Global Partner
History of Involvement in Karachaevsk
July 2003: Fellowship begins association with Pastor Dinislam Salpagarov and the church at Karachaevsk during a medical mission trip to Armivir and Karachaevsk. It is here that the needs of the church are first discovered.
April 2004: Fellowship sends a team to do construction on the church’s café. The café is used as an outreach ministry.
June 2005: Fellowship sends a team to hold a teen camp focusing on sports and relational evangelism. Out of 34 kids, 10 made decisions for Christ.
June 2006: Fellowship sends a team to hold a family camp—involving mens, womens, and childrens ministry.
June/July 2007: Fellowship sends two teams: one to run a teen camp, and the other to host a family camp. Many of the teens that came to Christ in 2005 returned to the teen camp to be further discipled in their walk with Christ. At the family camp, the biblical teaching on marriage led to increased communication and intimacy for many couples – something they were in desperate need of.
June/July 2008: Once again Fellowship sends two different teams to Karachaevsk for a teen camp and a family camp. Everyone stays in tents at the teen camp. No showers—hot or cold. Sixteen kids accept Christ! Ten hand-picked young adults receive leadership training and are given the freedom at camp to begin using their leader¬ship gifts. At the family camp God continues to tear down the walls of male, tyrannical “leadership” and build a biblical understanding of marriage into the hearts of many men and women. They wrestle with the Word of God in relation to teaching on marriage and begin to realize how counter-cultural it is! Single men and women encounter God in a fresh, new way and are encouraged to truly trust the loving Lord with their singleness. The children are well cared for at the family camp and receive great teaching on the 10 Commandments.
2009: Fellowship provided funds to support the teen camp, but sent no support team this time; for the first time, Russians put on the camp all by themselves. We heard great reports and that many teens accepted Christ. Fellowship sent a family camp team again, with the additional focus of visiting the only Bible Institute in the Cauacus region. This has spawned a new relationship in Russia, which is geared towards helping train pastors for the ministry.
2010-2013: Fellowship sends a team each summer to host a family camp - marriage, children's and singles ministry. 2012 was the biggest turnout to date, with other churches in the region helping serve to make the camp a huge success! Relationships continue to deepen as many on the Fellowship team keep going back year after year.
Biography
Dinislam Salpagarov is the former pastor of New Life Church in Karachaevsk, Russia. His new focus of ministry is evangelism. While still connected to New Life Church, he spends much of his time bringing the hope of Christ to the many different people groups in the Caucasus Mountain region of southern Russia.
I was born in 1977. When I was 14 years old, I completed a special muslim school. But when I was 16 years old I was disappointed in Islam and continued to search for the truth. One day I was playing cards with some people and I won a Bible for Kids. I was interested and I read the whole book in one night. And that day I prayed for the first time in my life, not in the Arabic language, but just by saying simple words and asked God to send people who would share my new faith and explain more to me. Then later I found the Gospels and Acts and was reading it and wrote down some verses from there. Within six months I met believers—they were from a Baptist church. So I came to Christ when I was 16 years old. When I was 20 years old, I came back after my army service and attended Bible school.
After I finished school, we planted one church together with friends in Dzheguta city. It still exists today. But it was hard for me to stay there any longer because my relatives were coming and pushing on me and beating me so I decided to escape to the city of Karachaevsk. We went there together with my sister, and she also came to Christ 3 years later than me. In Karachaevsk I met Misha—he was a pastor and we worked together for some time. We had a good team.
When Misha declared he was tired and wanted to leave the ministry I became pastor New Life Church in Karachaevsk. I also got married when I was 25 years old—my wife's name is Inna. Now we have two kids a daughter and a son. This is my simple story.
After many years as pastor of New Life Church, I felt called to be an evangelist. So I handed over the role of pastor to Dima, and transitioned into the role of evangelist. My heart and passion is that the many people groups of southern Russia would accept Jesus Christ.
Expenditures
Each year, we work with our global partners to refine how our involvement might support their essential ministry efforts and projects, and learn about their kingdom-advancement and ministry expansion dreams—if God would provide the means to make them happen.
Last year, God provided resources for our partners' efforts with over $700,000 from our Global Christmas giving. Our plenty, providing for their needs. We encourage you to pray and ask for the Lord’s leading in how your generosity can have an impact all around the world, all to the glory of God!
Pastor Dinislam Salpagarov is bi-vocational, and has a remodeling business to supplement his income and care for his family. However, we want to help him in small ways so he can devote more of his time to shepherding the church, building into leaders and proclaiming Christ in an area 99% Muslim.
$7,200
We want to have two summer camps, one for children and one for teenagers. These funds will help us purchase the needed equipment for the camps.
$4,000
Our rehabilitation house, House of Mercy, serves Muslims in our area that are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction. We need to do continued renovation on the house, specifically a room downstairs.
$1,500
Contact Us
Email David Feick for more information on Dinislam Salpagarov, one of our partners in Russia.