Kevin Abbott was pastor of First Baptist Church Red Oak, Texas, in 2014 when God placed a burden on his heart to partner with local indigenous pastors in South Asia, and he began praying for a partnership.
“We were supporting somebody in China. We were supporting somebody in Honduras,” said Abbott, now an area representative for the Baptist General Convention of Texas and director of Pastoral Health Networks.
“But I felt like God wanted us to have a personal relationship and partnership with somebody on the ground in South Asia, where some of the highest levels of persecution were starting to happen.”
‘Billy Graham of Nepal’
Two years later, Joe Moody — Abbott’s former pastor and founder of Light the Window Ministries — invited him to have coffee. Moody told Abbott he needed to meet a church planter in South Asia whom he called “the Billy Graham of Nepal.”
“He’s the guy that’s well-respected and moving and shaking when it comes to evangelism and church planting and lots of very cutting edge, at least for Indian people in that area, cutting-edge church-planting movement and gospel-movement-type stuff,” Abbott explained.
When the South Asian church planter visited the United States, Abbott met with him. After the meeting, Abbott set up a trip with his church’s leadership team to “see the work on the ground [in South Asia] and go to villages and meet pastors.”
“We came back, and we were all convinced that God wanted us to partner with South Asia and [the church planter] … and the rest is history,” Abbott said.
Aside from a two-year gap during the COVID-19 pandemic, Abbott has traveled to South Asia every year since then — “always trying to pour into their leaders and connect resources to them and their needs,” he said.
EDITOR’S NOTE — This story was written by Jessica King and originally published by Baptist Standard.
