministering in the Soviet Union in 1990, American teams did all of the outreach. When the discipleship program began in 1992, again the teaching team was made up entirely of  Americans. But we knew that “our job was to work ourselves out of a job,” and today Russians are trained, equipped and deployed to do all we were doing in both evangelism and discipleship. It was a process where, step-by-step, more and more responsibility was handed over as they show themselves ready and as they are equipped.

In mission’s history, one of the biggest mistakes was to make those in the mission field “western missionary dependent.” That’s not true discipleship. True discipleship does what the old saying illustrates, “Catch a man a fish and feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and feed him for a lifetime.” But we believe there is one more step to be added and that is to teach the man to teach others to fish as well, and that is called discipleship.

American teams traveled and ministered throughout the Soviet Union in the 1990s traveling from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean to the Baltics. Thousands of Russian young people came to Christ as a result. Today, we train an all-Russian team of young people led to Christ through the ministry and discipled through the discipleship camps and leadership training programs we sponsor. They do today what we did years ago, but they do it so much better! In just the past three summers, over 1,000 young people have come to Christ through the ministry of the team in youth camps throughout the Crimea . In fact, all-Russian teams have been trained and ministering since 1997. These secular youth camps were originally set up during Soviet times for the further communist indoctrination of their youth.

In the same way, since the beginning of the summer discipleship programs, the goal has been to train and equip Russian young people to conduct the camps, and now they execute every aspect of the discipleship process from opening teaching sessions, to small group leadership.

Nationals reaching nationals should be the goal of any foreign missions work. Nationals know their own culture, speak the language, relate in a way a foreign missionary cannot. Over the course of time, the western missionary should move from forefront to sidelines, from an active player to a mentor and coach.

Today, American evangelism teams would not be allowed to do what we did in the 1990s in Belarus for example, where we could do outreaches anywhere --- in schools, hospitals, orphanages. Today, we would be arrested. The doors may be closed to us, but they are not closed to the Belarussian young people we have led to Christ and discipled.