They've been driven from their homes and seen family members killed and houses blown up. They've been terrorized, brutalized, vandalized, murdered, kidnapped. Families are still in shock because they haven't been out of Chechnya very long and basically have lost everything. They know they're not going back. Based on their reports, Southern Baptist missionaries will launch a series of ministries to respond to the region, where thousands of refugees eke out a subsistence living in refugee camps, with local families, in abandoned buildings and huts.
Nothing is consistent or reliable in their lives.
But they are beginning to put trust in Russian pastors as they reach out in love and kindness. Each human needs project has a clear strategy for gospel sharing and church planting. Additional requests expected from city and regional governments in the area likely will include school and recreational equipment for refugee children and equipment for handicapped refugees. Even amid the suffering, the team found evidence God is at work through Russian Baptists in the cities of Georgievsk and Stavropol. Russian Baptist pastors told the team many people in the region are thirsty for spiritual understanding.