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Afghan Refugees Hearing the Gospel Through ORU Partnership

When armed men confront you, there can be much to fear. For Kenneth Charles, that fear, while life-threatening, was also life-altering.  

In 2009, armed men attacked Kenneth at his office and threatened to kill his family. To save his life and his family, Kenneth bargained with his attackers, sacrificing his company and all of his life’s savings.

For three years, Kenneth was on the run, living on the streets, in train stations, with relatives, and in churches. Eventually, Kenneth founded God’s Vision Ministries (GVM), and in 2016, he and his wife enrolled at Oral Roberts University (ORU). Here, a ministry partnership was formed between ORU and GVM, allowing Kenneth to start a seminary in Pakistan.

“While praying,” Kenneth said, “the Holy Spirit unveiled that many people in the part of the world where I was born were eagerly waiting for the feet to bring the Gospel. Little did I know that with the help of ORU, we would provide both digital feet and actual feet across Pakistan.”

Eventually, Kenneth opened Pakistan’s first GVM/ORU Bible Institute. GVM works collectively with the ORU Bible Institute and ORU’s Global Learning Center to train local leadership throughout Pakistan who desire a formal, established, theological education.

“Since the fall of 2017, through ORU’s Global Learning Center and under the auspices of God’s Vision Ministries, I have been teaching to students in Pakistan,” said ORU Professor Arden C. Autry, Ph.D. “To date, I have taught seven different biblical courses along with basic doctrine and apologetics. These courses are meeting the serious needs of Pakistani students and pastors.”

“Once the model of connections from Tulsa, Oklahoma to Pakistan were proven to broadcast instantaneous, systematic Bible courses,” Kenneth said, “we opened 17 more locations. Within 12-months, we had over 225 people attending Bible courses.”

In Pakistan, Kenneth has found great success establishing the GVM/ORU Bible Institute. However, with the U.S.’s sudden withdrawal from Afghanistan, Kenneth grew concerned for his Bible students studying near the conflict. After the withdrawal, Kenneth contacted these students and asked them “Are you safe?”

“Their answer,” Kenneth said, “was, ‘Yes, we are safe, but we must now step up and help the hundreds of thousands of people coming from Afghanistan who need the very systematic Bible teaching we have received.’ Needless to say, my heart started leaping with joy as I realized that God’s ways are much higher than our ways, and His thoughts are above our thoughts.”

With the chaos in Afghanistan, Kenneth feels God is preparing his family and others to minister to many of the hundreds of thousands of Afghans who began their exodus into Pakistan.

“When God called my family to Oral Roberts University in 2016,” Kenneth said, “we were unsure of all the reasons why. Little could we have known the main reason would manifest itself in August of 2021 with the fall of Afghanistan.”

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