Kyrgyzstan
Population: 5 663 100
Ethnic groups: Kyrgyz 72%, Russian 6.9%, Uzbek 14.3%, other 7%
Religions: Muslim 75%, Russian Orthodox 20%, other 5%
Languages: Kirghiz (Kyrgyz) – official language, Russian – official language (since 1996)
It’s a beautiful country that has huge mountains and awesome food!
There is high Russian influence here because it used to be apart of the Soviet Union.
Bishkek is the capital and is a mix of modern things (coffee shops, movie theaters, etc) along with street venders, markets etc. They sell a lot of peaches and cherries for cheap :).
It is still very Asian. We don’t wear shoes in houses and instead wear slippers or flip flops and you always wear shoes in the bathroom. We also have to throw toilet paper in a trash can because there sewer system can’t handle TP. (Basically we’ve have had to do this since Indonesia).
Traffic is nicer here than compared to the rest of Asia. People actually stop for you at cross walks. The roads are a mix of dirt and paved with pot holes you have to watch out for.
We are in osh it’s about a 14hr car ride from Bishkek. We took a car with 17 people with a bed in the back and 8 seats. On the way we ate lots of junk food and would pull over every once in awhile to use a squatty potty or the side of the road.(the squatty potties here have been nasty, a lot of standing on human waste) It’s always an adventure you never know what’s gonna happen 🙂 we have also met many kool people on travel days.
Osh is more of an Islamic community compared to Bishkek. You hear mosques going off throughout the day and are treated differently as a women. Some women where headdresses and some don’t.
In Kyrgyzstan it is illegal to share the gospel. So we have to be careful how we speak and with what info we tell people about our group. Gods is still at work though! There are groups of believers in many places throughout Kyrgyzstan.
The next 4 weeks. We will be working with a local church that puts on camps for local children. Many of the children that come are from Muslim homes. Our goal is to build relationships with them, have fun and potentially share our testimonies with them. We have our first camp starting tomorrow!
If you could be praying for these camps the next 4 weeks that would be awesome. Pray that kids would have open hearts and see how much our father loves them and desires a relationship with them.
