Dr. Leoanto Mohamad is an international Christian speaker dedicated to equipping young people and developing future leaders for service. His ministry emphasizes leadership development, youth empowerment, missions, and training for emerging pastors and ministers.

He has organized numerous conferences and training events across Southeast Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, working in countries like Cambodia, the Philippines, Malaysia, India, and Nepal.

As the founder of All Nations EQUIPPING Network, Dr. Mohamad collaborates with churches and ministries to mentor and train young leaders. His vision is to inspire courageous and faith-filled individuals who will serve their communities and spread the message of Jesus Christ. Through various programs, he fosters strong relationships among churches and ministries across Asia and beyond.

Hi, I'm Angel.

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Praise God for you, Dr. Melanto.

It's such a great pleasure to connect with you.

For those listening, what part of the world are you in?

So I'm in Southeast Asia, country specific is Cambodia.

Location, capital, Phnom Penh.

It's an honor.

You're the first person who's in Cambodia that we've spoken to.

So that's an honor for us.

That's a big celebration on this side of the mic.

I appreciate you passing by.

I'd love to know how did you come to meet Jesus?

When I was like pretty much young, about 19 years, I was trying to like find my way and I was in construction.

The building was above five feet.

And so I slipped off the building because I was on the side of the building.

Slipped off and I was falling.

I remember I was just trying to tell Jesus, well, you know, I was saying, God, we're not Jesus.

Well, you know, I was like, not really a Christian.

And I was trying with some steel there, you know, to what it like bore in my stomach.

And I was like, I don't want to fall in the sea.

Let me fall in the rock.

And for some reason I did not fall.

I felt like an angel was just trying to lift me up back to where I was.

Right there was like a, it's like a Damascus with Paul and my eyes began to open.

At that moment I received Jesus, you know, that same exact moment.

It was like about six, seven at night.

And I give my heart right there.

Tell me about your ministry.

Let's see if it connects what happened to you initially and the type of ministry you're involved in.

In fact, I think it's because of rejection that brought me to Asia.

What happened is that I felt the Lord called me and because of my, some of my theology and some of how I operate different mindset of like a CEO operating ministry, different people, I think people reject me.

When I was very young, like 23, I was in a Bible school for almost five years, you know, talking to the teachers and the students, they were like, this guy crazy.

You know, I spent a lot of time in fasting and praying and people was thinking like, this guy like was crazy.

And, you know, I was talking, was like, Hey, look, I want to go to a place like Brazil.

I want to go to Venezuela.

I want to go around the world.

I want to go to India.

And, and, and there was like, you know, I buy the school and we not working, we have any finance.

And it was like, this guy, the crazy, because most of my teacher have never went in such a, you know, a fast state.

And so, and so I felt the rejection from them.

And so I was like, what happened?

I, because I started to get small levitation away from where I was born, away from where I grew up.

And so originally from the Caribbean.

And so people normally invite me.

And so when I go out normally and, and, and ministry, people was like, I see people like receiving me differently from where I was, you know, Jesus say, you know, prophet is, you know, we ain't get no, it's in his hometown.

And so that's what make I start and begin to stretch my wings.

Rejection is really saying as look, you are not elevated because you're stuck in one place.

The rejection is not like catapult you to grow, you know, greater things is that rejection is a very good thing.

You know, it's, it's a place, a promotion.

Yeah.

Where was the first place you traveled to out of Ghana?

Venezuela, Venezuela, Brazil.

So this is playing, or are you connecting on land to Venezuela?

At those times I was very young.

So we had a lot of money to play in.

So we take a bus.

It's a long drive, long drive.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a very long drive.

So that is part of the connection right there in terms of being able to go far for the ministry right there.

You've seen that echo throughout your entire ministry as a connection point, is it correct?

Definitely correct.

Definitely correct.

It's amazing how God does that, right?

Like sets it up in the beginning and let you know, well, all right.

So you do, you're doing this here.

Let's, let's bring in multiplication now.

And now you're on the other side of the world.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So tell me about family life or are you a single person out there still?

No, no, no.

I have been married about 10 years now.

My wife is Cambodian and my kids are mixed really.

My wife is like, she's like local Cambodian, local Chinese.

I have a lot of ethnicity in Cambodia, but she's Chinese.

So yeah, we've been married.

She's an accountant by trade.

She would normally calculate how much trips.

Tell me, well, this is going to cost so, this is going to, I'm more kind of person like, you know, God is going to open doors, but she more like, she's an accountant.

She think like an accountant, but from here to here, he can get you so much from here to here, you know.

I'm a kind of spontaneous kind of person.

She more kind of analytical with books.

So how did you meet?

That piques my curiosity, meeting someone on the next side of the world.

It's almost a very romantic story, isn't it?

