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March 21, 2002
Dear Friends,
Harold Kurtz and I stepped onto an airplane headed for Novi Urengoi
on March 4 at 2:30 in the morning at Moscow's Vnukovo airport.
The three-and-a-half-hour flight was smooth, and I slept better
than I had expected to. Departing the airplane we stood in a line
to be registered by the FSB, the Russian Internal security forces,
formerly "KGB," but our friend Boris Malanchuk, a pastor
responsible for coordinating the work of mission in the northern
region of the Yamal-Nenets autonomous district, who met us at
the airport, motioned to us to come around the line. Boris had
previously registered us with the FSB. When they saw in his passport
that Harold was almost 78 years old, they told Boris "You
take good care of that grandfather! We don't want anything happening
to him."
After breakfast at Boris' house our trip continued to a settlement
called Stari Urengoi where we picked up Viktor Komisarenko, a
missionary who has started some work among the Khanti people further
south. We bought a week's supply of groceries in the local bazaar
and piled into the Oazik, a mini-van with the chassis of a Russian
jeep. We traveled four hours north across the snow-bedecked tundra,
sparsely covered with small trees and bushes as far as the road
would take us, to another settlement called Zapolyarni, which
translated means "beyond the Arctic Circle." By then
it was getting toward evening and we stopped at a construction
site where the gas company is building a service road. It's not
the kind of place you would stop unless you know the local territory.
The only indication that it is a noteworthy place was a small
wooden arrow mounted on narrow pole protruding from the snow bank.
The arrow was aimed out into the vast snow blanketed tundra. On
the arrow was painted by hand the single word "Samburg."
Waiting for us at this rendezvous point were two men, a missionary
named Andrei and a driver named Igor. They stood next to a yellow,
tank-line caterpillar. They offered us hot tea and a snack, and
said it would be better to wait for darkness to fall, because
the snow road across the tundra is more easily visible by night.
The caterpillar, called "Gazushka" in Russian, has a
cockpit for two in the front and a passenger/cargo are in the
back designed to hold up to six passengers. In either case you
need to crawl in through a tiny window at shoulder level from
the ground. (See photos.)
The 37-mile ride across the tundra on the winter road to Samburg
took us three and a half hours. The only traffic we encountered
was two large trucks heading in the opposite direction. We moved
over to let them pass and as a result got stuck in a snow bank
for twenty minutes. But we arrived at the Baptist church in Samburg
before 11 p.m., and Anya, Andrei's wife, was relieved to see us.
She had been pondering over requesting a search party to be sent
out to find us.
Samburg is a settlement with about 750 adults and about the same
number of children. The architectural style would best be described
as "pioneer," that is to say, buildings slapped together
any old way. A few are supplied with a rust-colored running water,
but most people get their water delivered in large barrels by
the administration of the settlement. The water is drawn out of
the river by pumps which reach deep under the winter ice. About
70 percent of the population are made of the Nensi people, a people
whose features indicate an oriental origin. About 20 percent are
of the Komi people, who generally look like Europeans, but who
are one of the people groups driven north by the Russian expansion
of former centuries. The remaining 10 percent of the population
is a mixture of Russians, Ukrainians, Assyrians, and various other
peoples from the south. The common language is Russian.
The economy of Samburg revolves mainly around fishing, hunting
for furs, and herding reindeer. About 15 teepee villages are spread
out on the vast tundra around Samburg where the Nensi people live
according to their traditional lifestyle. A small part of the
vast herds of reindeer they keep belong them. The larger portion
belongs to the government, and the reindeer herding people must
satisfy certain government quotas for meat production in order
to maintain use of their ancestral lands. Venison is the only
meat we found in Samburg.
Some of the Nensi teepee settlements are found along the river.
These Nensi make their living by fishing. Fish are plentiful,
and the fish we ate in Samburg was delicious. Nensi children are
required to attend the government boarding school in Samburg where
they are educated in the Russian language. Alcoholism is a major
problem.
Winter transportation in Samburg is limited to snowmobile and
reindeer sled. The city administration owns a few trucks in addition
to the gazushka. Dogs are everywhere, but we did not see any sleds
pulled by dogs. We were told that feeding dog teams is expensive,
whereas reindeer feed themselves by digging under the snow to
find moss. In the summer there are only two ways to get in and
out of Samburg: by boat or by helicopter. During the fall and
spring there is a season of slush when helicopter is the only
way in or out, and finding a seat on the helicopter is nearly
impossible.
