Death, devastation and suffering are as plentiful as dirt.
Hope is a scarce and precious commodity.
That is how a three-man team of Southern Baptist mission workers
describe life in and around Chechnya, the republic in the Caucasus region south
of Russia. Thousands of persons have died and untold thousands have fled their
homes after Chechen rebels waged an unsuccessful war for independence from Russia.
Death, devastation and suffering are as plentiful as dirt.
Hope is a scarce and precious commodity.
That is how a three-man team of Southern Baptist mission workers
describe life in and around Chechnya, the republic in the Caucasus region south
of Russia. Thousands of persons have died and untold thousands have fled their
homes after Chechen rebels waged an unsuccessful war for independence from Russia.
Now, Southern Baptists will give more than $120,000 in relief
aid to help Russian Baptists and local authorities provide food, clothing, shelter
and rehabilitation for refugees who have flooded out of Chechnya.
Missionaries Mark Edworthy and Richard Bell recently traveled
with Southern Baptist International Mission Board human needs consultant Jim
Brown along the outskirts of Chechnya to see wars ugly results.
The team got only as far as Nalchik, some 60 miles from
the Chechen border. But the conflicts effects including waves of
ethnic Russian refugees fleeing attacks in Chechnya even have spilled
across a wide area there. The team visited four cities and about a dozen relief
agencies (such as the Red Cross and orphanages) and spoke to numerous refugees
to gather information.
“The refugees have fled for their lives,” Brown notes.
“Theyve been driven from their homes and seen family members killed
and houses blown up. Theyve been terrorized, brutalized, vandalized, murdered,
kidnapped. Families are still in shock because they havent been out of
Chechnya very long and basically have lost everything. They know theyre
not going back.”
Based on their reports, Southern Baptist missionaries will
launch a series of ministries to respond to the region, where thousands of refugees
eke out a subsistence living in refugee camps, with local families, in abandoned
buildings and huts.
Most of the families consist of mothers and children “living
day-to-day on food packets provided by churches and occasionally other supporting
organizations, Brown reports. “Nothing is consistent or reliable in their
lives. But they are beginning to put trust in Russian pastors as they reach
out in love and kindness.”
Indeed, refugees will find hope as Southern Baptists direct
funds through local Baptist churches in efforts to feed, clothe, house and organize
camps for them and their children, Edworthy adds.
“Each human needs project has a clear strategy for gospel
sharing and church planting,” he points out.
Additional requests expected from city and regional governments
in the area likely will include school and recreational equipment for refugee
children and equipment for handicapped refugees.
Even amid the suffering, the Southern Baptist team reported
it found evidence that God is at work through Russian Baptists in the cities
of Georgievsk and Stavropol. More than 200 refugees gather at one weekly service
in Georgievsk; 30 more meet in Stavropol, where a Russian church planter is
working.
“I was an atheist but now I have heard from Gods
Word that I can have hope in Jesus Christ,” a middle-aged refugee woman
told team members as they visited in one community Bible study.
Russian Baptist pastors told team members that many people
in the region are thirsty for spiritual understanding. One pastor told them
his churchs telephone service offers a five-minute Bible message
and gets about 1,000 calls every day.
Many relief workers also have found faith in Christ as well,
despite serving in depressing circumstances, observers report. “The Word
of God is alive to me,” one Red Cross worker told Southern Baptist team
members. “I was an atheist and now I believe,” another said.
But the sheer volume of refugees and other factors will call
for massive amounts of help for years to come, workers note.
In 1995, about one-half million ethnic Russians lived in Chechnya.
After the wars in which the Russian Army participated, the estimated number
has fallen to fewer than 30,000. “Every Russian we interviewed stated clearly
that he did not plan to return to his former home,” Edworthy notes.
“We are full of refugees. We cannot see the end of this
bad situation,” a Russian city official told the Baptist team members.
Another official said local schools have been forced to hold classes in shifts
because of the many refugee children now attending.
“Refugees are castaways with no rights and no documentation,”
one mayor told the team, reflecting the tense situation that exists across the
region because of the human influx. Another city official estimated some 300
children orphaned by the war now live in his area; many thousands more struggle
to survive across the region.
A byproduct of the teams meetings with city and state
officials was heightened credibility for Russian Baptists in the area.
“Such meetings help raise the public awareness and opinion
of Baptists who are often categorized with cults and sects operating
in Central and Eastern Europe,” Edworthy says. “The meetings also
gave Baptists the chance to hear government officials requests and to
share concrete plans to alleviate the pain of the refugees.”
The team called on Southern Baptists to pray that more workers
and resources will be found and that God will start a church-planting movement
to make the gospel accessible to thousands in the region.
Contributions to assist with the refugee relief effort may
be sent to the International Mission Board, Hunger and Relief Fund – Chechen
Refugee Relief, P.O. Box 6767, Richmond, VA 23230.
(To listen to an audio report on the Chechen refugee situation
from human needs consultant Jim Brown, persons may go to http://www.imb.org/frontpage.htm)