16 stories and 16 articles, newest first.
Includes the earlier categories Teaching, Leadership, Train the trainer, Pioneer Business Planting Training and multiplying facilitators.
“I could travel from Uganda to be here because our tailoring shop is making enough money.” Odwori was learning to train others. That is a facilitator: someone who has done it, and is ready to pass it on.
She crossed a border with nothing but a needle, some thread, and a pair of hands that knew how to work. Ten years later, she leads a network of over 200 house groups spanning two countries — and she’s just turned her survival skill into a growing business. This month’s story from the Middle East is about how one mime skit, seven envelopes, and one refugee’s faith are quietly multiplying both businesses and churches across a region that needs more trainers than it has.
Not every act of faith ends in blessing right away. One woman paid dearly for a single honest conversation about her faith — and found a new family in the community her courage helped create. Meet her, and five ordinary trades quietly becoming doorways for the extraordinary.
A beauty parlor owner made one quiet decision — to surrender her business to God — and it multiplied into two thriving storefronts, and a new role training other entrepreneurs to do the same. Hers is one story in a community-wide movement: this May, twenty-one Bangladeshi leaders, including a man whose own turning point came from a knife and a dream, completed a week of training to write the next chapter.
At 24, Loserian can barely read or write — yet he sold two goats, opened a shop in Naalarami, Tanzania, and now his community gathers seventy strong every Friday. Three friends his age have started businesses after watching him. One shop. One face of 1000/1000.
What does it take to walk away from the most prestigious job in your country and start over from scratch? For Rashida — Pakistani Christian woman, computer science gold medalist, and founder of TechHub Pakistan — the answer is simple: faith, courage, and an unshakeable calling. Her story is full of illness, persecution, heartbreak, and…
“Couldn’t All Nations—the people from the West—help us?” It was day four of the Pioneer Business Planting training in Southfield, southern Pakistan. The room was full of small-scale farmers and aspiring entrepreneurs — people who had grown up with little, and who had learned to look outward for help. But what happened next surprised everyone…
Hassan Lomunyo Tepa is a respected leader in East Pokot, an area in northwestern Kenya. He currently lives in Tangulbei with his second wife and their son, where he leads a small church with 38 members. Hassan also runs a hotel and other businesses while serving as a facilitator and church planter for All Nations…
“My vision is to raise 1 million leaders-encouraging everyone to dream big and start small.” This was the heart of Arjit’s message during the Pioneer Business Planting training in India this February, where 25 participants from four different states gathered to learn how to integrate business and ministry for lasting impact. Arjit’s journey began years…
Story of Rajesh & Ananya – From Limitation to Impact At the heart of our 1000/1000 vision—starting 1000 churches and 1000 businesses among the least reached by 2028—are stories of ordinary people stepping out in faith. This month, we highlight Rajesh and Ananya, a couple from India whose journey beautifully illustrates how business can become…
“I wish I had received this training five years ago!” said one participant at the close of our Pioneer Business Planting training in Pakistan. At the end of September, we had the privilege of equipping 65 Christians with different backgrounds with practical skills for launching Kingdom-centered businesses. One pastor shared enthusiastically: “At the beginning of…
In a simple training room in Arusha, Tanzania, 40 church planters, entrepreneurs and local community leaders from Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya gathered. Many of whom were once stuck in generational poverty and hopelessness. But what united them was a shared journey: each had taken the Pioneer Business Planting (PBP) training and had already planted businesses…
Guiding the Movement Immediately after the Facilitators Training in Arusha, Tanzania, our national leaders from Kenya, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, India, and Tanzania stayed for a 3-day strategic leadership gathering. What took place was a time of vision, honesty, deep prayer, and big dreams. We shared our stories. One of us had grown up without parents,…
In my previous article, I wrote about how we addressed the written communication gap by adding the Business Model Canvas and building strong coaching relationships with church planters, emphasizing intentional, life-sharing discipleship to achieve self-sustainability and fruitful business planting. In this follow-up article, I will share the challenges we encountered regarding finances! We will focus…
Helping church planters and disciple makers to start businesses in Africa, Asia and the Middle-East can be messy! Not everything is going on well. We encounter challenges beyond our control, like COVID measures, high inflation or political instability, but we also have to deal with mindsets and strongholds that are holding people back in being…
