In Their Own Words
{conversations with Central Asians}
“It didn’t matter than my head hurt, blood was running down my face, that my dress was turning red with blood. The most important thing was that there were no bad feelings in my heart.” –Nurnisa
KAZAKHSTAN Summer 2008
Blessed to be a blessing
When Nurnisa prays, with her palms held open before God in traditional Central Asian style, her posture paints a picture of her life.
For years as a single mom without a home of her own, she experienced the ache of having nothing. As a Uighur who grew up in the Soviet Union, she also felt the gnawing hunger of her spiritual poverty.
“When I was young, I wondered a whole lot: Is there a God? Is there not a God? One day my friend said to me, ‘Come on. Let’s go to this place where they are talking about God.’”
That was 14 years ago. Nurnisa ended up at a small house church meeting where she heard the gospel for the first time. “There my heart was drawn to what I heard. Who is this Jesus?” she wondered. When asked if she was ready to follow him, she answered, “Yes, but I need to understand much more about who Jesus is.
“Lots of people thought of him as the Russian God. But I wondered, how did he give help to other people? How did he forgive them?”
Jesus was quick to meet Nurnisa in her seeking. One day following her church visit, as she was asking these questions, God began to show her “like a movie” the events of her life and the sins she had committed. One by one she repented and asked God’s forgiveness, and after an hour and a half, she told Jesus she believed. In that moment of confession and cleansing, God showed her a picture she will never forget.
“Right in front of me was a pitcher. He showed me it was full of milk—very white. I asked, ‘What is it, God?’ And he said, ‘My daughter, the fullness of your sins I have cleansed. Now you are whiter than milk.’ From that time I’ve been with Jesus.”
Today, Nurnisa’s hands are open before God in a new way. While still very aware of her own needs, she has become a source of blessing to many others. Two young men discovered this reality in a surprising way when they beat and mugged Nurnisa on her way home one evening a few years ago. They demanded her money and threatened to kill her.
She agreed to give them what she had, but with one stipulation: “Okay, but I will pray for you.
“At that time, in my heart there were no bad feelings,” Nurnisa explained. “It didn’t matter than my head hurt, blood was running down my face, that my dress was turning red with blood. The most important thing was that there were no bad feelings in my heart.”
One of the young men who mugged her was Kazakh, and the other was Tatar. Both of them were teenagers.
“I prayed for the Kazakh boy in Kazakh,” Nurnisa said. “The other boy sat so quietly. Then he asked me to pray for him too.”
Though for a year after the mugging she couldn’t eat solid food, God filled her with compassion for these young men and enabled her to pray for them. She continues to think about them and wonder if Jesus’ love has penetrated their hearts.
Nurnisa also prays for other Uighurs who are seeking to know the truth about God, just as she once did. She asks believers around the world to join her in praying.
- Pray for the many Uighur women who are single and raising children on their own. Nurnisa says the divorce rate is high because many men are alcoholics and abusive. Ask God to pour out his Spirit on the Uighurs and to transform their families.
- Pray for Uighurs who are hearing many conflicting messages about God as a result of cult activity in Kazakhstan, where many Uighurs live. Pray that they would see and believe that Jesus is their salvation.
- Pray for many more Uighurs like Nurnisa to give their lives to Jesus and stand before him in a posture of worship and service.
*Names changed to protect believers. Photo does not represent the woman in the story.
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