CENTRAL ASIAN REPUBLICS Summer 2008
Hope and a future
Karakalpak believers face difficult choices
Abandoned. Disappointed. Angry.
At 16, *Bektas had nothing good to say about God. He had studied at the mosque—the only place young men in Uzbekistan know to go in search of God. But faced with repeated disappointment in his life, Bektas felt only distance from God.
“Maybe God had a plan for everyone else, but he didn’t seem to have one for me.”
Then one day in the late 1990s, as the first churches were springing up among the Karakalpak people of Uzbekistan, a man shared the gospel with young Bektas. “He told me two things. One: ‘God loves you.’
“‘God loves me?’ I asked. ‘How? Like this? My parents abandoned me. I can’t get into university. I have no way to get married.’”
While struggling with the implications of such an extraordinary statement, Bektas was confronted with a second truth in the form of a question: “Doesn’t God speak Karakalpak?”
Suddenly disbelief in God’s love was swallowed up in an overwhelming certainty that the God of the universe speaks his language. His Muslim religious leaders said Arabic was the language one must know to speak with God, but Bektas saw this limited people from truly knowing God.
Anger and the pain of abandonment eventually melted into faith in Jesus, and this young man who had once prayed every night for God to take his life now understood that God had plans to give him hope and a future.
But Bektas could not have imagined in those early days where his earnest belief in Jesus would take him.
A little over a year after becoming a believer, Bektas was pastoring a small church when police raided his home and arrested him. Though the police threatened to send him to prison, Bektas was eventually released after paying a fine. Faced with a choice—to continue to share the gospel, to distribute Bibles and lead churches—Bektas saw no choice. His allegiance was to Jesus.
Today, Bektas’ commitment has made him a man without a home to call his own. After five arrests, he was recently forced to flee Uzbekistan for a neighboring country. Along the way, he started two more churches.
Two months ago, Uzbek police tracked down Bektas and convinced authorities that he was a dangerous criminal who needed to be returned to Uzbekistan. He was walking to a bus stop one morning when six anti-terrorism officers poured out of a truck, beat Bektas and took him into custody. Uzbek officials, after confirming the arrest, celebrated with words like: “We got Bin Laden!” In Uzbekistan, to be a Christian pastor and evangelist is on par with terrorism.
Bektas was released from jail two days later, once local authorities understood that he was a believer in Jesus and not a terrorist. However, Uzbekistan police are still labeling him a dangerous criminal. Please pray for Bektas and his wife and young children. This month they are facing a crucial decision: return to Uzbekistan in order to encourage the church, while knowing that Bektas will face severe persecution and jail time; stay in their present Central Asian location, though their safety is not assured there either; or move to a Western country where they will be free to live as they wish, though far from their own people and homeland.
Bektas’ heart aches for the believers they have left behind in Uzbekistan, and yet he also desires safety for his family. Pray that God will make his will clear and continue to use Bektas to reach Central Asia.
*Names changed to protect believers.
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Learn more about the peoples of the former Soviet Union
Kazakhs :: Kyrgyz :: Muslims of Moscow :: Tatar :: Turkmen :: Uzbe