Largest land locked country
Kazakhstan is the world's ninth-largest country by land area and the largest landlocked country. It has a population of 20 million and one of the lowest population densities in the world, at fewer than 6 people per square kilometre (16 people/sq mi). Ethnic Kazakhs constitute a majority, while ethnic Russians form a significant minority. Officially secular, Kazakhstan is a Muslim-majority country, although ethnic Russians in the country form a sizeable Christian community.
Eugene speaks about the immediate help provided by his church to others in his community in the wake of recent, once-in-a-generation flooding.
Eugene shows the height of the recent flooding on this house
Eugene translates message of thanks and blessing from one beneficiary of Eugene's church.
Some of the kids with whom we’ll be working…
Our team is departing on Wednesday, July 24th for Doha, Qatar and then on to Almaty, Kazakhstan and a further interior flight to the home city of Rudney.
Please pray for us and if you can, help us financially to get there and back ($2,900 each is needed; this amount includes a special gift for the kids at their camp).
A couple of weeks ago, the Economist ran an article that several times mentioned Kazakhstan (as I’m sure you’ll agree, we don’t get much news on the country normally). Click here to open up the article. I’ve highlighted a few points, including a couple of comments I’ve embedded in the article.
Eugene, the pastor of the church we are visiting, is on the left posting for the picture with his family. His son, Max, graduating from high school last month. His wife is Olga, and their daughter is Victoria.
Party celebrating school’s end at the church where we’re visiting. I understand that some of these kids will be at the camp we’re helping to run during the first couple of days of our trip.
Picture of church kids with Eugene playing the guitar. (Monday afternoon, Kaz time, July 22, 2024)
Eugene (the pastor of the church we’re visiting and whose kids for whom we’re conducting a camp) with his wife Olga. Eugene is a bit of a ham; he loves wearing his ethnic hats. At this writing, we are in Doha. (See next pic).
This is our group heading to Kazakhstan, taken in Doha Airport (outside temp: 105 F; we didn’t go outside). Allison is to the left, Chis is in the back middle, I’m on the right, and Albert is in the front taking the selfie. Our group is small on purpose so as to attract less attention at our destination.
Here is the itinerary so far. 38 of the first 68 hours since leaving Kennedy were devoted to traveling.
The day before we arrived, the kids at the camp were taken to this distinctive rock formation. An entrepreneurial local guide sold drone time (dirt cheap) to take this clip. The kids apparently loved this.
Friday, 26 July 2024; Burabay National Park
Our first activity with the kids was to go to the beach with them. (I’m in the back in the middle).
I'm sure there is a name for what these girls are doing; is it paddy-cake?
I won’t say which, but one of the young girls pictured in this series of clips was gladly dropped off with the church to be taken to this camp. Was their gladness due to the good healthy time that she would have and what she would be taught? No, according to Eugene, her parents are both serious alcholics; they wanted rid of her for the week so they could freely drink all the vodka they wanted.
After returning from the beach and using some of the equipment we brought them, the kids enjoy some sports all mixed together on the same back yard of the camp house!
After a delicious dinner prepared by Vicilisch (sp?)...
...there was lots of energetic music!
Saturday, July 27, 2024; Burabay National Park and drive to Rudney, KZ
We brought iridescent paints to paint small rocks from the beach as a craft project for the kids for Saturday morning. This gal preferred the effect on her hands!
One young gal (probably about 12) gave me one of her painted rocks. I left it on the window sill to dry, but when I came back for it some over-zealous cleanup person apparently threw it away. (Lois, do you recognize this scenario?)
Not surprisingly, the kids enjoyed the candied swizzel sticks we brought with us. (The girl who gave me her painted rock is just to the right of the Olga).
The couple in the center are key leaders in the church. He drove the van containing suitcases back to Rudney with Allison, the woman from our team, and I, as passengers. Neither one of the couple spoke English and we were facing a nine hour drive, which we accomplished with only two 15 minute stops (Eugene is one hard-driving guy!). Fortunately, we had a little more room than on an airplane (but not much more!). But the time went by faster than expected since we all got pretty good as using Google Translate to carry on a conversation during most of the trip.
