Kazakhstan Ministry Update

By Tom Burns

It all began on a Monday morning in the fall of 2021. While sitting on my deck spending time with the Lord, I received a text message from my friend, Dr. Jorge Parrott, President of Christ’s Mandate for Missions (CMM). He asked if I could teach a class on Discerning of Spirits for a group in Kazakhstan that Wednesday morning. He mentioned the class would last two hours, including time for translation and a question-and-answer session at the end.

My immediate thought was, “I need to attend that class, not teach it!” I felt completely unqualified—and with less than two days to prepare, I couldn’t imagine developing a teaching on the subject. I was about to reply, saying I didn’t feel qualified, when I heard the Lord speak:

“If you can’t trust Me enough to give you what you need to teach this class, can you at least trust that Jorge heard Me when I told him to ask you?”

I paused and humbly admitted, “Yes, Lord, I can believe that.” So I responded to Jorge, saying I would be glad to teach. I had no idea that this simple act of obedience—though hesitant at first—would change my life forever.

For the next day and a half, I spent nearly all my time on the deck praying and asking the Lord for wisdom about what to say. As I waited, He began showing me insights about the Holy Spirit and how He operates in our lives. I wrote everything down in my journal. By Tuesday afternoon, I realized that if I reorganized my notes, I already had an outline. It was unlike any teaching I had ever heard about the Holy Spirit and the gift of discerning spirits—more like an extended prophetic message than a structured lesson.

When Wednesday arrived, the class went well. I finished with about thirty minutes left for questions and answers. That session lasted an hour and a half, and people still had their hands raised when we finally stopped—for fear of exhausting our interpreter! It was an exhilarating experience to be received so warmly.

A few days later, Jorge texted again. The group in Kazakhstan had more questions—could I spend another two hours with them? I agreed, and we met the following week. Once again, the meeting lasted three hours, and the participants still wanted more.

Not long after, Jorge reached out with another request. This time, some of the people wanted personal prophetic ministry. He asked if I could join a ministry team. I had done this before with the CMM Skype teams and quickly agreed. The following week, we spent more than two hours ministering to a group of people—it was a powerful and moving time.

Soon after, I received yet another message—this time asking if I could organize and lead a prophetic ministry team for Kazakhstan. And with that, my involvement in the region changed forever.

That was four years ago. Since then, our team has ministered to more than 500 people in Russian-speaking churches across Kazakhstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, Germany, Ukraine, and Slovakia. In 2025 alone, we’ve ministered to over 150 individuals.

One of the most meaningful aspects of our prophetic ministry can be seen in the feedback we’ve received. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, a prophetic movement began in Kazakhstan. Unfortunately, many were hurt, and churches were divided by immature prophets who modeled their ministry after Old Testament prophets—bringing judgment and condemnation instead of life. The damage was so great that many church leaders rejected prophetic ministry altogether.

When our team came, we ministered out of God’s love, seeking to encourage and strengthen each person. We’ve been told that our ministry helped release a new understanding of what true prophetic ministry looks like.

Another exciting development this year is that graduates from a prophetic school in Kazakhstan have begun serving as members of our team. It’s incredible to see how the Lord weaves people together from around the world—people who don’t even speak the same language—yet flow in unity as if they’ve ministered together for years!

But prophetic ministry is just the beginning of what the Lord is doing in Kazakhstan and Central Asia.

In early 2022, a church in Karaganda, one of Kazakhstan’s largest cities, asked us to provide monthly teachings on how the Holy Spirit operates in the life of a believer. Those meetings continue to this day, now more like interactive workshops where everyone participates in ministry and grows in their gifts.

In June 2024, we hosted our first Prophetic Roundtable for Kazakhstan and Central Asia via Zoom. Pastors and leaders from across the region attended, and hundreds more have since watched the recording on YouTube.

In May 2025, the Lord opened a new door for ministry when we held our first three-day Zoom conference, Pastoring the Prophetic. Nearly one hundred people attended online, including one church that streamed the sessions in their sanctuary. The recordings have since been viewed hundreds of times.

Later that year, we were invited to minister prophetically to the nation of Kazakhstan as part of a panel at a large prophetic conference hosted by a local church.

Most recently, we were asked to teach a group in Almaty—one of Kazakhstan’s largest southern cities—about prophetic ministry and the operation of the Holy Spirit. It’s amazing to see how hungry these people are for more of the Lord.

As you can see, the past four years have been an incredible journey. Yet I believe we’ve only seen the tip of the iceberg of what the Lord has planned. We’re now connected with the largest association of Spirit-filled churches in Kazakhstan, and there are ongoing discussions about ministering to churches within their network. We’ve also been contacted by national leaders in Slovakia and by churches in Russia who want us to teach and minister there as well.

In 2024, someone reminded me of Bob Jones’ prophecy about the billion-soul harvest. In an interview, Bob said the Lord showed him that:

1. The harvest would be led by young people.
2. It would come out of Russia.
3. Once they embraced the Gifts of the Spirit, they would be unstoppable.

After reading that, I heard the Lord say, “Kazakhstan is the gateway to Russia and to releasing this great harvest.” It was one of the most humbling moments of my life. I suddenly saw my small part in this great move of God—not as a key figure, but as one of many workers with a role to play.

This ministry has been one of the greatest blessings of my life. Five years ago, I could never have imagined being part of something like this. Today, I can’t imagine my life without it.

A few final thoughts:

• I am currently 77 years old. This ministry began when I was 73. It’s never too late to get involved in God’s work and help build His Kingdom on earth. As Rick Joyner often says, we should focus on refirement, not retirement. This ministry has truly “refired” my life—and I believe there are countless opportunities for others to do the same.
• I conduct all of this ministry via Zoom from my home office in rural central North Carolina. A friend of mine reaches hundreds of thousands in Uganda from his back porch in the North Carolina mountains. With today’s technology, you don’t need to travel the world to change it.
• I don’t speak Russian (yet!), and I’ve never traveled to Kazakhstan. But the Lord has raised up a faithful team of volunteers there who dedicate countless hours scheduling ministry sessions and translating everything into Russian to make this work possible.
• The Lord has also brought together an amazing team from the Carolinas, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Kansas, and even Sardinia—people willing to give their time and talents to minister to those on “the other side of the world.”

This is truly the Lord’s work. He created the opportunities and built the team. My part was simply to say yes. And there are many other opportunities waiting for someone else to say yes.

“Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest’? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” – John 4:35 (NKJV)

“Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore, pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.’” – Matthew 9:37–38 (NKJV)

If you would like to learn more about this ministry or explore opportunities in Kazakhstan and Central Asia, please contact Tom Burns at tom@cmm.world