Belarus (MNN)–Global Aid Network, or GAiN USA’s Tim Burns says deadlines are drawing near for their Kazakhstan and Belarus trips.
Despite scattered reports of harassment, Burns says they go in to support partners already on the ground. “They are the ones that set up the contacts with the orphanages and they’re the ones that set up the contacts with the different schools that we’re able to go in and minister to.”
During February 2006 Global Aid Network sent out its first Kazakhstan mission team to the mountain-surrounded city of Almaty.
Burns says their work often plays an instrumental role in future evangelistic work. “That helps them, of course, with their ongoing ministry because they just got a shot in the arm of humanitarian aid and people to come along and support them. It helps them in the eyes of their community.”
This was proven true in the 2006 Kazakhstan trip. The outreach went smoothly, and because they learned of many more opportunities and received numerous requests for further assistance, another team is being organized to go to Kazakhstan from February 3-17, 2007.
Burns says they are looking for people to be a part of these trips to both Kazakhstan and Belarus. In Belarus, it’s a different story.
Belarus’ history with Chernobyl paints a bleak backdrop, but Global Aid Network was among the first Western ministries to travel into Belarus after the fall of communism in the early 1990s.
The teams continuously address the physical and spiritual needs that still exist there and continue to see many lives transformed by Jesus Christ.
But, warns Burns, they will be very ‘hands-on’. It’s a challenge he’s hoping someone takes him up on. “People are handing out the gifts to these kids. We’re taking things into these facilities. We’re personally sharing the Gospel with everybody that we come into contact with, every site that we go into.”
