16 Jan 2009
· In St. Petersburg, German evangelist Johann Oncken was working among the aristocrats in 1864.
· In Tblisi, the capital of Georgia, Nikita Voronin was baptized in 1867, the very first Russian Baptist Believer.
· About the same time in the Ukraine, German factory workers were studying the Bible during their lunch hour.
The rapid growth of the evangelical believers alarmed the Orthodox Church and by 1880, persecution began as a government policy.
The imprisonment and exiling of Evangelicals did not stop the Movement across Russia. Likewise, the Russifying of Kazakhstan continued as more and more Russians moved south settling in the Steppe. By the time of the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, 42% of the Kazakhstan population was Russian.
During the instability caused by the Bolshevik Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, Kazakhstan rebelled against Russia and achieved independence only to lose freedom again in two years.
The Kazakhs paid a high price for the short interlude of freedom over one million lives lost. The iron hand rule of Lenin, and later of Stalin, denied basic rights including freedom of religion. The Kazakhs were also required to deliver a major part of their produce to the communist government. This, along with severe weather, resulted in the starvation of over 2 million Kazakhs during the next ten years. And, if this was not enough, Kazakhstan became the dumping ground for political, religious and criminal prisoners.
Today, the people look to the future as they freely cross the Ishim River in Astana, the new capital of the independent Republic of Kazakhstan. Of those in these cars, very few experienced the horrendous 70 years in which the pathways to survival were all but gone. It was a time when the hope of the Gospel could not be openly proclaimed to the people of Kazakhstan.
to the hope we affirm, for God can be
trusted to keep His promise.
Hebrews 10:23 NLT
Johann Oncken YOH-hahn OWN-ken
Dzubgar Zuun gar
Nikita Voronin Neh-KEY-tah vor-OWN-in
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