Twenty Years of Ministry

2010-11-30T13:36:00.000-08:00

In twenty years of ministry in the former Soviet Union plus one year in earthquake stricken Haiti I have learned this: "Where there is no KING there is no Kingdom.

The Kiss

2009-01-08T08:22:00.000-08:00

Chronicle of The Orphan Gift Box Project in Tajikistan

2009-01-07T14:16:00.000-08:00

November-December 2008 from Shakhrinov and Khudjand, Tajikistan

The Gift Box was our 2008 Christmas project for orphans and fatherless children in Belarus and Tajikistan. In this project we provide food, clothing, and gifts to children who are fatherless; living with a mother or in orphanages. For Christmas 2008 we targeted children in Belarus through Ratomka Bible Baptist Church and the 297 orphans living at the Shakhrinov orphanage in Tajikistan. In this letter I want to report how we conducted The Gift Box project at the Shakhrinov orphanage.
We first began working at the orphanage after the Tajik Assistant Minister of Education for Construction, Mr. Asherbek Rosulov, asked me to take a trip with him to see the facilities. While there he explained that the orphanage suffers from a lack of running water and bath facilities for the 297 orphans living there. Last year we began to run water to the orphanage. The problem, we learned, is a severe lack of water pressure in all of the city’s water pipes. The city’s water system has deteriorated since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and needs to be completely rebuilt. But the cost of such a project is far beyond the ability of the local government. The orphanage suffers because of this. Their only solution is to carry water from drainage ditches near the orphanage. The water in these ditches is contaminated and unfit for drinking. The children at the orphanage bathe in this water. We are currently planning a major effort in March to fix the problem.

