Apologies for our delay in posting this next installment of "Where In the World are the Beans Going Next?", as we have been away for the past week on our third and final vision trip to consider the needs and opportunities in Prague, Czech Republic. We visited the team and IPC church in Prague, and preached for them on Galatians 3:26-4:7, but before our trip to Prague, we had the privilege to visit our organisation’s team in “Central Asia” from late March through early April. It was absolutely amazing! However, we can’t say the city and country name online for security reason as it is a Muslim majority country.
This city is the capital and by far largest city of its country with a population of over 2.5 million, and is an absolute study in contrasts. It is both European and Asian, Muslim and secular, ancient and modern, rich and poor, and absolutely in need of Jesus. The people who we encountered were so incredibly friendly and kind, the food was amazing, and the city was very impressive with a widely eclectic mix of both and ancient and modern architecture, Central Asia has at different periods in history been part of the Greek Macedonian Empire, Roman Empire, Persian Empire, Mongol Empire, Ottoman Empire, Russian Empire, and finally the Soviet Union before becoming an independent nation after the fall of the USSR in 1991.
Since it stands at a strategic crossroads between Russia, Europe, the Middle East, and eastern Asia, between the Black and Caspian Seas, as well as along the “Silk Road” (an ancient and highly prized overland trade route connecting Europe and Asia), this region and its cultures have seen various powers fight over it for centuries. As part of the Persian Empire prior to Persia’s (Iran’s) forced Islamisation in the 7th Century AD, this country was a multicultural region where religious freedom was valued, and Zoroastrians (the religion of ancient Persia prior to Islam), Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus lived together in relative harmony until it was conquered by Islamic Arabs who forced them to submit to Islam, which the Ottomans (Turks) later reinforced. They were later conquered by the pre-Soviet Russian Empire and then became part of the Soviet Union after the Bolshevik Revolution, following World War I.
Needless to say, Central Asians have seen a lot of war and a lot of different beliefs forced upon them over the centuries, and the cultural impacts of all of these past cultural and religious influences have continued to shape and have influence on their spirituality (and often their lack thereof), art, architecture, language, and cuisine, however, this country and its surrounding region have been relatively peaceful for nearly 100 years with some small exceptions in history. Luxury goods such as silk Persian rugs and caviar are relatively cheap here compared to the Western world, as this is where they come from. In the 1800’s (like Norway in the 1960’s) oil was discovered, one of the earliest discoveries of petroleum in the world where it was literally seeping from the ground. Natural gas bubbled up from the ground creating naturally occuring geographic “fire features” giving this land their nickname as the “The Land of Fire”. The oil industry was, quite literally, born here.
Today between 97-99% of this country’s residents are “culturally Muslim”, and while the vast majority are not particularly devout Muslims or religious, and their government is officially “secular” (a legacy from their time in the Soviet Union), the majority people group and 25 other people groups within their borders are considered “Unreached People Groups” with little to no access to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and very little indigenous Gospel witness within their cultures. The majority of Central Asians are Muslim, simply because they don’t know of anything else and have probably never met a Christian or seen a Bible. While statistically and culturally muslim, the vast majority are quietly atheist/agnostic, do not see Islam as being particularly relevant to their daily lives, and only interact with Islam during Muslim holidays. If nominal Christians can be called "Christmas & Easter Christians", then most Central Asians might be considred "Eid Al-Fitr & Eid Al-Adha Muslims". As an officially “secular” government, they allow for certain things that are not commonly available in much of the Islamic world (such as alcohol). As a result they have become known as a fun place to vacation and as the “Las Vegas of the Muslim World”.
The majority of people of Central Asia are tremendously open minded, welcoming, and curious about what visitors believe, particularly westerners. When they meet a westerner who is not there as part of the oil industry, they want to know why in the world you are there. Telling them that you think that they have a beautiful culture and that you think that it might be an interesting place to live will often earn you smiles and very special kindness from them. They want to know who you are, why you are there, what you believe, and why in the world you might want to live there if you’re not there to make money off of their natural resources. They are accustomed to feeling used by other cultures and even their own government have become rich off of them without them having much to show for it themselves. In spite of their relatively high quality of life and the beauty of their surroundings, Central Asians tend to be self-effacing about their own culture, and desire to be seen as more western/European than Middle Eastern/Muslim.
While there has not been an “indigenous” christianity in this particular country of Central Asia for over a thousand years since becoming Islamic, there are small numbers of Eastern Orthodox Christians who are mostly ethnically Russian, Armenian, or Georgian migrants. Most remaining signs of Christianity here were destroyed during their time as part of the Soviet Union, including most church buildings. One exception is a large historic Lutheran church building dating to the late 19th Century, which was not demolished because the communists found the height of its ceilings useful for constructing tall statues of communist and Soviet figures such Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin. This usefulness providentially preserved the building for future use, and now a handful of different Christian churches use it as a meeting space for worship, including an IPC congregation that was planted in their capital city about 18 years ago. Today, the IPC church is led by a pair of bi-vocational indigenous pastors, and an American missionary pastor who has worked here with our organisation for the past 15+ years, who now leads a small mission team that is being rebuilt after the Covid-19 pandemic sent many western missionaries back to their home countries.