I don't know if it's, if it's so much romantic, but I felt God wanted me in Cambodia.

And I was like, you know, I was like, like Jonah.

I was like, Hey, it's not like the disobedient, but it's like, you know, Cambodia, it's not like, you know, you know, when we were young, we want to go to a more richer country.

It's like, how would you say everybody grew up on,

you know, you want to do great things and you want to get a good job and you want to go to,

you know, you want to, even if you want to do a ministry, you want to get a larger church or,

you know, success in the eyes of the world is like, you know, more, you know, big, large,

but then when you send me to Cambodia, it's like, there is few Christians, not a lot of Christians,

people, Christianity is not here, it's more Buddhism.

And so there is no, you know, there's no like in terms of finance.

And so I saw it.

And so I did not want her to come.

And so God had to really discipline me.

It's just like Jonah, I lost, like, for example, I just want to share something.

It said in the book, in the story of Jonah, that the ship that Jonah was on, people focus on the whale and the disobedient, but the Bible said that, that the man was trying to row the boat and while rowing, they could not have a move, they could not have a breakthrough.

They're pushing a lot of effort, but what?

They're not mobilized, they're stopped.

And so they did not know is because, they did not know the cause of it.

And so they thought they did effort, it needs strength, but was something behind it, right?

And so most people fight the battles and say, you know, I was thinking, you know, because the world think you want a big house, you want to, you know, you want to do great things.

We don't want to go Cambodia.

I don't want to come Cambodia.

It's no finance here.

And so, you know, you know, we want to look at it in a human perspective.

And so these guys in the boat, you know, they're trying to row and they can't move this stuff, but they didn't, they didn't know the Bible said it, it was God allowed the tempest to hold it up, not because of them, but because of this CEO Jonah.

And I call him CEO because he's doing, he's a CEO.

He's supposed to go and represent God and do God business, disobey, but he was very silent about it, did not explain it.

And so his silence affect people.

And so, and so most people, sometimes when God send people certain ways, because of the silence and they stay quiet about it, even like a CEO, when he stay quiet, it affects the company because he don't tell people, but do this, do this, people trying to figure it out.

And so there's problem.

And so just like in the boat, they're finding that they can't move their stuff.

They can't mobilize.

And so effort is good, but effort can't really work.

So because God has those on the thing.

And so it might be disobedient, you know, trying to look for wealth and prosperity, show the family, show the friends.

It did affect me.

And, you know, it did affect me.

So the point with Jonah is that it said a whale had to vomit Jonah.

So the vomit is a very bad word.

It's very negative.

It's very dirty.

And so God has to really humble him, you know, humble him.

And people don't understand that, you know, people just think the whale swallowed him.

He had to go through the small intestine.

I, people came that, you know, most scholars said that he was, he died because he had to travel through the small intestine and go through the intestine.

And, and, you know, all of these parts of the fish, but then he made meat in the belly.

He, he can't breathe.

How are we going to breathe?

And so people said that, you know, he died.

Well, the scripture said, though, just like Jonah, two days, two nights and two days in the fish bellies, Jesus Christ would be resurrected.

So, you know, Jesus died.

So people claim that.

So if somebody want to take that kind of, you know, view, it's okay.

And so God had to, you know, humble him.

So when I came back, it's that God, you know, he, he find wife, he find things to me.

And if I think he find the right person for me, I think if, if he finds somebody else, I will get myself in trouble.

Right.

I do think so.

Right.

You have to get a, not only a wife, somebody can speak English, speak English very well and could understand that.

And want to understand that as well.

Yeah.

Because love is, love has to be the bridge that carries that distance, because I mean, it's not like, so could you speak any foreign language at this point?

No, I can't just have to say it.

You can say the hellos and the thank yous if you need it too.

Right.

So yes, I can say the thank you.

You know, thank you in Cambodian is akon, you know, akon.

That's amazing.

What I love about this story is when you're falling and you say, let me fall on the rock.

Yeah.

It's a powerful statement right there, isn't it?

Because Jesus is the rocker.

Hey, I didn't think about that.

It's very powerful.

Yeah.

Hmm.

All right.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you're leaving for future Dr. Lenato?

I can use the old phrase that one of my pastor, one of my leader, very nice guy.

He died now.

He always says, keep humble at all times.

In any position you are, try to be as humble as you can be.

I'm not a sense of the humbleness where you say, oh, I'm humble.

I'm poor.

I didn't mean it like that.

I mean, it's like, you know, attitude in any way, David, there's a, I like there's a scripture where David said, he said, when David meet any places, he presented himself very well.

He acted very well.

And so in that, that, that, that sort of state, you know, keep humble.

Stay humble.

God is going to do things.

That's a pleasure.

I treasure.

Thank you for being on what is inspired by 12 minutes.