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A letter from Don and Laurie Marsden
in Russia |
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March 2006
Last Monday, March 13 at 2:30 a.m., I boarded a Siberian Airlines
Boeing 737 to fly from Moscow’s Domodedova airport to Novi
Urengoi. After a three and a half hour flight we landed at 8:00
a.m. in the bright sunshine of a brisk Siberian spring morning
with a temperature of 25 degrees below zero Centigrade. (This
is considered “warm” weather by the locals, who say
that winter weather starts at 40 below.)
Taras Tkachenko, the coordinator for mission work by the Evangelical
Christian Baptists in the area, met me at the airport. He was
waiting for me at the passport control desk with my letter of
invitation. Novi Urengoi is a center for the Russian gas and oil
industry. Since it is considered a “strategic” city,
anyone arriving who is not registered to live there must have
a letter of invitation approved by the local Federal Security
Service, the successor organization to the KGB.
Taras took me to his apartment for breakfast and to sleep off
the effects of missing most of a night’s rest. He was anxious
about the weather and about a group of four men who were on their
way from Salekhard. Anatoli Marachev, Peter Khudi, Boris Ruskalamov
and Nikolai Goloshchapov could not get tickets on the plane from
Salekhard to Novi Urengoi, so they decided to make the trip in
a Russian Uazik jeep 400 miles across the winter roads of the
frozen tundra. This can be a risky trip when the winds pick up
and snow drifts cover the road. As things turned out our friends
did get stuck in a snow rut and ended up waiting ten hours before
another vehicle came by. The driver of that vehicle took them
back to the nearest depot where they found the operator of a large
tractor to taxi them back out and haul their jeep out of the snow
bank onto the road. They arrived in Novi Urengoi Tuesday morning
at 3:00 a.m. so I didn’t see them till I woke up for breakfast
well rested on Tuesday morning. |
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Loading boxes of books onto the vakhtovka. |
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Tuesday was a day for preparing supplies
for our trek to Samburg. We bought potatoes and other groceries,
water filters, rubber treads and other spare parts for snowmobiles
and drove from Novi Urengoi to Stari Urengoi (New and Old Urengoi
respectively). A vakhtovka (the Russian name for an all-terrain
bus mounted on the chassis of a truck) had been dispatched from
Samburg in the morning and scheduled to meet us at mid-afternoon
in Stari Urengoi. We were a bit late arriving at the Christian center
in Stari Urengoi. The staff at the center prepared us a meal of
fish, bread, apples, tangerines and hot tea to strengthen us for
the trip to Samburg. Fortunately for us, the vakhtovka
was a bit late too, so we had time to eat. |
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When the vakhtovka arrived,
we went to work loading our bags and supplies on board. A large
amount of clothing and other humanitarian aid collected from churches
was lifted up and piled on. We loaded boxes containing the Gospel
of Luke in the Nenets language, boxes of audiocassettes and children’s
books in Nenets, including a children’s coloring book about
life on the tundra that was printed by Narnia Center last spring.
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Once the vakhtovka was loaded, we got
on board and began moving out. We started with a group of nine people.
We drove on paved road for a couple of hours to a gas refinery and
security checkpoint at Zapolyarni, just beyond the Arctic Circle.
After crossing the checkpoint, we met a group of friends from further
east and much, much further north. |
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Leaving for Samburg. |
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This group included Sergei and Irina
Lapsui from the extreme northern settlement of Gida. They had flown
300 miles south by helicopter from Gida to Tazovski, then made the
journey from Tazovski to Zapolyarni by van. I had heard about them,
but this is the first time I had a chance to meet them. Now our
group had swelled to sixteen people. Zapolyarni marks the end of
the paved road. From there we headed out into the tundra onto the
winter road. A full moon provided light outside the bus. I could
see the shape of the scrawny trees against the moonlit, white snow
of the tundra. Every so often we saw the light of an oil rig off
in the distance. It was getting much colder so some of us put on
our second and third layers of winter clothes. My feet were cold.
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Sergei and Irina Lapsui, from the extreme northern settlement of
Gida, with Peter Khudi (right). Sergei came to Christ in 1992 and
was baptized two summers ago. He now holds services for his family
and a few other believers in his apartment in Gida. Sergei’s
wife Irina was baptized and received the Lord’s Supper on
the second night of our stay in Samburg. |
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The road is very bumpy, being nothing more than
snow beaten down on the frozen tundra. I made this trip four years
ago with Harold Kurtz in the small enclosure of a caterpillar and
almost got ill from the smell of fuel. At that time Harold and I
traveled with a pastor from Moldova and two Ukrainians. This time
our group in the bus included not only Russians and Ukrainians,
but also four Nenets and one Khanti believer, some of whom had never
met one another and none of whom had ever been to Samburg, where
there is a church consisting largely of Nenets believers. |
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Those more experienced at this
kind of travel began to rehearse adventure stories telling how
their car broke down on a windy night when it was forty degrees
below zero, how they made a bonfire out of branches from the scrub
trees to keep from freezing, of times when they were rescued by
larger tractors pulling them out of snow banks. The group sang
hymns and choruses of praise, with alleluias and amens. How Russians
love to sing, and what a joy to hear them!
