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CENTRAL ASIA Several years ago, Christian aid worker Gary Warrior* was sitting on the floor in a Central Asian village with a congregation of about 20 people, getting ready to share about “the cost of discipleship.”
Someone made the suggestion to go around the room and share their testimonies. One woman simply said, “Oh, I’m just very blessed, and I’m so thankful to be here.”
Her friend elbowed her: “Explain to him your testimony, tell him what’s happening in your life with God.” But the woman again said she was “blessed” and just thankful to sing songs and read the Bible together.
Her friend retorted, “You tell him the truth. You tell him that every night after you go to these meetings, your husband beats you, and last week he beat you with a hammer!”
Tears jumped to Warrior’s eyes as he thought, “How can I tell these people to go out there and suffer for Christ’s sake?
“God just grabbed me by the collar, and he said, ‘You’re not asking them, I am.’”
PEOPLE OF GRIEF
Gary and his family—wife, Ann,* and four children, two of whom are now adults—first arrived in this Central Asian country in 1997. The former Soviet republic was suffering, broken and poor after the end of a five-year civil war.
Though the Soviets tried to stamp out religion, the country did not lose its strong Muslim identity. But many of these Central Asians feel hopeless and overlooked by the world.
“There’s a poem that says, ‘Oh people of grief, tears in their eyes like orphans, anger on their lips like captives. In a forgotten land they wept alone,’” Warrior says, fighting back tears. “So for us to be able to show up here now, in this point in history, and begin to tell them that God loves them—this is water on dry ground.”
Despite people’s thirst for truth and love, Christians are persecuted, not necessarily from the communist government—Warrior estimates about 30 government-registered churches and 1,000 believers in the country—but from society. Leaving Islam brings great shame on a person’s family.
“Persecution comes every time the gospel is proclaimed here, but if we’re able to do it in the context of families and in communities, we can minimize the effects of that persecution so that people can stand together for the cause of Christ and not be chased out,” Warrior says.
PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL NEEDS
As a pastor with a music degree and a Master of Divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Warrior wasn’t planning on focusing on human needs work. But after seeing that even numerous aid agencies couldn’t respond to the great number of disasters and people suffering in Central Asia, Warrior started a disaster response team of Christian workers and national believers in 1998.
Being there for people on the day of disaster “gave us real access to share the gospel.” The next year in that village, Warrior’s team planted their first church and baptized 13 people.
A decade later, well-digging provided “the opportunity to make the connection between clean drinking water and the Water of Life,” Warrior says.
He is also grateful the faithful givers to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering and Cooperative Program have “stuck with him” during his 17 years overseas. Although Warrior’s team has made about 2,000 gospel presentations every year for the past three years, it takes a long time for someone to become a Christian.
But these are exciting times, he says: “I’m seeing people who are coming to faith in Christ. Not every day, but it’s happening.”
Warrior and his team have planted five house churches that still meet today. In the past two years, they distributed more than 6,000 gospel DVDs. Last year, with the assistance of the Lottie Moon offering and Cooperative Program funding, the well-digging team installed 19 wells and provided clean drinking water for about 10,000 people.
“God has done that because we’ve been faithful, and the people in the pews back in America have been faithful to keep giving and to keep sending … and the result is there’s a church here, and there wasn’t when I came,” Warrior says.
*Names changed
