History of Global Assistance Partners

Global Assistance Partners (GAP) began as an effort to build up the Body of Christ in the Ukraine in 1992.  Intense persecution under the Soviet regime had severely limited biblical education in churches, so there was a need to instruct leaders at unregistered churches in the Bible and in pastoral training.  God brought a group of Americans together who came to the Ukraine to teach week-long intensive seminars to the Unregistered Pentecostal pastors from the Ukraine and several CIS countries.  By 1995, this effort became known as The Bible Institute of the Ukraine (BIU).

In 2003, a series of miraculous events culminated in creating access to teaching materials and finances for six young leaders in the Ukrainian church to go to the Assemblies of God seminary in Kiev, Ukraine.  Also, the connection with Africa began in 2003.  An African Bishop, James Peter Onguko, was in Ohio when he found out about BIU.  Bishop Onguko’s churches are part of Africa for Christ Evangelical Association (AFCEA).  The Bishop decided that this week long intensive Bible teaching was exactly what the churches in the Western Province of Kenya also needed.  The Board of BIU began to pray, and in the late summer of 2004, the first trip to Kakamega, Kenya occurred.  The team once again taught a week-long Bible school and provided literature.  The programs continue to make an impact on area churches.

As the men from the US were teaching, they saw first-hand the evidence of the desperate AIDS crisis in Africa.  The Americans soon met Charles Okwemba, a man of faith with a big heart.  God had plucked him out of a well paying job in Nairobi and given him compassion for the orphans of the rural area around Kakamega.  Charles picked 80 orphans to begin supporting.  He cares for them spiritually, emotionally, and physically, by ensuring that they get enough food and material supplies for school.  Supporting Charles’ ministry, Alpha Support Development Program, quickly became a large and rewarding part of the work BIU was doing in Kakamega. 

In 2006 the BIU changed its name to Global Assistance Partners, describing the growing ministry more fully.  Work in the Ukraine continues, but the work in Kakamega has expanded and the fruit of a continual investment of prayer and support is now visible.

2007 proved to be a year of new horizons.  GAP’s establishment as a charitable organization was completed, and new projects were begun.  Seeds were planted for the vision of portable Bible schools in both Ukraine and Kenya to further impact people through in-depth Biblical instruction and pastoral training.  There is a strong hope to build a boarding school for Kenyan children where there would be less stigma for the AIDS orphans.  We would also like to facilitate a mobile medical clinic that would come to those Kenyans who could not afford to travel for AIDS and malaria medicine.