Salam! Our time in Central Asia wrapped up last week after traveling for one week via bus/freight ship across the Caspian Sea. We are now in Baku, Azerbaijan through the end of the month for our second to last debrief. Time is just flying by!
We took in the sights and sounds of the majestic mountains and rivers of Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan this past month. My stay in Kyrgyzstan was short (stopover to maximize our 30-day visa for Kazakhstan), but we did have the opportunity to help out with a local church summer camp. We even met a team from a church in California that was serving there for the month! It was refreshing to see that despite traveling halfway around the world, we could be “reunited” in Kyrgyzstan of all places as we served the Lord.
Things got really interesting in Kazakhstan. My team and I were invited to participate in an archeological dig in Eastern Kazakhstan with the goal of finding evidence of the Nestorian Church, also known as the Church of the East, which played a major role in the history of Christianity in Asia. I can’t go into many details as the finds have yet to be published, but the Kazakh and American teams made some amazing discoveries this past month that will hopefully pave the way for more Kazakh believers. During this time, I documented all of the various finds everyday as they were unearthed in my “lab” that consisted of a foldout table and camping chair. God is pretty funny in how he even used my spreadsheet skills in such an unconventional setting!
It was hard to be in such a small village for almost a month, but God taught me to find joy in the simple things. I would be up by 5am for breakfast and walked to the local well for water as I watched the sunrise, and brought home a bouquet of wildflowers. My favorite part of the month was getting to know the locals that we were living with. There were some Kazakh believers that were also helping out with the dig, and it was encouraging to hear their testimonies during our evening bible studies. I was reminded again to not take my faith for granted as some of them are persecuted by their family members for their beliefs. I even got to read through most of Matthew with one of the teenage girls, Medina, as we lived together and cooked together. Please pray for her and her family’s orphan ministry as it is her dream to study at a Christian university and become a missionary one day. Please also pray for the vision that has been cast by churches all over Central Asia, which is to witness at least 2% of Central Asia become believers by 2022. It is a bold vision, but we have a bold God.
I’ll be home in just a little over 3 months! Miss you all. In the meantime, enjoy the video below of some highlights from my time in Central Asia 🙂