Sunday, 28 July 2024
Too tired to take a picture the night of arrival, we surveyed our surroundings Sunday morning. Here is the men’s “dorm”.
Here is the kitchen, although we did not end up using this very much.
Later in the morning, during the church service on Sunday, the kids described their experience at camp.
This is the inside of the church with the service in process. They had asked me to preach the sermon, which I did. I spoke on Luke 24, regarding the road to Emmaus and pointed out that the two protagonists of the account probably weren’t stalwart followers of Jesus since instead of waiting to hear whether Jesus had really risen from the dead, as they had heard some claim, they went home to mow the lawn, or something equally trivial.
I pointed out that a scriptwriter would have Jesus appearing before the leaders who had put Him to death — much more dramatic! In fact it would be reckless of a screen writer not to do that (risk of producing a not very sellable script). But because of God’s reckless love for even losers like these guys (and us), we have this account of Jesus approaching even people walking away from Him (both literally and figuratively).
I had asked the worship team to lead the congregation in the song entitled “Reckless Love” so I could refer to it as in the above.
It all worked out pretty well, once the initial embarrassment had subsided.
As I mentioned, we arrived late Saturday night well after dark and couldn’t see very well as we unloaded the cars from the kids camp. Since it had been raining (very rare this time of year), we all got very muddy shoes very quickly.
On Sunday morning, when I reached the podium to speak, I moved the podium slightly not noticing that someone had kindly placed a glass of water thereon, which of course spilled, but without my noticing it. As I began speaking I kinda acted out the walking to Emmaus bit, I unintentionally created a very muddy path — so much so that Eugene felt compelled to stop me and ask someone to come up with a mop and clean it up before I could resume!
Monday, 29 July and Tuesday, 30 July: The Homeless Ministry
Bofore we went out to distribute food to the homeless, we had a prayer service with the leaders of the ministry.
This woman, although not part of the ministry in terms of going on the distribution routes, just came here before work to pray for the ministry this day. She spoke good English and Allison enjoyed speaking with her.
Svetlana (center) was homeless for many years until she came to the Hope Center, where she now lives and in exchange for that lodging, she prepares the meals for the homeless.
When we met Volodian the previous day (Sunday), I didn’t have the presence of mind to take his picture. He was dressed up in his Sunday best: a beautiful dark maroon sports jacket and tie and white shirt. When the above picture was shot, he was working around the church. Much like Svetlana (above), Volodian was homeless for decades until (quoting him), he “found Jesus”. Now he lives at the Hope Center (church) in exchange for helping to cook for and counsel the homeless. I found his use of the phrase “found Jesus” so interesting because in the West, this phrase is used as mockery, but Volodian would not get the joke at all.
There are three stops that the church bus makes each Monday and Tuesday (more days would be offereed, but there are insufficient people in the church that can take off work like the guitarist can; he owns his own jewelry shop and closes Monday and Tuesday mornings so he can do this). At each stop, there is a 10 minutes church "service" in the bus. Since the bus is private property, Eugene has more latitude as to what he can do and say therein. The service begins with music, which although some don't participate, there are many who do.
In one of my favorite images of the trip so far, Albert prays for this man . Note that Albert’s eyes are open unlike the usual custom. We were told to keep our eyes open, not for some esoteric spiritual or cultural reason, but because homeless people for whom members of the church have prayed in the past have taken out knives and attempted to stab the person praying for them!
This is Daniel, a homeless man for whom I prayed and with whom I had an interesting conversation. Sometimes Eugene is available to translate, sometimes not. Fortunately, God doesn’t need a translator, and generally (unless they came to stab; see above), the person being prayed for senses that we care about them.
In a kind of sign of appreciation and worship, the homeless on the bus…
…raise up the large piece of bread given them. The bread is donated by local bakeries, most of them owned by Muslims.