Other than the cold on the floor of the bus this trip went quite
smoothly. I mean that figuratively. The road is full of bumps.
But we never got stuck and the truck did not break down. During
two and a half hours driving on the winter road we saw only two
other vehicles, one of which was a large truck that had gotten
hopelessly stuck in the snow. We tried to yank him out, but to
no avail. We took the driver with us to Samburg. |
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We arrived in Samburg Tuesday night at 11 p.m.
We were welcomed by the pastor and his wife, Andrei and Anna Chmiel,
who both give enthusiastic leadership to the congregation and the
church members. After unloading the suitcases, boxes, and supplies
into the church, we were treated to a meal of hot soup, sandwiches,
and tea in the church hall, which is the room used for worship,
fellowship meals, and Sunday school. |
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The church in Samburg, a small settlement located some thirty or
forty miles north of the Arctic Circle in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous
District of the Tyumen Region of Western Siberia. |
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Samburg is a small settlement
located some thirty or forty miles north of the Arctic Circle
in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District of the Tyumen Region
of Western Siberia. It is one of the “native” settlements
developed by the Soviets for the purpose of incorporating the
native people of the area into the national economy of the Soviet
Union by the collectivization of their reindeer herds and fishing
work. Alcoholism and poverty are acute problems among the native
populations in such settlements. I love Samburg, and it was a
delight to be reunited with people Harold and I met four years
ago. They all sent their warmest greetings to Harold.
Our three-day seminar in Samburg was planned for the purpose
of gathering together a group of people involved in ministry among
the native peoples of the north, people separated by wide expanses
of swampland in that barren northern region, but who need to encourage
one another by sharing their experience and vision. This goal
we accomplished.
There are a lot of difficulties in pulling off such a gathering.
First, people need to get time off work. Many of the missionary
and ministry leaders in the north have full-time jobs as welders,
fishermen, or medical workers. Second, transportation is difficult.
To cross the tundra it must be cold enough that the snow will
pack down hard but it must not be snowing hard or be windy in
which case the snow drifts make the road impassible. Even a vehicle
with large chassis and big tires like the one we drove can get
stuck if the driver misreads the lines in the snow which distinguish
the road from the tundra. Thirdly, transportation is expensive,
and sometimes there are no seats on the buses, airplanes, and
helicopters.
For three days we gathered for Bible study, for sharing experiences,
and for discussing strategic issues for ministry among the Nenets.
We asked Sergei Lapsui from the far northern settlement of Gida
to share his testimony of faith and news about his ministry. He
came to Christ in 1992. As he put it, Christ rescued him from
a life of drunkenness. He was drinking away everything that belonged
to his family, and the family was falling apart. He studied the
Gospel of John, then the letters of Paul, then the Gospels of
Matthew, Mark, and Luke. |
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After some time, the people who had introduced
him to Christ returned to a life of drinking, and he alone was left
to gather believers in the remote settlement. Two summers ago he
was baptized, and he now holds services with him family and a few
other believers in his apartment in the settlement. Sergei’s
wife Irina had not been baptized, but she did receive Baptism and
the Lord’s Supper on the second night of our stay in Samburg. |
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On the final night of the gathering in Samburg, there was a worship
service for the children in the settlement. About 40 children came
for the event. We had games, songs, a lesson, and at the end of
the evening we passed out books in the Nenets language to each child. |
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Peter Khudi and the team from Salekhard
reported on the progress of the translation of the Bible into the
Nenets language. The Gospel of Luke has been translated and published.
The Gospels of Mark and John are now being translated. Because Nenets
is almost exclusively a spoken language, few people can read the
translations. Therefore they have produced an audiocassette with
a reading of the gospel of Luke to be distributed with the books.
The audiocassette also includes two songs of praise in traditional
Nenets style. |
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Sunday school seminar. |
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During the worship service on the second night
of our meeting in Samburg, Peter Khudi preached a sermon in the
Nenets language. After this sermon several women in the congregation
spoke prayers of thanksgiving, first in Nenets, then in Russian,
thanking God that for the first time in their lives they had heard
the gospel preached in their own language. A Nenets choir sang two
hymns in their own language. |
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We consider the preaching of the
gospel in the Nenets language a high priority. Most of the Nenets
believers have come to faith through Russian churches, and many
of the pastors from a more conservative strain of evangelical churches
in the area strictly forbid the people to pray in any language other
than Russian. For some Nenets believers who attended this gathering,
it was the first time they had considered the possibility that the
gospel might be preached in their own language. |
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A seminar for Sunday school teachers was conducted
by Irina Mikhovich of Tarko Sale. In a separate room, the “brothers”
met to discuss strategic issues such as how to respond when the
Nenets ask the question “Are we allowed to drink blood?”
