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CHRISTIAN
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CHRISTIAN
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Tent
Ministry Goes 'Above Ground' in Former USSR
'Canvas
churches' see results despite rampant addiction and paganism
An American couple is helping bring new life to a forgotten corner of the world said to be gripped by a "spirit of death." Ten years after the fall of communism, Kevin and Leslie McNulty are using circus-style tents to spread the gospel in some of the former Soviet Union's most remote parts.
They recently pitched one of their "canvas churches" in Izhevsk, some 580 miles east of Moscow in the Republic of Udmurtiya, part of the Commonwealth of Independent States created after the collapse of the U.S.S.R.
The McNultys joined with Yuri Degtyar, pastor of Word of Faith, a Pentecostal church, in conducting a groundbreaking tent campaign. According to Degtyar, a "spirit of death" is over Udmurtiya because of its being a center for production of the famous Kalishnikov machine gun, better known as the AK-47.
With a population of 1.6 million, the region has the second highest suicide rate of any country in the world. Degtyar tells the story of a woman working in the arms factory whose son was sent to fight with the Russian army in Afghanistan. After he was killed, colleagues traced the machine gun turned on him by the Afghan enemy back to the Udmurtiya factory, and determined that his mother had made the weapon.
Drug addiction and paganism are also rampant in the area, but Word of Faith is seeing breakthroughs. The church has graduated 300 students from its own Bible school over the last few years and seen them plant churches in several surrounding republics.
The McNultys' successful tent campaign in Izhevsk was one of the latest stops on travels that take them across much of the former Soviet Union. Their yellow-and-white tent can fit up to 5,000 people and is typically packed for their meetings, which feature preaching and prayers for healing.
The McNultys' hard-to-miss ministry flies in the face of many Western missionaries, who either left Russia or went underground in the wake of new religious laws in 1996 that tightened up on foreigners' activities. The McNultys say God told them: "Go big, go bright, and go above ground."
They have faced opposition in some parts of the region, though. An historic, government-approved crusade in the Muslim republic of Kyrgyzstan earlier this year finally went ahead only after a series of bureaucratic delays. More than 1,000 came to Christ during the campaign.
"We did not speak out against religion, but only for Jesus," said McNulty. The ministry also offered humanitarian aid for the first time. "We offered to feed and clothe the poor," he said. "The government and the [religious] committee saw that what we were doing is for the good of the society." At the end of the campaign, officials invited the McNultys to return.
At the Moscow headquarters of their Christian Adventures International, the McNultys hope to start a tent-making factory that will produce up to 100 other tents, to multiply their efforts. Currently, they have 12 tents in service.
Contrary to concerns expressed by some, the McNultys don't fear Russia closing its doors again to the gospel.
Charisma News Service Update for Wednesday, November 14, 2001
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