Paul Adams & Jason Holbeche

07/September/2007 02:17 Filed in: Misc | HG Schools

How unqualified I feel to even tell the stories of the people here. I have worked with Lesley with several other holy given schools before coming here to Armavir Russia. I have seen God transform many lives, including my own, during these schools. Yet I was completely unprepared for what we have found here in the lives of these amazing people here in southern Russia. I feel like the lives, struggles and triumphs of these people have been hidden from the eyes of their brothers in the west. Yet I know that they understand the cost of following Jesus more than we have yet come to understand. This school for all of us has become a journey of discovery. To discover what is truly valuable and to give it all away in order to lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has laid hold of us! The very thing that Jesus poured out his life for was his bride! How blessed we are to be able to share a portion of our lives with these amazing people!

One student from Kyrgyzstan left the school this week in order to go back home because the Lord told her to go and testify to her family. She is the only Christian in an all Muslim family and as of now they do not know that she is following Jesus! Tears flowed as we prayed for her protection. She has counted the cost and counts Jesus as being more precious than even her own life. Obeying the command of her Lord she risks all to tell her people about the gospel of Jesus!

The wars in Chechnya have left many scars on the people who call it home. One girl was 10 years old during the war. She has left a lasting mark on my heart. After surviving the war she was kidnapped and forced to marry a Muslim man. She became pregnant and gave birth to a child whom she was raising for 4 years, but after the child was old enough for the father to raise she was thrown out and forbidden to see her child again! She came here and God began to do a deep work in her, though she wasn’t sure who she believed in the Christian or Muslim way to God. After a few days of being deeply touched by Jesus she began to draw near to Jesus. A few days later she had to return home where she was scheduled to have an arranged marriage to another Muslim man. A team went with her to Chechnya to take her home and to encourage other believers in the area. To their surprise the girls mother was sick and agreed to let them pray for her. Everyone said that she was very welcoming, but when the team left she began to beat her daughter and to force her onto the floor to pray in the “Muslim way “. But the following day she came again to the team and told them that even though she was forced to pray that she prayed to Jesus!!! What great faith and what a great testimony of strength during persecution!

Two other families are here from Chechnya. One pastor has a price on his head because of his work for the gospel! Both Families are planning on returning to that region at the conclusion of the school to bring the gospel to an area of grave danger, to risk it all to obey the call of Jesus on their lives!

Each day I listen to the fighter planes screaming across the sky's here, and returning to a base just down the road. I'm constantly reminded of the uncertainty of what tomorrow may bring, and what I might see in the papers the next morning. I'm even beginning to weep for my brothers that will return to a certain persecution that will more than likely see them martyred. It's a reality for them but it is not reality to me, because I will return to my comfortable sofa & star bucks coffee, and watch a DVD with a take-out. Will I forget that my friend Aslan will be head hunted every day because he is a traitor to Islam, and will I remember that we shed tears together as God gave him deliverance & healing. I hope that this part of the journey is never forgotten in my heart. Each and every life is precious in God's sight; we need to look through the same lens as Him. Until this happens and we begin to respond accordingly, this faith means nothing, and not just to us but it determines how the world sees God also. If I want God to live in me it means I have to respond to the love He lays on my heart, there is nothing more painful than a love that dies inside you. So I have to give away my life in order to live and even survive another day, the question is: What will I give my life away for? The picture is becoming clearer through the fog each day for me, how about you?

-By Paul Adams & Jason Holbeche.