[column width=”1/6″ title=”” title_type=”single” animation=”none” implicit=”true”]

[/column]

[column width=”5/6″ last=”true” title=”” title_type=”single” animation=”none” implicit=”true”]

Every week on Wednesdays, we profile one of the 728 UPGs in the region that Live Dead Silk Road focuses on. These profiles are meant to give you some information about these peoples so that you can pray for them. They’re the people to whom we are striving to bring the gospel. But what does it mean to be a UPG? What is an “unreached people group”? Find out here.

The Turkmen are a vibrant and passionate group of people. They are known to be hospitable, sincere, and trustworthy, but hot-headed and vengeful when wronged.

The Turkmen are an ancient people group with a strong ethnic identity as the “children of the desert.”They lived as nomadic herdsman and farmers, and they often plundered Persian traders traveling in caravans along the Silk Road.

While there are few believers today among the Turkmen of Central Eurasia, they were introduced to Christianity early in church history. The first Christians entered Turkmenistan in the fourth century. The Nestorian Christians moved throughout the area and beyond, going even as far as Mongolia and China, but although they remained among the Turkmen for centuries, their conflicting views with Christians to the West kept them isolated. By the fourteenth century Islam had replaced all trace of Christianity, impacting all political and cultural aspects of Turkmen life.

Today there is little awareness of Christ or the church among the Turkmen. Their tribal loyalties still hold influence, with strong family ties and the continued tradition of marrying only within their tribes. When the Russians began to take over Central Asia, the Turkmen saw their nomadic lifestyle subdued by the socialization of farmland and the urbanization of the Turkmen. An anti-religious campaign in 1928 by the Soviets sought to eradicate Islam in Turkmenistan. It was the most violent of the anti-Islamic attacks by the Soviets in Central Asia, but although the Soviets controlled Turkmenistan for seventy years, Islam is still prevalent today.

How you can pray

Christian Turkmen face condemnation from their families and society, and churches are closed and members are forced to go underground. Turkmen pastors have been fined, beaten, and arrested, but the most effective outreach for these people is to hear the Gospel from their fellow Turkmen. We need to pray for the church to take root in Turkmenistan, and for Turkmen Christians to be encouraged in the face of persecution to continue sharing the Good News.

Although we are all different, in Christ we the church are a family. As we pray for the Turkmen, we should pray that the persecution the Turkmen Christians experience would unite them together, to see past tribal restrictions and to form new and strong bonds with their fellow Christians.

Live|Dead Silk Road has a team working among the Turkmen. Would you like to partner with them in prayer on a regular basis? Find out how to PRAY here.

[/column]