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Have you heard the expression “Boots on the Ground?” Well our Live Dead Missionaries are the boots on the Silk Road. Here we’d like to take a moment and allow one of them to share a snapshot of their life with you. Some names and details have been changed, but this is a true story from this colorful, vibrant, and sometimes surprising region.

Before we came to Central Eurasia, we prepared, prayed and worked to share the news. We wanted to come and help. We wanted to be a blessing! In the past, we lived in relatively small cities, and never long enough to know all our neighbors. When we moved here, to our building of 15 apartments, within a month one neighbor had come to introduce herself and teach me the safety rules for the building. She started bringing me desserts and other small meals, almost every other day, as gifts. This grew into invitations to teatime and offers to help in any situation.

To get around in this city there are buses, taxis, mini-buses, ferry boats, trains, metros, electric cars…. and we use them all! One particular day we used just about every method of transportation, had walked for hours and were on our last bus home. There were no available spaces to sit, In fact, there was barely enough space to stand. All the seats were taken with people who were quite a bit older than us, so we did not have any hope for a seat. We were exhausted. It had been a productive day, but after two hours of standing on this bus, we were now waiting in traffic for who knew how much longer. I leaned my head on the window and in my thoughts I said to God, “I don’t know that I can think positively of this day anymore… this is too heavy a burden right now.”

Compassion Extended

Just a couple seconds later, several men started to move and asked my husband to please sit down with my daughter, whom he had been holding. Some lady in the back of the bus had noticed him and had asked them to get up and give him a seat. I was relieved for him, and before I could feel sorry for myself, they told me I too needed to sit down with my son, who does not normally get to sit on a very full bus. I sat on the bus holding my son on my lap. We were both exhausted. I looked at the lady and thanked her for her selflessness. She smiled and walked away. I closed my eyes in exhaustion, looked out the window and the Lord revealed how He made that lady notice us. She felt mercy on us and was a vessel of great blessing when we did not think we could handle anymore.

At that moment I was greatly humbled before the Lord.

The people I came to bless and save were used to bless me.

There are not many days that go by when I am not amazed by the kindness of these people, such as I have seldom encountered before. They are so giving, so caring, so outwardly focused and they don’t even have Jesus to give them strength! How can I not desire to be effective in bringing them the greatest blessing of all?

I write this because this is the majority, not the exception. Truth is, there are some who are not so kind and caring. My prayer is that as I encounter those who are more difficult, those who laugh at my poor language, those who point and gossip about my differences, who disagree with my beliefs, those who can’t understand me and won’t help me with a needed document or payment; I pray that I will show them the same selflessness and undeserved kindness that these unknown blessers showed and continually show me.

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