Chechnya (MNN) — Islamic
militants stormed the Chechen Parliament Tuesday in a deadly attack that
defied Russia's claims it had stabilized the volatile region.
Chechnya's Moscow-backed
president Ramzan Kadyrov tried to downplay the seriousness of the situation,
but his assurances did nothing to soothe rattled nerves. President of Russian Ministries Sergey Rakhuba says,
"Every day you see some kind of activity on behalf of the underground
insurgency that is still fighting for an independent Chechnya."
Joel
Griffith with Slavic Gospel Association agrees. The intensity of the
insurgency has been disruptive to their work. "SGA is not directly involved in
Chechnya. There was a small Baptist church in Grozny, but that's really pretty
much non-existent right now. Any believers in Chechnya tend to operate fairly
underground."
Russian Ministries is concerned
because the disturbance hit close to home. "In July, we had lots of activity
there in Chechnya, in Grozny, offering summer camps to the kids that live
there in the midst of that war."
With the volatility of the
region, supporting outreach arms can be
difficult, if not deadly. Both Russian
Ministries and SGA have turned their sights outward. Griffith says, "SGA does have church
planters in neighboring regions to Chechnya. It's fairly heavily Muslim
dominated, so Christian ministry has to be conducted fairly discretely."
Russian Ministries had a group of
young Christian leaders from their School Without Walls program in Karbardino-Balkaria
travel to Mahachkala, the capital city of Dagestan, to help the evangelical
church with its first-ever evangelistic summer camp.
If there is a chance for peace at
all, it will come from the Next Generation of peacemakers who are bringing the
Gospel to this region. It's a different
message from the one the youth are used to hearing. "It's sharing love with them instead
of bringing revenge," Rakhuba
says. He adds, "They're reaching out
to children through summer camps, and I believe that our effort will bring the
wonderful truth because this young next generation peacemakers, they do it in
the name of Christ, bringing them hope."
Residents of Mahachkala, a primarily-Muslim city, watched church members and the School Without Walls students
carefully and asked a lot of questions about who they were and what they were
doing.
The community witnessed Jesus'
love in action as children in the community happily participated in a week of
summer camp. It's a big step toward the
reconciliation of a war-torn people. Rakhuba urges: "Consider supporting this effort training Next Generation leaders who will take
His eternal faithfulness and continue reaching people in those difficult and
dangerous places."
Keep praying. It's a challenge to be effective in these
areas. Griffith says, "The churches
there are basically trying to lift up the love of Christ and proclaim the peace
and reconciliation of Christ amid all that violence. We just really need to
intercede for them that not only would they be protected from the violence, but
that the Lord would open people's hearts to the Gospel."
Click here for details on how you can get involved with Russian Ministries and
with Slavic Gospel Association.
