LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Alex Tenenbaum has a heart for the nations, and that calling is shaping both his ministry and his daily life. He serves as an assistant pastor at Forest Baptist Church, a historic African American congregation, where he leads community engagement efforts.
Tenenbaum lives in a refugee community in Louisville, sharing the Gospel with his neighbors and discipling those who are interested.
“I’m probably the only American in a building with 12 units,” he said. “My next-door neighbors are Afghanistan, Cubans, Rwandans. I have a heart to live overseas as a missionary. But God has placed the nations here as well. I’m the minority wherever I am in my church or community.”
Now 33, Tenenbaum is originally from Pittsburgh and came to Louisville to study at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He earned a master’s degree in missiology in 2017 after completing his undergraduate work in Information Technology at Waynesburg University.
His desire to reach the nations has been evident for years. He has studied abroad in Italy for four months and participated in mission trips to Papua New Guinea, Israel and Bosnia. This summer, he plans to travel to Kenya with the church his father attends in Pittsburgh.
“I love seeing God’s heart for the nations,” he said.
That passion has also been expressed through a close friendship that began eight years ago with Prince Ndanyuzwe, who moved to the United States from Burundi with his family. While Burundi and Rwanda share deep historical and cultural ties, their modern paths have diverged in significant ways.
Prince was 15 and had only been in the U.S. about a month when he met Tenenbaum in early 2018. At the time, Tenenbaum was tutoring middle school students and initially found it difficult to connect with him due to the language barrier.
“He didn’t have many friends, and his English was very low,” Tenenbaum said. “He just knew a couple of greetings. It was hard to develop too strong of a friendship. Over the next six months, his English was improving.”
As Prince’s English skills grew, so did their friendship – and Tenenbaum’s ability to disciple him. A turning point came during a drive to the airport, when Prince began asking thoughtful questions about the Bible.
“That’s when I knew I wanted to pour into this guy,” he said.
Their relationship quickly deepened. Tenenbaum tutored Prince several times a week, helped him apply for jobs and even taught him how to drive. He also took Prince and his brother to Pittsburgh for a visit, further strengthening their bond.
“To me, he was a believer when I met him,” Tenenbaum said. “I’m confident of that. His faith is now so far beyond when he met me. He loved the scriptures in the church growing up and was baptized around 13. He is really self-motivated.”
Still, Prince was just 16 at the time and had room to grow spiritually.
“He wasn’t as interested to pray and read scriptures – just in church time,” Tenenbaum said. “It has been really cool. I kept challenging him to develop. We read scriptures together and did Bible studies. Even in Forest (Baptist Church), he’s taught. It’s amazing how far his English has come. He prays a lot more than I do.”
Tenenbaum said it became common for Prince to spend hours at a time in prayer, seeking God’s direction for his life.
In 2021, Tenenbaum learned that Prince’s family had started a church plant but faced challenges, including finding a permanent location and financial support.
“I asked our lead pastor, Nate Bishop, our trustees and deacons if we could help and we ended up hosting their church, which we still do today.”
Meanwhile, Tenenbaum continues to be encouraged by the growth he has seen in Prince’s life and the impact of their relationship. Prince even told an employer that he would leave his job if he did not stop scheduling him to work on Sundays during church.
“God is using him in a lot of ways. There are a lot of things I admire in his life. He really has a heart also for the nations. At his job, he has people from all over the world come to him. He fixes iPhones,” he said. “There are people from China, Taiwan, Hispanic people, Latin America. They would call him pastor at the job, which he didn’t really like. He would share his faith with all of them and then buy Bibles in Chinese and Spanish with his own money and then write Bible plans for them to read. He was really committed.”
As for Tenenbaum, his calling to the nations remains strong, along with a desire to serve overseas one day. For now, he believes God has placed him exactly where he needs to be – in Louisville’s refugee community.
“A lot of people like the huge programs. I like the one-on-one, pouring into them,” he said. “I learned so much to see how people worship God in different practices and cultures. It has opened my eyes up to how other people live.”
This article originally appeared in Kentucky Today.
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