While most of the homeless we saw were men, some were women. Many of the men became homeless when the mine (the very raison de’tre of the town) had to lay most of its workers. The mine had to do this because its former market for the iron ore mined in the town’s quarry had been sent to Russia for refinement, but with the sanctions imposed by the United States, that market dried up (the government of Kazakhstan didn’t want to cross the US). So these men were not directly involved in the Russian Ukraine war, they certainly have become some of its casualties.
Some people don’t want to come into the bus, so they wait outside to get their food.
Ilya, however, (shown here behind the bar) steps outside the bus to speak to them about spiritual things. He was in prison for 17 years and then homeless, so he can speak quite forcefully. I asked him later if he relates to each person he talks to about his history. He replied that he doesn’t need to because everyone in town knows who he is. (I ended my questioning right there).
On every other Monday night there is a dinner for the church. Of course, there is a report ….
…on how the homeless outreach went that day, but other matters of the church are discussed informally.
Evening of Tuesday, July 30, 2024: Pepper Village
Tuesday evening we visited Pepper Village, a small suburban community about 10 miles outside of Rudney. This is essentially a planned community. The local govement is attempting to build in services sufficient for lots of growth. The roads are paved, gas lines are available, a new, large school has been built and local entrepreneurs are being encouraged to move there. However, there is no church here. So Eugene’s church is planting one there, headed up by Volodian (center, white shirt) and his family (Svetlana to his right, their daughter, Sonia, and young son, the latter not in the picture).
The following six clips describe what the church is doing in Pepper Village (clips are all short; longest is 47 seconds).
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Each morning Eugene’s wife Olga (standing) would fix us a wonderful breakfast. The foods were all familiar and very tasty and fresh (since the vegetables came from their backyard garden).
Next, on this day, we went shopping at very modern grocery store…
When Pastor Eugene stayed with us during our missions conference last March, I cooked him my usual breakfast: eggs, meat, mushrooms, peppers, onions, tomatoes all mixed together. They had a women’s dinner scheduled for Thursday night where Alison was going to speak. As for the meal itself, Eugene asked me to cook my breakfast meal for the dinner! I said OK before asking how many women would be there. When he told me about 35, I told him I had no idea how to cook for that many, but he waved it off and told me I’d figure it out! Nice guy! Here we are buying supplies. More pics on this later.
After shopping we had lunch at an authentic Cassack restaurant and ate an authentic Cassack meal as Pastor Eugene describes in this 30 second clip. A note about my impertinent remark at the end of the clip: while Pastor didn't hear what I said, he is familiar enough with American cuisine and humor that he would have gotten the joke. And actually I liked this meal very much.
On the drive back after lunch, we drove by the iron ore mine which is the very reason the city of Rudney was established a few decades ago. While they expect the quarry to open again some day, it is now closed for reasons Eurgene explains in this clip.
This is a satellite view of the city of Rudney and its associated quarries. It demonstrates how important the quarries are to the city.
That night we attended the youth dinner they scheduled around our visit. A few of the young people that had not been to one of these functions in months attended (because, we were told, to meet the Americans).
We were each asked to offer some advice at the youth dinner. I told of how Lois and I have mentored 14 couples preparing for marriage and based on that experience, I urged the young people — once they began looking for a mate — to look in the right places, like the church (not at bars!).
Thursday, August 1, 2024
Thursday morning, we visited Kostanay, the much larger city about 10 miles away from Rudney where the Hope Center (church) is located. Under Pastor Eugene’s leadership, the Hope Center is wanting to build a similar operation in Kustanay, but they are undecided between center of the city (more people live there and the transportation is easy, but it is much more expensive) and the suburbs where property is less expensive, but less accessible. (In either case, the plan is to build where there is no other church).
This 1 minute clip explains the case for the suburban location
One downtown location possibility…
…and another downtown location possibility
The choices of building styles downtown range between old Soviet style or more modern. The Soviet style is brutish (a simple cement block) and the modern architecture more stylish.
