BELARUS and elsewhere September 2004
Belarus is one of the poorest and most repressed countries of
Eastern Europe. There are frequent news items about the repression of
Protestant groups there. To quote from one of many:
“Belarus' repressive new religion law enters into legal force this coming
Saturday (16 November), Keston News Service has learnt. From that date all
unregistered religious activity by organised groups will be illegal; all
communities with fewer than 20 members will become illegal and will not be
able to function; any religious activity in private homes - apart from
occasional, small scale meetings - will be illegal; religious communities
that do not have a registered umbrella body will no longer be able to
invite foreign citizens for religious work or run any religious teaching
establishments; and all religious literature will be subject to compulsory
prior censorship before it can be imported or distributed”.
Source: http://www.worthynews.com/christian-persecution/features/belarus-
religion-law.html
Despite these problems, the Truth continues to grow here. A recent
visit was made by two of our brethren, resulting in a total of 6 baptisms.
We began with the baptism of the husband of our sister Nina, who lives in
a remote farmstead in a rapidly depopulating village. They have one
treasured cow, and are now storing their harvest of potatoes to eat
throughout the Winter. You can see from the following photo how
malnourished is our new brother VLADIMIR. We were further able to
interview and baptize a friend of sis Nina’s daughter, IRINA. Both these
baptisms were performed in the open air, in very cold water!
Photo: Bro. Vladimir’s baptism
Photo: Bro. Vladimir with his cow, outside their poorly constructed
home
Next stop was the home village of one of our Belarussian brethren
currently working in another Eastern European country. The drastic
economic situation in Belarus is scarcely believable- pensions and wages
are around $30 / month. It was a pure pleasure to interview and baptize
GALINA, who was well versed in both Scripture and Bible Basics, and who
had been waiting some time for baptism.
Our last stop was Baranovichi, a town where there have been several
arrests of Protestant Christians for holding meetings in their homes. Our
sister Larisa lives here in great poverty along with her two young
children. Along with many people in Belarus, she suffers from the results
of radiation from the Chernobyl disaster, and the presence of so much
radioactivity still in the ecosystem. She has been prescribed medicines for
her radioactivity-related thyroid problem which cost around $150 / month.
This is totally out of her reach. We gave her some funds and undertook to
try to obtain and mail the drugs to her. She asks for your prayers, as her
youngest son is also sick with the same thyroid problem. To quote from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/medical_notes/461921.stm :
“Radiation can also cause little understood changes to the body's genes,
which can be manifested through the development of diseases such as cancer
later in life, and possibly as birth defects in future generations… It is
now widely accepted that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster has led to a
massive increase in thyroid cancers in the three countries most affected …
Belarus has shown a 100-fold increase, from 0.3 per million in 1981-85 to
30.6 per million in 1991-94. Unicef has noted significant increases in
many types of health disorders in Belarus since the disaster. For example,
problems of the nervous and sensory organs have increased by 43%;
disorders of the digestive organs by 28%; and disorders of bone, muscle
and the connective tissue system have increased by 62%.” The reality for the brotherhood is that there some of our brethren and
sisters have died as a result of the disaster, and others like sister
Larisa are now seriously ill, along with their children. Please do pray
for them! These tragedies occur and are often ‘forgotten’ as the news
media brings others to our attention. But our brethren and sisters and
their children continue to suffer and die. However, our sister preaches very bravely- despite the risk of
persecution- and it was a pleasure to witness the baptisms of her sister
IRINA and two of her nephews, KIRILL and MAXIM. We ask for your prayers for them all, both spiritually and
physically.
TUNISIA
You may recall announcements regarding our brother K in this North
African moslem country. He is still facing persecution, and asks for our
prayers:
dear br.!
this is me br. k. from north africa. I can't use my old e-mail no more!
cause my family don't trust me and she had now the password of my old
e-mail! moreover my father took my mobile phone away! for that I lose
all contact ........ and for this reason I took all time possible to
convince them that I was stopped but despite this time I studie (ed)
'the bible basic's'
in the last year i trayed to improve my english language and I wish that
i was succeeded. and it 's so possible that I will travel to Russia
after 10 month in (July) for studing there; for that I begin(ed) to
studied the russsian language. and I can't wait this day's
NB: my family denied to me the access to use the internet for this
reason maybe I'll take a time before answering your nest e-mail!
PAKISTAN
We’ve had some news from Steve, Stephanie and Liz who are currently on an
exciting trip there. Bro. Steve wrote briefly:
“Yesterday we had the pleasure of interviewing and baptising four members
of the one
family - a man and wife, and their two daughters.They are Iranian
refugees living in
Pakistan and had first met Iranian Christadelphians (also refugees)
through the
internet, and then had further discussions with a local Pakistani brother
before asking
to be baptised.
It was really exciting for all of us to participate in this, and is just
one more example of
the amazing way God is working here.
With love in our Lord,
Steve”
Our new sister Azita wrote:
“dear brother
We are baptized!On 24 September we met brother Steve,his wife Stephane
and sister Liz.we are so happy to meet them.On 25 we were baptismed and
tonight we were all together breaking-bread.We thank you for helping us in
meeting them,and We are so happy to be baptism by them. God bless you.
Azita”
The Iranian refugee brother who did so much to teach them over the
internet wrote from where he is hiding out at the moment:
“Dearest brother
i was aware about the news and if i didn't tell you i though that you
know it already , you can't imagine how i'm happy about Azita and her
family who joinded us as our true family! hope that God help them for the
other things as well , i'm so glad that the times that i spent on net
preaching had some fruits as well ! i'm so happy that liz and stive and
his wife are with them
lots of love and regard to you
your brother
N”
We see here how the world-wide network of our fellowship in the Lord
comes together to make increase of the body, edifying itself in love- just
as Paul said. We simply give thanks, confident from such wonderful
experiences that the Lord is surely working with us.