08092
February 6, 2008
Fraternal Twins
Russian pastor stresses importance of PC(USA) “twinning” project
The Rev. Mikhail Ivanovich Chekalin MOSCOW — As pastor of Moscow’s Good News Baptist Church for the past 14 years, the Rev. Mikhail Ivanovich Chekalin is one of Russia’s biggest boosters of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s “Twinning Project.”
Coordinated by PC(USA) missionary Ellen Smith, the project has matched more than 40 PC(USA) congregations with Russian congregations for mutual understanding and mission. Chekalin’s church has been “twinned” with First Presbyterian Church of Columbus, GA, since the late 1990s.
“Twinning is very important for both Russian and American churches,” Chekalin told the Presbyterian News Service in a Feb. 5 interview here. “Of course money comes in,” he added, “but fellowship, mutual understanding, common mission and our common bonds as Christians are far more important.”
For two-and-a-half years, Chekalin has been senior (executive) presbyter for Moscow’s 25 Baptist churches and he’d love to see more of his churches twinned with PC(USA) congregations. “He’s got big vision,” Smith noted.
“When we twin with each other, we all look at ourselves in a new way and learn together how to live better in God’s way. It gives us all great joy.”
Each twinning relationship is different, Smith said, but Good News and First Columbus have established one of the healthiest, she added. Groups travel both ways — each church visiting the other every other year.
Last summer a group from Columbus came to Russia to help conduct a summer camp — a combination of vacation Bible school and a camping trip. “The Columbus group led in setting up the campsite and they did it with such joy and grace,” Chekalin said. “The games we played and activities we shared — like face-painting — taught us all the language of love, to talk without words.”
This June a group of four Good News members will travel to Columbus to lead First Church’s summer camp. “Twinning is so wonderful,” Chekalin said, “because the idea is not to ‘teach’ the other something they don’t know, but to serve together, to befriend each other.”
Breaking stereotypes is important for both Russians and Americans, he added. Last summer’s camp director was a former Russian Army officer “who had done nothing but bad-mouth Americans … until the folk from Columbus came,” Chekalin said. “It was a wonderful thing to witness,” he said, “to see him change from suspicious to understanding, from enemy to friend. We all need such experiences.”
And the PC(USA) is the best U.S. denomination for twinning, Chekalin insisted. “The reason I love Presbyterians is they don’t promise much but they do a lot. Other churches promise a lot but don’t do much.”
Chekalin also appreciates Presbyterians’ penchant for long-term relationships. “Twinning means making a family together,” he said. “That takes time but the Presbyterians know how to do that.”
It’s also important to Russians that Ellen Smith is on the ground in Moscow. She’s been the PC(USA)’s twinning project coordinator for seven years and was a member of a twinning church for two years before that. “Ellen is family here that we can trust,” Chekalin said. “She’s an American with a Russian heart.”
A number of Moscow’s Baptist churches are heavily involved in ministry with at-risk youth, Chekalin said. “With the problems of alcohol and drug abuse and unemployment, the stories of abuse and neglect are frightening,” he said.
The Russian government’s “only strategy” is to send them off to orphanages, but the conditions in most of them are so bad that they run away immediately. Baptists are active in ministry to homeless youth, who live in basements, abandoned buildings and train stations around Moscow, and in the orphanages in and around Moscow.
“There are just not enough resources to care for all these kids,” Chekalin said. “Some don’t even have enough bedding — the kids sleep on bare mattresses and in the winter gloves are the most valuable possessions for those kids who have them.
“But the worst deprivation is love,” he added. “Hugs are the best things we can give most of these kids.” His 21-year-old daughter, Olga, spent part of last summer helping conduct summer Bible camps for some of Moscow’s at-risk youth. “Getting them out of the city was a good thing,” Chekalin said. “It was very hard for her but the need is so great — it helps others and changes everyone’s life.”
One of Chekalin’s big dreams is to buy a building in Moscow that can be used as a halfway house and rehabilitation center for homeless young people. “We would welcome help from PC(USA) congregations to help us buy the building,” he smiled. “We have plenty of people but not much money.”
But twinning is the key to turning Russian and American Christians into the “true family of Christ,” Chekalin said. “We have a saying in Russia: ‘Better to see once than to hear twice.’ When our people get together, they become family, and that’s what Christ wants.”
For information about and letters from Ellen Smith and other PC(USA) missionaries around the world, visit the Mission Connections Web site. To financially support the PC(USA)’s Russia Church Twinning Project, call PresbyTel at 1-800-872-3283 and ask for Extra Commitment Giving account #047954. To contribute to Russian and Belarusian orphanages related to the PC(USA), ask for Extra Commitment Giving account #051641.
Presbyterian News Service Coordinator Jerry Van Marter is sharing personal reflections of his 12-day assignment in Russia on a blog called “From Russia With Love.” |
