New Leadership and Locations for Teacher Training

In Step with the Master Teacher’s international director Pat Govender was visiting a South African church in 2023 when she was introduced to a family whose daughter had married a pastor in Cairo, Egypt’s capital city. Pat’s ears immediately pricked up at the word “Egypt.” For some time, she had been praying for God to open doors to expand BCM’s In Step with the Master Teacher children’s ministry training program into North Africa, especially Egypt, which encompasses a quarter of the world’s Arab population. The family facilitated contacting their daughter. Some months later, Pat was invited to spearhead the first ISMT training in two Cairo locations.

Pat Govender has been leading ISMT programs across sub-Saharan Africa as well as trainings in Asia and Europe for well over a decade (see “Please Come Back Again, and We Are Waiting,” BCM World Magazine, April 2014), first as an ISMT Master Trainer, then as BCM Africa’s children’s ministry training director. During that time period, BCM personnel had directly trained tens of thousands of children’s ministry leaders across Africa and other continents. This has been greatly multiplied as ISMT graduates have in turned trained countless thousands more in their own regions and denominations (see “Taking the Lead,” BCM World Magazine, November 2019). Meanwhile, the ISMT training curriculum is now available in thirty-plus languages with a dozen more in translation/publication process.

As of February 2024, Pat accepted the added responsibility as international ISMT director. Despite a travel schedule that packed her days and often left her exhausted, her heart was burdened for Northern Africa, where churches were small and struggling with little emphasis on reaching and discipling children. She had met leaders from Ethiopia at several global events, including the Global Children’s Forums in South Africa, Brazil, and Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. One Ethiopian leader, Pastor Sami Tura, had a deep passion to reach children and to equip children’s ministry workers. Pat encouraged Sami to begin an ISMT program in his home city of Hawassa. How to fit all this into an already overflowing schedule?

Thankfully, Pat was not carrying the load alone. In 2022, Pat met in Cape Town, South Africa, with six other ISMT lead trainers, including then international ISMT director Olga Zeitseva, BCM children’s ministry international director Sophia Wong, BCM Uganda director Joshua Anguyo, Kenya pastor and ISMT trainer Sam Munyiri, as well as BCM missionaries Mable Ngoma from Zambia and Ingrid Kjonstad from South Africa, to form ISMT Africa. Of Norwegian descent, Ingrid Kjonstad had partnered in BCM children’s ministry and as an ISMT lead trainer (see “New Missionaries for BCM Africa,” BCM World Magazine, March 2022). The two women had already partnered to teach ISMT in several African nations. Now they began praying about combining one trip to introduce the training to both Egypt and Ethiopia.

In November/December 2023, plans fell into place. Pat and Ingrid travelled first to Addis Abba, then took a flight to Hawassa. This was a first visit to Ethiopia so how all would work out was still tentative. But they found that Pastor Sami had made detailed preparations in partnership with local churches and other Christian organizations. Those participating were already serving as pastors, church leaders, and in children’s ministry. They drank in the training with open hearts.

In all, thirty-five new ISMT trainers graduated, including two from Ethiopia’s capital city, Addis Ababa. One pastor was so excited with what he’d learned he immediately began training additional children’s ministry leaders within his own church. He also formed a team to translate the ISMT curriculum into Amharic, the most widely spoken language in Ethiopia.