Slava Abdulinin speaks at a student gathering
Home > Meet the Missionaries > Newsletters > Heise > November 2007
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Slava Abdulinin speaks at a student gathering
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He was at a loss as to what could be done. All he knew was that this leg infection looked serious and everything he had tried had failed. Now this Christian group wanted to pray for him. Well, what harm could it do? His magic incantations had let him down, so he was open to new sources of power. Maybe, just maybe, there was some kind of power in this Jesus of whom they spoke.
That was five years ago. A lifetime ago in Slava Abdulinin’s reckoning. He has gone a good 360 degree change since those days when he was a high school teacher in the city of Birsk, located in the central Russian republic of Bashkortostan, a republic which is home to 4 million people of various ethnic backgrounds. A member of the Mari people group, Slava grew up in the traditions of this culture and that included the worship of trees. To this day, the stately forests of central Russia betray an orderliness that is intentional upon the part of the inhabitants who revere their “sacred groves.” But that crisis five years ago brought Slava to a decisive point in his life. Nothing from his past could save him, even the pagan rituals his grandmother had taught him and which he knew so well. He was left hoping for a miracle, and that is what God gave him. Because after their prayer for him, the God of these Christians healed him. Slava began to look into their Bible and through the power of the Holy Spirit became a believer in the living God. A few years later he went to the seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Ingria near St. Petersburg. Now he is studying to be a pastor to his people, a people whose fears and hopes he has personally experienced. He wants to share with them the hope he has found in Jesus Christ. Even though the work has proved difficult among a stubborn pagan people and the ever-present plague of alcoholism, Slava perseveres because he has found truth, the truth that Jesus is the living Son of God.
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Evening activities with the kids in Akudibash
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Under the auspices and support of the Missionary Committee of the Ingrian Lutheran Church as well as support from the LCMS, one of my students, Edward Juronen, and several of his friends set off on a missionary journey this summer that seemed to parallel accounts from the Book of Acts. They teamed up with several youth in Slava Abdulinin’s congregation and went deep into the heart of Bashkortostan. For Edward, this was part of the practical evangelism that is expected of students during the summer months when the seminary is out of session. But as he gathered his group and they overnighted at my apartment in Moscow, it was obvious that this journey was far more than a requirement--- it was a labor of love. The first visit was to a village about 15 km from Slava’s hometown of Birsk, a Muslim village called Akudibash. Although the inhabitants are Muslims, there is no mosque and one senses that Islam is more a reflection of culture rather than religious faith. Nonetheless, our group asked permission to spend time and work with the village kids, making clear that they were Christians from the Lutheran Church. Even though they were not allowed to conduct evangelical activities in the local school, most parents were happy that their kids were occupied with something worthwhile during the summer. There was one exception. One mother angrily came to the place outdoors where the kids and our youth had gathered and removed her children.
Acts 11:1, 18--- “The apostles and the believers throughout Judea heard that people who were not Jewish had accepted God’s Word. … When the others heard this, they had no further objections. They praised God by saying, “Then God has also led people who are not Jewish to turn to Him so that they can change the way they think and act and have eternal life.”
Edward and his group were also in for another surprise as they began to talk to the kids. The mystified looks on their faces as they began to address the kids made it clear that they couldn’t understand a word. They spoke only Bashkir, a Turkic language that is a long ways from Russian. Fortunately Sasha, a Christian from Udmurtia in north central Russia, knew the language and was able to interpret. But it was a bit of a shock for our group to realize that here in the middle of Russia existed a people group whose kids spoke and studied exclusively in a Turkic language. Nonetheless, they spent three days with the kids, doing fun activities and presenting Bible stories, including teaching them hymns from the modern blue hymn book put out by the Ingrian Lutheran Church. In the late afternoon, the kids were obliged to go home and help with domestic chores, unusually related to caring for farm animals (Quite frankly, I don’t know how one cares for farm animals. I’m a city boy; those activities are as foreign to me as the Bashkir language!).
The kids would then return at 9 PM (the sun stays up a long time during the Russian summer no matter where you are located in its eleven time zones), bringing with them some of the bread which their families bake each day.
Moving
on, our group of missionaries went through pagan and Muslim villages, interspersed
throughout the Bashkortostan countryside. They had invitations which Slava secured
to do evangelism in a few villages, so they restricted their work to those places.
Passing through the village of Chisma, they came upon the sacred groves that
dot parts of the region near Birsk. (See picture of the little girl in a sacred
grove).
As they journeyed further into Bashkortostan’s interior, they came upon another pagan village called Kuzovo, where the kids did know Russian but knew nothing about the Christian faith. Once again, it was not easy to receive permission to work with the kids, but our group was able to secure the use of the village cultural center. There the kids watched a Christian video, marveling for the first time that they were seeing images on a screen in a theater setting. Previously, they had only seen images like this on television screens. Here our group developed friendships with a people immersed in the native ways of their ancestors. Some secularists probably see Christian mission work as an attempt to destroy the culture of a people, but presenting the Gospel to a people does not separate them from their language or culture although it naturally offers a challenge to their religion. Martin Luther took pains to translate the Bible into the native German of his own people, so that they might discover the glory of God through His Word. As Christians, we have been given a marvelous gift and as Jesus said, it would be strange to put into under a bushel and hide its light from others. All are free to reject the message of the Gospel, but how will they know, St. Paul tells us, if no one preaches to them (Romans 10:14). It is better to share with people, in a culturally sensitive way, so that the Holy Spirit may work through the Word of God. As I said, the trip wasn’t very easy. The last village, a Muslim village called Maloye Sukhoyazovo, saw a group of drunken men accost our missionaries and almost provoke a fight until cooler heads prevailed. They didn’t want them evangelizing in their village and had been known to run other groups out of town. Naturally the local youth in Slava’s congregation are afraid to do this work by themselves, but I admire their courage and Edward has already asked me if we can help support their work in the villages again next summer. How can I refuse? They understand that the mission of the Church is not to hide the Gospel but to share it, especially among those who don’t know Christ. We pray that the seeds planted this summer will grow and that regular visits can be made to the villages in the future.
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E-mail: matveih@yahoo.com
Mailing address - Evangelical Lutheran Ministries; Attn: Matthew Heise, International Post Office, Box 76; 37 Varshavskoye Shosse; 104000 Moscow, RUSSIA
To support my work financially, you July send a tax-deductible gift to: LCMS World Mission, 1333 S. Kirkwood Rd., St. Louis, MO 63122-7295. Make checks payable to LCMS World Mission. Mark checks "Support of Matthew Heise."
If you would like to partner with me in my ministry with ongoing support as an individual or congregation, please contact Debra Feenstra for information on Together in Mission or Mission Senders at 1-800-248-1930 Ext. 1651 or Debra.Feenstra@lcms.org Thank you and God bless you!
Home > Meet the Missionaries > Newsletters > Heise > November 2007