“Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest.” Matthew 9:37-38.
Imagine your life as it is right now. Your house, job, family, friends, routines, favorite foods, familiar roads, your language, your culture, your religion. And now, imagine in the midst of your season, picking up and leaving it all – and going to a place where nothing was the same.
What you just imagined is the story of Bagdan. A native Ukrainian, he moved as a single adult to a town in the middle of nowhere – a small Kyrgyz village where he knew literally no one. That was five years ago. Today, Bagdan is married (to a beautiful Ukrainian woman who he met in the village!), has two precious daughters, works doing some basic engineering, is basically singlehandedly renovating a house and property for his family to live at, and is pursuing opportunities to reach out to his neighbors and local children.
This month, our team got the privilege of meeting Bagdan. We traveled to the mountain village outside of Jalalabad, Kyrgyzstan to visit and help out him and his family in any way that we could.
As soon as we arrived, you could feel all the Love. The few days we spent there were super impactful for us, and it was a huge blessing to get to encourage, work alongside of, and simply share life with this family. Bagdan was constantly covering our days and conversations in prayer, and asking us to do the same. He was eager for us to come back, wanted us to stay longer, and was the most grateful for our visit. But more so than even that, he was always encouraging us to remember to pray for him, his family and their village.
Even though we were only there for a few days, it was hard to leave. I knew that God would provide for, strengthen and love this family even better than we ever could. But as much as I could empathize with them being in the hard place, I couldn’t imagine being in their situation – the only Christians in town, distanced from home, without seeing much ‘fruit’ from their time. I felt a deep weight to how many individuals and families are around the world, just like Bagdan and his family, in places foreign to them, alone with God, prayerfully laboring the harvest in front of them.
While Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, it wasn’t often that He told them what to pray. There’s a reason Jesus told us to pray for laborers and the harvest. It is because the harvest is ripe for the reaping. Praying for the laborers to be sent into the harvest opens our eyes to where the harvest is (the nations!) and who the laborers are (us!). The harvest is plentiful, and it’s ready.
I would love for you to add this family that is near and dear to my and my team’s heart to your prayer list.
Pray for:
- Bagdan, Lyuba, and their daughters Esther and Naomi to be rooted in faith, to invest in the ministry that is their family, and to be examples of unconditional love
- Bagdan to have clarity, confidence, and hope in the call of his ministry and future plans
- Christian laborers to join Bagdan and his family in his village in both short-term and long-term time periods
- The villages and peoples of Kyrgyzstan to be reached with the Gospel
“I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”
-C.S. Lewis
