08106
February 11, 2008
Moscow’s good Samaritans
PC(USA) supported ministry fights racist attacks in Russian capital
Editor’s note: for informal reflections and photographs of this Feb. 1-12 visit to PC(USA) missionaries in Russia, visit the blog.
A coal bin that will one day be the chapel of the new Parish Center of Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy. Photo by Jerry Van Marter MOSCOW — The new Parish Center of the Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy (MPC) will occupy the basement of a small house on the grounds of one of this Russian capital city’s many cemeteries.
It’s an appropriate setting, says the Rev. Bob Bronkema, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor of MPC, a multi-cultural, multi-denominational congregation that has developed a vital ministry with the growing immigrant population of Moscow, which is under constant physical and economic threat.
“Putting the new parish Center in a cemetery is theologically perfect,” Bronkema says, “because we’re all about resurrection.”
Founded in 1962 by the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. — primarily to serve Americans attached to the U.S. Embassy here — the MPC has grown into an international congregation of believers that provides a dizzying array of social ministries from feeding the elderly poor to documenting racist attacks on immigrants and pressing the Russian government to do more to prevent them.
The room that will be the main room of the new Parish Center, housing computers, books, recreation equipment and sitting areas. Photo by Jerry Van Marter Today the MPC is supported financially by five U.S. denominations — the PC(USA), the American Baptist Churches, the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church and the Reformed Church in America.
Bronkema and his wife, Stacy, also a PC(USA) pastor and their three daughters — Rachel, 11, Naomi, 9, and Bethany, 7 — have been here for just over 18 months. The Bronkemas serve as long-term mission volunteers for the PC(USA). They were originally recruited as full-time mission co-workers, but budget shortfalls forced a reduction in their status.
Bob’s ministry focuses on the worship life and social ministries of MPC. Stacy devotes her time to the girls and to MPC’s Christian education programs, including a number of weekly Bible study groups that meet at various times and places around Moscow.
MPC is having to relocate its Parish Center — which provides sanctuary, fellowship, social services and other assistance, such as counseling and a computer center — to immigrants, primarily from Africa.
Virulent racism, long a problem in Russia, has flared in recent years into an epidemic of physical attacks on African immigrants — most of whom have come to Moscow to study in its many universities and technical institutes — by disaffected young Russian “skinheads.”
MPC Pastor Bob Bronkema stands in the main room of the current Parish Center, which has to be vacated. Photo by Jerry Van Marter African and other immigrants have found a spiritual home at MPC and a gathering place at the congregation’s Parish Center. The landlord of MPC’s current Parish Center is evicting them because of tax problems.
A Finnish Lutheran church, which owns the cemetery property, has agreed to furnish the basement of the small building, but it will take $50,000 to refurbish the long-vacant space, which no American would consider habitable.
Bob Bronkema has no trouble envisioning the finished Parish Center, pointing out where computer desks, recreation equipment, bookshelves and couches and easy chairs will eventually go in the four dark, dank cramped basement rooms. Impossibly, he can even picture the chapel that will occupy space that, until volunteers recently spent several back-breaking days emptying it, was a coal bin.
“Oh, we’ve got the vision,” he laughs, “all we need is the money.”
The current and new Parish Centers are an outgrowth of MPC’s commitment to address the problem of racism in Moscow. “Every single African in our congregation has been physically attacked by skinheads,” Bob Bronkema says, “but not just the Africans, Asians, too.”
A bank of computers in the MPC Parish Center, which are frequently used by African immigrants to make their way in Moscow. Photo by Jerry Van Marter Several years ago, when the physical violence against people of color reached epidemic proportions, MPC formed a Racism Task Force, which began documenting attacks on immigrants and pressing the Moscow police and government to do something about them.
“In the minds of our immigrant members, things have gotten better because of our work,” Bob Bronkema says. “But we’re afraid our reporting system isn’t adequate so we’ve hired a student who we’ll pay to step up our documentation of these attacks.”
The next logical step in addressing immigrants’ needs is to provide assistance in helping them resettle as refugees in the U.S. when they complete their schooling or work assignments in Russia.
Because of its anti-racism work, MPC was invited to participate in a seminar sponsored by the U.S. State Department on refugee resettlement. As a result, MPC is now recognized by the U.S. government as a non-governmental organization (NGO), which gives it the ability to formally recommend people for resettlement in the U.S.
“It is so wonderful because when someone gets approved,” Bob Bronkema says, “because not only do these brothers and sisters get a new life, as a pastor I actually see some results, which is tough for a lot of pastors.”
MPC has proposed two persons for resettlement, the first was denied but the second was accepted.
For information about and correspondence from Bob and Stacy Bronkema and other PC(USA) missionaries around the world, visit the Mission Connections Web site. To financially support the ministry of the Bronkemas at MPC, call PresbyTel at 800-872-3283 and ask for Extra Commitment Opportunity account #MI910070, or click here. |