After the tour of the city of Kostanay, and the discussion of next steps as to their church plant there, we did some shopping (I bought earrings for Lois here)…and…
...tried out a for-profit ceramic studio!
On the way back to Rudney, we stopped at a facility that refits shipping containers for other uses.
Eugene was buying one of these to use as a place to bring and store second hand clothing, much like our Goodwill Stores.
Returning to Rudney, and after the obligatory nap, we started cooking for the women’s dinner..
Albert and Chris preparing the potato salad for the women.
I cooked my famous breakfast concoction for the dinner. (Just ignore my tripmate's remarks!)
Saying a prayer at the women’s dinner for which the men on our trip (the three of us) had cooked an American breakfast (for their evening meal).
Not much food was left so I guess we succeeded!
While the woman’s meal was going on, there was an informal meeting of boys and men. I missed this because I was exhausted from the stress of cooking for so many (I’m not kidding). I went to bed at about 8PM.
Friday, August 2, 2024: Air Travel to Almaty
Another very long flight, but at least the plan is to have a day of recreation and rest before getting on the two very long flights totalling 20 hours.
Saturday, August 3, 2024: Almaty
I had no idea that Almaty would be as cosmopolitan as it is!
But first breakfast at a very nice cafe with Eugene and his family (Victoria and her mother Olga here), who were attending a church conference in Almaty the day after we left.
We walked some more on the streets of Almaty…
The water on the side was ice cold and very clear…and right down from the mountains.
They told us we were going to take a drive into the mountains for the day. Didn’t expect this:
We took a gondola to the top of this mountain! (See the snow?)
Not surprisingly, this is one of the largest ski and snowboard resorts in the area during the winter.
The gondola trip was in three segments. This the break between the first and second. Note the number of people that hike up the hill for a picnic!
But by late afternoon, we had to head down…
…we had a dinner reservation with a pastor from a Cassack church in Almaty.
This man is a pastor of a Cassack church. We thoroughly enjoyed hearing his story.
Sunday, Aug 4, 2024: Mega store in the am; Church in the PM
A large section of the MEGA mall (that's it name and its description) consists of Chinese cars for sale. The general view of these cars is that they are 1/2 the price of Western cars and last 1/2 as long. That's a trade off many are willing to make.
As church that afternoon, though the music was often familiar, the words, of course, were not!
Our last event before departure (3:30AM Monday) was dinner at the friend of a Cassack friend of Eugene's (and Chris's) in their lovely home in downtown Almaty.
Our host (end of table with daughter on his knee) spoke four languages: Cassack, Russian, English and Korean (as confirmed by our tripmate Albert who is Korean). There is a surprisingly large influence of Korean in Almaty, due to the large influx of Korean missionaries after the breakup of the Soviet Union.
August 5, 2024: Trip Back Home
At 3:30AM on Monday, we departed Almaty at 3:30AM on Monday, bound for Doha, Qatar, and then, after an hour layover, to JFK (a 20 hour flight). Here’s the map:
Flight from Almaty (southern edge of Kazakhstan) to Doha, Qatar.
Flight from Doha to JFK, NYC.
Conclusion and thanks
Now that I’m home, people ask whether I had fun on the trip. Well, yes, some parts were fun, but mostly, I would say that the trip was enriching and inspirational. It was enriching to interact with the relatively well-off manager at the quarry who is a leader in the church (right-most guy in the last picture for August 1, above); the formerly homeless members and servants at the church; the currently homeless; and the kids and young people at the church. I know we didn’t have to travel to Kazakhstan to minister to the homeless or meet with kids and young adults, but here’s were the inspirational part is at play: to see that people half a world away minister to their homeless and conduct camps for kids and encourage families, etc, in the name of the same God I worship is an inspiration and deeply satisfying. So to all my prayer supporters and financial enablers, thank you!! I hope this record of the trip offers you some of the same inspiration and enrichment that I have experienced.