In the traditional Nenets animistic practices, a reindeer is strangled
as a sacrifice to the gods and ancestors. Worshippers participate
by dabbing blood on their foreheads and drinking the blood. |
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Seminar participants in Samburg. Gathering this many people is not
an easy task. Most participants have full-time jobs, so they need
to get time off work. Transportation is difficult to find, sometimes
dangerous, and very expensive.
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The Bible forbids such practices.
So the missionaries were discussing the question, “How can
we be faithful to the Scriptures without offending the native
peoples by condemning their traditional ways?”
On the final night of the gathering we held a worship service
for the children in the settlement. The church in Samburg is blessed
with a very large Sunday school. About 40 children came for the
event. We had games, songs, a lesson, and at the end of the evening
we passed out books in the Nenets language to each child. It was
truly a delight to me to see the joy filled faces of the children
that evening.
Before the sun rose on Saturday morning the temperature had dropped
to 42 degrees below zero centigrade. This is cold weather, especially
when the wind picks up. I had gone out for a walk before breakfast,
and the blustery cold required me to keep the walk short. If the
temperature drops too low, the vakhtovka will not run,
because the risk to life is considered too great. It is not uncommon
for people in the north to freeze to death because of trouble
with transportation. The folks in Samburg had been telling us
that they were praying the Lord would send weather that would
require us to stay in Samburg over Sunday, but we left as scheduled
on the vakhtovka to return to Stari Urengoi.
Our return to Stari Urengoi was without problems. Taras said
he had never made the trip to and from Samburg so easily. He has
told me that God always seems to miraculously send good weather
when I arrive, although the forecast for such trips may be grim
and bad weather may come just after I leave. Thank God for his
mercies! We returned to Novi Urengoi in the evening. Sunday morning
we celebrated worship with Taras’ congregation in a hall
that they rent from the charismatic church. Monday morning I flew
back to Moscow, arriving tired, but safely, in spite of our plane
being tossed around by gusts of wind just before the landing.
I am glad to be back with my family in our apartment.
Thank you for helping this meeting to come about. Your prayers
and financial support have made it possible. It is a privilege
for me to be involved in ministry with people like those I have
described here. I urge you to be a part of it through your prayers
and your financial support.
Prayer requests
- Sergei Lapsui is asking for prayer for his 14-year-old son
who has poor hearing and does not talk and for his daughter
studying in Labitnange. He also asks for prayers for the beginning
of a Nenets language worship service in Gida, that the Lord
will provide a building in which they can gather for worship,
because his living room is too small, and resources to purchase
a snowmobile to enable trips into the tundra to preach to the
Nenets reindeer herders living in teepees.
- Peter Khudi asks for prayers for the ongoing work of the translation
of the Scriptures into the Nenets language. He also asks for
prayers for the development of a Christian radio ministry in
the Nenets language. Most Nenets living on the tundra have radios
and listen to the broadcasts. He asks for prayers for his wife
Katya and his daughters Valya and Nadya as well as for his extended
family and relatives. Very few of them are believers. Recently
Peter’s brother, who herded reindeer on the tundra, died
of a stroke. In the aftermath of this his father committed suicide.
Peter longs to share his faith in Christ in such situations,
but his relatives are not open to hearing at this time. He also
asks for God’s protection from “wolves in sheep’s
clothing.” Recently a group of hyper conservative evangelical
Christians (see above) traveled to the tundra and sought to
undermine the work they have been building for a number of years
by vilifying the work of the team from Salekhard.
- Taras Tkachenko is praying for a Bukhanka (a Russian jeep-van
on a high chassis) to make it possible to drive on these rough
winter roads to visit the various missionaries and churches
in this far-flung region.
- I am asking for prayers for funds to help print a Nenets language
hymnbook that has been prepared, a Nenets language story coloring
book on the life of Abraham, and funding to reprint a book of
gospel stories called “Jesus, Friend of Children”
in Nenets.
You can now direct funds for these projects directly through
the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship at 7132 Portland Ave., Suite
136, Richfield, MN 55423. Please be sure to designate the purpose
of your gift. If you would like further information about individual
projects I will be glad to provide it. Write to me at marsden
[at] eamail.net.
In the grace and peace of Christ,
Donald Marsden
The 2006 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
188 |
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