The orphanage is located 45 minutes west of Dushanbe; near the Tajik-Uzbek border. Our ministry has worked in the Shakhrinov province since 2004 when we began evangelizing the village of Turba Kala. We worked in this village from 2004-2005 building a small school and conducting covert Bible studies in the homes of Muslim families who converted to Christianity. Turba Kala is about 15 minutes southwest of the orphanage and the city of Shakhrinov.
Our work with fatherless children in Tajikistan, whether living with a single mom or in an orphanage, is so important to me personally. Every time God allows me to talk to these children I tell them, “I grew up poor in a rich country. My father died when I was a young boy. My mother struggled to raise four children alone. She was unable to afford childcare and we lived on money the government sent us”. This always gets the attention of the older children, single mothers, or orphanage staff. From this I tell a story about how God loves everyone whether they are rich or poor. James 1:9 in the new testament gives us God’s take on material wealth: Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: but the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. The poor orphaned child can be glad riches mean nothing to God; otherwise the poor would be unworthy of His Grace. I tell them, “Only God can afford to raise them because they are so precious to Him”.
Musharafa is the Director of the Shakhrinov Orphanage in Tajikistan. You can tell she is a good person when you meet her. She truly cares about the 297 orphans and 60 staff members who depend on her leadership. We met in November 2008 to discuss my plans for the Gift Box Christmas 2008 project. I had a unique request: Ask every child what they want for Christmas. It came to me to ask this because it is exactly what we, as parents, ask our children. And it is our greatest joy to be able to give our children at least one special gift at Christmas. I wanted to do this for the children at the Shakhrinov orphanage.
Musharafa loved the idea and promised to compile the list. You have to know that this was a big job for her. She would have to depend on her staff to help. So, we agreed in November that as soon as she had the list ready I would return and buy the gifts for each child. We decided to have a special Christmas program to give the children the gifts and prepare a special Christmas meal for all 297 children and 60 staff members. I left her in Shakhrinov and headed north to Khudjand. .
In Khudjand I worked with Mr. Furkhat Aliboev and Ms. Gulchera Hamidova to find fatherless children in villages outside of the city. Tajikistan is the poorest of all 15 former Soviet republics and the degree of poverty you find there is frightening. In Muslim countries widows and divorced mothers are shunned by the community and unless they have an exceptionally wealthy family they will endure great hardships raising their children. Hunger and desperation are common companions for fatherless Tajik children and the widows that struggle to raise them.
The number of orphans and widows in Tajikistan is exceptionally high due to the 8 year civil war that claimed the lives of over 100,000 Tajik men fought from 1991 to 1998. Orphans are generally better off with regards to food, shelter, security, health, and clothing compared to fatherless children living with their widowed or divorced mothers. Even so, they still suffer far greater than average Tajik children/ What could be worse than to live in an orphanage and have no parents or family. The state is too poor to provide them opportunities that all American children take for granted. Unless an orphan child is gifted intellectually, he or she will be simply turned out of the orphanage at the age of 18 to beg for their existence. It is a great problem and many Tajik officials are working very hard to find a solution.
For two weeks we visited the fatherless and widows around Khudjand. They are everywhere! Using the guidelines of our Virtual Orphanage ministry (Developed during the 13 years of our ministry in Belarus) we evaluated each child and family we visited to determine their level of need. Part of the evaluation is to encourage each widow and child about God’s love for them. I always tell them that God helped me find them.
There are 6 criteria we use to evaluate needy children and widows. It is important that the Muslim community understand how we evaluate each case to reduce jealousy and suspicion. As a tool, the evaluation process helps us to be fair in distributing aid that at times is life saving. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for you to enter one of the poorest countries in the world and then decide who will receive food, clothing, or medical assistance? The situation I am describing can be explosive. The poorest people in a Tajik village have no rights. Neighbors barge in as we are talking to see what we are doing. As we move from house to house we are constantly watched and are trailed by small crowds of increasing size throughout the day. News spreads fast that an America is in the village. We are careful to work quickly and not to linger too long and become a target. These are the places where fanatics and extremists thrive.
Locals can become agitated because, after all, everyone in the village is poor relative to the western world. The poorest people in America would be among the wealthiest in Tajikistan. So, a fair system is crucial and our Virtual Orphanage ministry (also called Shelter the Children in some countries) has proven itself as a reliable evaluation method in Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Moldavia, and Tajikistan.
