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May 2006  

The story of a Bible in Central Asia 

Recently a man from a remote mountain village in Central Asia came to the capital city. He made contact with the Russian Baptist Church and told them that he had been given a copy of the Bible in his language some years ago. He had been reading this Bible and had understood the message. Without any contact with other Christians he had become a believer. Now he had come to find out if there were other Christians among his people, but he didn’t really dare to ask a native about this, so he went to the Russian church. They put him in contact with one of our co-workers, who knows the language well. After having talked with this man for some time about his faith, our co-worker was quite convinced that he did indeed understand the Good News!

Now, how did a Bible, published by IBT many years ago, end up in the hands of a man in a remote mountain village?

In the summer of 2001 two young Christian brothers were trekking in this Central Asian mountain area for one and a half months. Their mother is Russian, but their late father was from Central Asia, and the brothers were born in the mountains. In preparation for the trip they had received some Bibles, New Testaments and Bible portions from IBT in Moscow. Afterwards one of the brothers, Ahmed, told their story. “We visited about 60 villages,” he said. “When people heard that we were natives, we were warmly welcomed as guests in their homes. For several days we used to sit and talk to people, drinking tea and making friends. After three days or so, they would ask why we came. Only then were they willing to listen to what we had to say. 

“In the Koran four holy books are mentioned, one of them is the Injil, the Gospel. When we told them that we had brought one of these holy books, they were happy and ready to receive them. They were pleased to see that the books were green - a sacred colour for the Muslims. We told them about Isa, Jesus, whom they knew as one of the prophets, and explained that Isa would come again to this earth, and that they could read about him in this book. We did not preach – God’s Word will speak for itself!” 

And indeed, God’s Word did speak for itself! One of the Bibles distributed by Ahmed and his brother must have reached this man, who is now no longer alone in his faith but has learnt that he has several Christian brothers and sisters among his people! 

project of the month 

IBT is involved in Bible translation into several languages of Central Asia. Please support the translation work with your gift this month!

Here you can sign for the IBT Russia/CIS monthly English Newsletter

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