The pub owners realized people would stay longer and eat more. The strategy has worked well enough in fact, that over 36 new pub churches were started in a six-month period. This Central Asian nation is just emerging with believers forming into the several small fellowships. A landmark event resulted with the release of the first ever Turkmen songbook a few years ago. Now churches and mission representatives in the area have united to re-edit the songbook.
Plans are in place to record the songs as well.
The distribution of the song materials in places like Turkmenistan provide a means to unite and give a common identity to the scattered groups of believers there. A unique feature of the Voice of the Martyrs newsletters has been many article reporting on the way God preserves his persecuted peoples through worship. In this paradise there have been beatings and tortures. We were deprived of everything. We had nothing to eat or to clothe ourselves with.