Muslim countries are different from other countries because the society is built around the clan. Families stick together and remain extremely close. As the family tree grows, a clan emerges that can wield great power in the community. Two or three families can dominate an entire province and it is from this that a true Warlord like Ghengis Khan can be born. Today you hear of such men in the war against terrorism. But all Muslim societies breed such powerful figures who can control vast territories, rise to prominent political positions of power, or even become diplomats or world figures. The network of clans form the foundation of society. With regards to our project around Khudjand, this means that Tajik family members are bound to channel me and the aid I bring into their clan. They may know of a family from another clan that is worse off than any family in their own clan but they are honor bound to help their own relatives first. If they can channel our aid into their own clan, even knowing there are much needier widows and fatherless children just down the road, they gain notoriety and power within their own families. This makes it a little more difficult to find the most needy widows and fatherless in the community. But being skillful in the evaluation process can help avoid the corruption that I see most aid organizations fall victim to. The evaluation system we use is virtually foolproof. It is only suitable to mission work because we assess the body and the soul. But it is not desirable for aid organizations because it cannot be delegated to subordinates and must be conducted only by those with pure motives to help the poorest in the community.
We found plenty of needy families to help in December and I hope you will look at the pictures taken during the evaluation process.
After working in Khudjand, I returned to Shakhrinov to execute the Gift Box project plan with Musharafa, her husband Zakir, and the other key staff members at Shakhrinov orphanage. As promised, Musharafa had the list of gifts the children requested. She told me a story about how the staff met with the children to ask what gift they wanted for Christmas.
Neither the staff or the children had ever experienced a project quite like The Gift Box. The orphanage had received boxes of arbitrary gifts for the children and shipments of humanitarian aid. But never before had each child been asked, “What do you want for Christmas?” Musharafa told me, “The orphans did not believe that they would actually get the gift that they requested.” But this time it would be different.
The staff gathered their assigned group of children and asked, “So, tell me what you want for Christmas. You can ask for anything you want as long as the total does not exceed $10.00”. This was such an unusual thing for them and most had no idea what to ask for at first. Believing this a dream too good to be true, the children had a hard time thinking of what to ask for. The orphans are divided into groups or cells of 10-15 children of varying ages from 7-18 years old with one teacher over each group. The younger children were somewhat at a loss and did not know what to do. The older children were more cooperative, however, and began to ask for things like umbrellas, gloves, soccer balls, Etc. The staff members noticed that the younger children tended to ask for the same things that they heard requested by the older children. This repeated itself in each of the 25 groups of orphans. It was easy to consolidate the requests and make a shopping list. If you look at the 200 + photos we have posted online you will see what I am talking about. With this list we purchased gifts for all 297 orphans in one day.
There were no requests for IPODS or Sony Wii. The children asked for things to give them comfort like gloves, hats, umbrellas, Etc. But some children asked for toy cars, dolls, Tetrus (a handheld electronic game), soccer balls, tennis shoes, Etc. It was a great honor for me to be your missionary in this project and to see it all unfold before my eyes. There were five of us buying the gifts. I brought my assistant, Furkhat, from Khudjand to help with the project. Furkhat’s job was to make sure that I was not deceived in any way and to get the best price for all the gifts. He is good at this.
Now I will try to describe what happened when we had the big meal and handed out the gifts. At this point I become saddened knowing I will never do justice in describing that wonderful day. I will try. Oh, if you only could have been there when the children got their gifts, seen the tears, the looks on their faces, and experienced the truest meaning of Christmas. For me it was a great joy to be with the world’s poorest people during the Christmas Holiday season.
Your support for our ministry provided the funds for the gifts and the meals. We received a tremendous gift from Victory Baptist, Vergennes, VT through the kindness of Pastor Tim Taylor. We also received small but important donations of $10, $25, $50, and $100 through our website by online donations.
The orphanage kitchen staff prepared the meal. On this day we gave them fresh fruit and Shashlik (Tajik equivalent of a T-Bone steak). The children had NEVER eaten Shaslik before and watching this unfold brought tears of joy. They devoured the food in about 5 seconds and we began giving out the gifts.
Each child’s name was called as one-by-one they came forward to receive their gift. It was hard to get the pictures because they could not stand still.
And then I was invited to the microphone to speak to the crowd of children and staff. This was that moment that only God, by His Spirit could deliver. Now it was time to give the Gospel message to everyone.
I thanked the staff for their hard work, Furkhat for his diligence, and each child for attending. Then I explained how God gave the greatest gift when He gave His own Son . You could have heard a pin drop. Just as I said it I realized, “They have never heard this before”. I told them my Christian testimony. I was not only allowed to do this in a Muslim orphanage but I was thanked many times afterward. What is impossible to share is how strong God’s presence was at the orphanage that day. Many were praying in America.
I believe that God has a very special place in His heart for fatherless children. Each time God does this I am amazed. The world seems to be such a closed place to the Gospel and Christianity, the opposite is the reality. God is not lacking for places where He will go if only there is a messenger. And I am awed by all who support this work and allow us to be that messenger. It is truly an honor.
How can I thank you for giving prayerfully and financially in support of the Gift Box. You and I are a team and nothing would have happened at the Shakhrinov orphanage on December 13, 2008 had you and I not combined our efforts and acted. As it is written in James 1:27, Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction… Thank you Lord for the ministry of missions.
I realize it will take some time to win many to Christ in this part of the world. For now we continue to plant seed toward that harvest some day.

Chronicles of Rose

Twenty Years of Ministry

The Kiss

Chronicle of The Orphan Gift Box Project in Tajikistan