Russia (MNN) — A car packed with explosives went off in a busy market in Vladikavkaz on Thursday killing more than a dozen and injuring more than 100–10 of those critically.
The attack was located in the Northern Caucuses, which is a troubled region of southern Russia. It's close to the city of Beslan where terrorists killed more than 300 people on the first day of school six years ago almost to the day.
Sergey Rakhuba with
Russian Ministries says his ministry has been working in the region for years. He says this marketplace has seen three explosions in the last seven years. Stability is now a question mark in the region. "It has turned the entire region into a panic. Lots of young people are calling for revenge. They say, 'We have to go back to Chechnya or Ingushetia and start killing their people."
Rakhuba is praising God that none of their people were injured in the suicide bombing attack. Area director Gennady Terkun told Rakhuba, "It's not going to stop us anywhere because we like to show that we are the Next Generation Peacemakers. We would like our people to go back and reach out to their families, bring them comfort, bring them humanitarian aid, and bring them peace not just through words, but through our actions."
Russian Ministries School Without Walls program is key to seeing this kind of response. Rakhuba says, "I call this a turbulent area, but Gennady says all this unrest creates for us an opportunity to share the Gospel more actively reaching out."
Rakhuba says area churches will be getting involved in outreach. "They will be calling a special prayer meeting. They will be mobilizing church members to provide comfort, especially to the [victims'] families [and] visiting people in the hospital."
Rakhuba says the young church leaders wouldn't be responding this way had they not gone through the School Without Walls program (SWW). That's why Russian Ministries needs your support. "It's a non-formal, very flexible approach to train Next Generation leaders, and we call them Next Generation Peacemakers. These young people who see what happened, based on that [training], say, 'We need to get them the Gospel. Although they want to reach us with death, we reach back to them with the Gospel of peace and hope."
It costs just $40 a month, or $480 for the year, to support a Next Generation Peacemaker in the SWW program. Your support today can ensure a similar response to tragedy in the future.
If you'd like to help Russian Ministries' School Without Walls ministry, click here.