“Do you want to be part of the training team this year?”, we asked an 18-year-old girl who attended our business training last year. “YES!” she said. Mary (not her real name) taught 2 teachings during the week. One on the Cycle of Planting, where she brought a plant and some pictures to engage…
3 months before Charles did the Pioneer Business Planting training in 2021 in Nairobi, he started a cereal store. He sells different kinds of cereals. Because of growing competition, Charles also added chicken feed, as well as electrical items, such as cables, lamps, etc., to his store. Through the Pioneer Business Planting training, he learned…
One of the biggest challenges in Africa is managing money. Most of the participants that go through our business training have never made a personal budget. They have never been taught that it’s important. There is no example in their culture as most of the people live day by day and don’t plan ahead. Creating…
In early February, we conducted a three-day Business for Movements Train the Trainer program in Tanzania, welcoming 23 leaders from Tanzania, Malawi, and Kenya. The objective of this training was to empower and enhance the capabilities of our local African trainers to teach at least 50 individuals this year to start a Kingdom business. On…
“I wish I had known this training ten years ago.” Redemption of tea plantation workers Years ago, our key leader in Kenya, Kefa, grew up at a tea plantation. His parents worked and lived there and he attended school at the premises. When he was young, he started to work at the plantation as well.…
Have you ever felt frustrated about your donations? Do you fear that your hard-earned money is being squandered on high salaries and fancy buildings, rather than truly making a difference in the fight against poverty? Have you witnessed development programs that seemed to lack real impact and left you questioning the effectiveness of aid? In…
After training and coaching hundreds of aspiring entrepreneurs in Africa, Asia and the Middle-East over the last 4,5 years, I have observed five common mistakes startups make. Today I will share those mistakes and how you can prevent making those mistakes. Research shows that 90% of startups fail. If you know why they fail, you can learn…
Kefa’s early life At a young age, Kefa’s drive to keep his family out of poverty started to emerge. When his mother got seriously ill, everything that his family had, was sold to support his mother’s medication. His father ventured and looked for work but the earnings were still inadequate for them. Kefa had to…
“I believe that one of the next great moves of God is going to be through the believers in the workplace.” — BILLY GRAHAM (LATE 2000) Jonathan Nowlen, the author of “Managing Your Metron” and the founder of “The Metron Manager Project” featured International Business Director of All Nations, Jonathan Nolan, in this September 2022…
“Before I became a pastor, I was a businessman but I left my business.”, said one of the pastors we trained in Mozambique. “After the Pioneer Business Planting training I realized I shouldn’t have walked away from doing business. Now I know I can combine business and church. I can share about Jesus when I…
From June 20 – June 25, 2022, our team will train 40 church planters in Maputo, Mozambique on how to start businesses and how to become self-sustainable while they are planting churches. Mozambique has 29 million people and is among one of the poorest countries in the world. Common reasons are the lack of education,…
Business Planting and Church Planting leads to the transformation of a young Kenyan leader and inspires others to change.
Many times, disciples from Mvunguti in Malawi asked Gibson to come and teach them how to plant businesses. Train them to become self-sustainable while making disciples and planting churches. The village is far away. Indeed, it can only be reached by a boat or by a long hike over a mountain. Some time ago, Gibson…
[1Co 4:14-17 NKJV] 14 I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn [you]. 15 For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet [you do] not [have] many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. 16 Therefore I urge you,…
“You should check this out…”, said one of our team members two weeks ago during our business training in the Middle East. She showed me a collage of the 16-year-old girl Farousha (name changed) on leadership we taught the previous day. She had captured the difference between a servant leader and an authoritarian leader…
This past June we faced another challenging, but also amazing, opportunity to facilitate a PBP consultation of 3 days, three hours per day.
A few weeks ago we finished a Pioneer Business Planting consultation with 20 participants from or working in 8 different nations (Nepal, South Africa, Comoros, Mauritius, Malawi, Mozambique, India and The Netherlands). They will take business planting to start businesses, facilitate Pioneer Business Planting for others and coach them how to do it. At creation,…
