April 2026 Islamabad, Pakistan Building Project

On my December, 2025 trip to Pakistan, I believe the Lord spoke to me about helping our second congregation in Islamabad. We started our first Pakistani church in 2005 and our second in 2014. I spoke in both of these congregations in December and can’t describe the satisfaction I felt as we relived our past twenty years in Pakistan. It’s been a challenging but rewarding journey. The first congregation of 2,500 members meets in a beautiful, debt-free building. The second congregation, with about 800 members, meets in a partially constructed building. I hope to help them finish building this year.

I helped the second congregation with $85,000 for a piece of property in 2016. Through 2018-2019, I helped them with an additional $110,000 for their building. Pastor Shoukat, the pastor over this church, is a gifted leader, and the church has grown steadily under his direction. But the building plan he launched was ambitious and a little beyond our financial means. I signed off on that plan, so it’s not all his fault! They completed the basement and built the skeleton for a three-story multi-use building. We can cram about 800 people in the basement auditorium, and we’ve overgrown that building’s capacity.

The present building is functional and built to earthquake-resistant standards, but since the upper levels are unfinished, it’s a bit of an eyesore. I had hoped the Pakistani believers would be able to complete the building a little at a time, but Pakistan’s economy has struggled, and it’s affected everyone. Our building development has stagnated, while our congregation has grown to its absolute maximum. I saw on this past trip that I need to help them.

This church’s team oversaw the work we’ve done among the Marwari people in the Cholistan desert. We have completed a school, a church building, and a guest house, and we have property for a training center. In many ways, our second model church has sacrificed its own development for the sake of the outreach in Cholistan.

I’m planning to travel stateside this summer and do what I can to help them finish this building. We’ll start by purchasing an adjacent property for $80,000. Property values in Islamabad have gone up dramatically, and I wish I had bought this property earlier! We absolutely need it, though, since there have been some security incidents in our area. This adjoining property will allow us to establish a more secure compound and extend the upper levels of our building.

Once we have the property, I want to help them with $150,000 to complete the upper three levels. That’s a tall task, but I believe I can gather these funds through the summer. This second church has become our administrative center for all the work in Pakistan, and the growth potential is enormous.

Our project needs for the app, for the blind children in Nepal, for the Nepal medical teams, and for the Marwari school are met for this year. Everything I receive for the remainder of the year will go to this Islamabad building. Thanks for believing by faith with me on this critical infrastructure project.

Rick