Samburg is a tightly knit community where people all know one
another. We were told that if something is stolen in the community,
every one knows it can be one of only four people. On Tuesday,
the day after we arrived, Anya put out the word after school that
children were invited to the church to hear stories from visiting
American missionaries. By 6 o'clock 40 children had gathered in
the church to hear Harold tell stories of Ethiopia and to hear
me tell Bible stories.
On Wednesday night Harold and I preached at the church's regular
worship service. At the end of the service two Nensi women asked
to receive Christ into their lives.
We had been planning since Tuesday to visit the teepee village
on the tundra outside Samburg. But we had great difficulty finding
snowmobiles, sleds and gasoline. On Thursday we finally found
them and traveled on sled pulled by snowmobile out to the nearest
village. The ride across the tundra took an hour and a half. Our
friends bundled us up quite warmly, so we were well protected
from the snow and wind. As we arrived the men were just letting
about 200 reindeer loose from a corral to graze on the tundra.
We spent three or four hours visiting with families in two of
the teepees. In one of the teepees we spoke with an elderly women
who had been sitting silently, but who became quite lively and
communicative when Harold asked her to tell us the Nensi traditions
about the creation of the world. Harold asked her the Nensi name
from God. She answered "Num Vesiku" which translated
means "the old man of heaven." Harold asked her to relate
her understanding of how the world came into existence. She told
us that after God married a woman people appeared, and that in
the beginning things were good. People were not greedy, they cared
for one another, but later people turned bad. When Harold asked
her how it was that people had turned bad she said she could not
remember. Before leaving the teepee Harold told her that Jesus
had come to restore the fellowship between God and people.
Before leaving the teepee village Lyuda, one of the young Nensi
women who had offered us tea in her teepee gave us a brief ride
on reindeer sled. We rode back into Samburg in time for another
gathering at the church. On this evening Harold told many stories
about his years serving in Ethiopia. About 40 adults and children
came to listen. We did not realize it, but Lyuda, the Nensi woman
who had welcomed us earlier into her teepee, had followed us by
reindeer sled into the settlement. She heard Harold's stories
that night, and before riding on the reindeer sled back to the
teepee village that night, she prayed with us to dedicate her
life to Jesus. (See photo of Lyuda with Harold and Jana.)
Friday March 8 was a big holiday in Russia. It is a national
holiday in honor of women, and a large dinner was organized for
about 80 people at the church. There were games, songs, delicious
fish, meat, fruit, cakes and candy. Once again, Harold and I were
asked to speak. Harold spoke about the powerful work God is performing
around the world today through women. I spoke about women of faith
as God's gift to the world. This night an elderly Nensi couple
from the fishing community dedicated their lives to Christ, and
so did a 17-year-old Russian girl named Lyena. Harold and I later
marveled at how two Presbyterian preachers had seemed to spark
a Baptist revival, but we know that much work was done before
our arrival and that we were simply blessed to see what God had
been preparing for a long time.
Harold spoke with the Nensi believers to coach them to write
hymns and to conduct prayer services in their own language in
the teepee villages. Jana, the small women in the blue shirt (see
photo) with Lyuda and Harold in front of the cross in the church,
has already been leading prayer services in her family's teepee,
and she appreciated the suggestions. We also had many discussions
with Boris, Andrei, Anya, and Viktor about the strategy for empowering
the local Nensi and Khanti believers to become missionaries among
their own people. Harold and I have come away from this trip very
encouraged to see what God is accomplishing among the Nensi people.
Harold and I are grateful for the prayers that many of you offered
on our behalf as we made this trip. We believe that those prayers
are being answered. Continue to pray for Andrei and Anya Chmiel
who are the resident missionaries in Samburg. Pray that the Nensi
believers will bear the gospel to other teepee villages further
out on the tundra. Pray that more men will believe, since women
are limited to staying in their own teepee village, but men are
freer to travel to others. Pray about a translation of the Scriptures
into the Nensi language. Also pray that work among the Khanti
people further south will become better established.
We see this as the beginning of a growing partnership with the
Russian Baptists of the north to reach the native peoples with
the gospel of Jesus Christ. We have received a request to purchase
a snowmobile for the church in Samburg so that Andrei can visit
the Nensi people on the tundra more frequently. We also plan to
continue working with Boris Malanchuk, a person whom we see as
key to continuing development of ministry among the hidden people
in the north of the Russian Federation.
If there are any congregations that would like to work with us
in partnership with Russian missionaries to focus on unleashing
the gospel among one of the people groups of the north, please
write to me. If you would like to contribute toward this work
you can do so by sending funds through your local presbytery to
ECO # E-040068 for the Siberian Unreached People Groups Project.
Grace and Peace,
Donald Marsden
The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 94
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