The director of FEBC Inter-national in Kazakhstan – Dr. Ruslan Zhakupov – will be the guest speaker at FEBCan-ada’s friendship functions in Central Canada, which begin May 20 in Toronto.
In an environment where Kazakhstan’s traditional cus-toms uneasily coexist along-side incursions of the modern world, FEBC International has been successful in estab-lishing a presence there – by officially incorporating an office in June 2005, with the hope of setting up FM radio stations in the country’s two major cities: Almaty, where the ministry is located, and Astana, the nation’s capital.
While the radio ministry has made progress in secur-ing required licenses for the two stations, it is still waiting for the government to issue special FM frequencies for on-air broadcast.
In the meantime, the minis-try (under Ruslan’s guidance and direction) is utilizing the internet, and in particular social media, to reach the country’s population of over 20 million people – the ma-jority of whom are culturally Muslim and Orthodox.
The ministry’s in-country team of 19 members include employees and volunteers, who not only prepare and air online Gospel programs – but also respond monthly to a large number of listeners that correspond to the broadcasts by means of the internet, tex-ting, smart phone, and mail.
Thousands of people listen and comment about what they’ve heard through the programs, the testimonies, and ongoing dialogue – many of them have become believ-ers, and part of the local first generation church.
Ruslan became a Christian in 1994 … and since 1997, has served as a church elder, and also a pastor. In 2018, he joined the FEBC Interna-tional team … and was ap-pointed Kazakhstan’s nation-al director two years later.
After graduating with de-grees in physics and political science, and obtaining a PhD in international relations, Ruslan taught for ten years
at several universities – with emphasis on biophysical re-search, and studies relating
to the socio-political prob-lems of Kazakhstan.
Ruslan and his wife (Ainur) live in Almaty, and the cou-ple have two grown children (who are involved in the min-istry), and a 12-year-old.