Who We Are

Alan Cutting, our Regional Manager for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, recently traveled to Kyrgyzstan. Read his update on the HOPE project that's being operated by local partners in conjunction with the local church. 

It was drizzling as we splashed and bumped over the potholes into town.  Visibility was down to a murky 100 metres or so.  This is a “Russian town”, which during the Soviet era used to ply its trade in the mining industry.  After twenty years of post-Soviet non-activity most of the Russians have left. 

But with some recent hints of investment from the Chinese and Canadians, I was told that the town is at least trying to resurrect its flint-stone industry.  However, in several visits here, I have yet to see any evidence of industrial restoration.  

Luba is the pastor’s wife.  Luba has been the main activist behind the Samaritan’s Purse HOPE envisioning process in the town. Luba once told me, “My vision used to be for a bigger church.  Now it’s for a better community.”  

Luba outlined how social services operate around here, minimally, randomly and on a virtually zero budget.  She shared about their own community based projects,  that provide rehabilitation, housing and simple employment opportunities for women recovering from alcohol and drug dependency. They share the gospel with boldness, but never in isolation.  Their witness is always accompanied by acts of kindness, such as helping the town council celebrate their anniversary with a street cleaning programme, or honouring surviving widows from the Great Patriotic War with a party.

Luba explained how the draconian religious laws work around here, and their potentially restricting impact on churches and Christian NGOs. “The religious restrictions actually helped a lot of churches in some ways, as they had to think up new ways of reaching their communities.”

We talked around the challenges of working in harmony with other churches in the area.  Despite some amazing stories of churches uniting in other towns, unity remains a challenge in this town.

“The HOPE process has brought structure, training and discipline to our services.  We still need to work on developing our capacity and reducing dependence.”

Overwhelmed at first by the interest shown by guests who had travelled so far to learn from them, other committee members began to join in the conversation.  The Belarusians’ kindness and genuine interest drew them out of their shells, and encouraged them to tell their stories and circumstances.   

We asked them about motivation.  “Why do you do this work, and what do you need in order to do it?”  “For this work you need more than desire.  You need calling, or you’ll get weary and won’t get through the discouragements” they firmly told us. 

 

We asked them where they go from here.  Luba replied.  “What we want now is stability and sustainability.  We’re just at the very beginning, and we need a lot more training, on proposal writing, project management, poverty issues, how to resist corruption etc.  But we’ve made a good start, and the local authorities like us.  They recently accepted our application for land ownership for our church building, although they turned down another church’s application.  The reason for this was purely our reputation as servants of our community.”