trip-to-ekpin-2

We have been praying for the parents of one of our sisters named Susana in the church for a year now. She spoke much about the desire to have some of us go with her to her native village to evangelize her parents, brother, and the inhabitants of the village in general. All the people in the village consider themselves to be Muslims, though Islam that they practice is a folk Islam. It means that Islamic rules are not observed strictly yet traditionally people do follow certain Muslim prescriptions. The parents and relatives of Susana had been calling her prior to the trip saying that they did not want to see anyone who would share the Gospel with them. Christ is considered to be a Russian God by most of Kazakhs. Thankfully our group was comprised of Kazakh believers alone and nobody could say that Russians came to impose their belief on Kazakhs.

A group of 4 from our church went to that remote village in Eastern Kazakhstan in November 2018. It took 19 hours on a train and 6 hours on a taxi to arrive. The population of the village is around 6000 people. The time on the road was longer than what they could spend in the village. 

Our brothers and sisters were able to evangelize Susana’s parents and some of her relatives. The trip wasn’t glamorous but definitely great. Our guys loved the opportunity to go and share Christ with those who don’t know/accept Him. They became closer with the people with whom they shared the Gospel. They were not welcomed in the village as great messengers of good news, but still, they were hosted. Some of the relatives purposefully didn’t come out of their room in order not to get engaged in the conversations on the Gospel. Yet, when one of our brothers bought a cake and called everybody to come and have tea with cake together, some of the most antagonistic relatives showed up.

Our group left the village early in the morning when it was still dark and surprisingly Susana’s parents went to see them off. We plan to send the same group to them again in summer, 2019.

Please join us in prayer for the salvation of Susana’s parents, relatives, and neighbors in the village of Eastern Kazakhstan and that Susana continues communication with them. We pray that God would not let the inhabitants of the village die in their sins. Also please pray for Susana since it’s very hard for her to stay loving and caring while seeing such a negative attitude from her relatives’ side. May Christ’s name be glorified!

Sincerely, Dan