Can you imagine living in such a remote village that you may never have had a visitor? You won’t be surprised then when you see and hear the reactions of people who greeted SGA ministry team members Alexei and his wife Diana. They brought food aid—provided through the generosity of friends like you—as well as the love of Christ in action.
“They have never had anyone who would come to their village with aid,” you’ll read in the accompanying transcript. “They could not understand who we were and why we came . . . we talked and explained that we wanted to bring them goodness.”
As Alexei shares later in the video, this gift of life-saving supplies, of visitation, and of pastoral care has started building a bridge in order to return . . . and bring the Gospel. Please watch and pray for God’s work in Central Asia . . .
Transcript:
00:03 We have been acquainted with Diana and her team for three years now, and we are very grateful to them, as they come here from the city far away, voluntarily giving their weekends, holidays coming to us, who live in remote villages, delivering us food assistance, clothing, toys the locals are very pleased with such an aid! Many thanks to you on my behalf and on behalf of all my fellow villagers!
00:33 (kids, in Kazakh) Thank you!
00:34 (in Kazakh) Thank you for your kind assistance,
00:43 In a local village, 20 families were able to receive this considerable help. All the villagers are very pleased and express their gratitude to you on my own behalf, I also want to express my special gratitude to you as what you do is a great and noble calling! Thank you very much again!
01:13 Today we are able to take a long-awaited opportunity to visit a remote village after a five-hour drive from the city of Almaty, which is 400 km (ca. 250 miles) away. It have become a great joy for us, as for three years we were trying to come to this village, but for various reasons, we could not get there, but this time we succeeded and could see happy faces, the people saw hope, as we brought them food, clothes, and they saw the goodness that we brought to them, which we were able to do together with those people who participate with us . . . together with you, we came to this village, and it was wonderful!
01:51 And it was amazing that people, being in such an extreme need, were very kind, hospitable, and responsive right away, we started building relationships with the locals, exchanging contacts, one grandma who was just an amazing woman, warmly welcomed us; she prayed for us and blessed us, and we were so delighted with how open the people were. We built very good relationships with local teachers. They started introducing us to the children and their parents. We exchanged contacts, and they said they would be waiting for us to come again. It was astonishing to hear from the locals that to date, they have never had anyone who would come to their village with aid.
02:30 In fact, the village is located at the foot of a mountain, so when we were around nearby villages, we could come and visit one to three villages in a row, but only later we found out that there was another village that we have been overlooking. And now after travelling quite a road, we saw 80 houses located at the foot of the mountain. The village is quite remote from other locations, and people were just heading out to meet us. They could not understand who we were and why we came so, we talked and explained that we wanted to bring them goodness. We wished them happy Nowruz and the people were greatly disposed to communicate.
It is amazing that now we have already built a kind of friendly relationship with them, and we definitely want to come back here again. We already have some ideas and plans, as we could assess their specific needs, and we see now what we would like to bring here, when we come back
This is a good opportunity to build a bridge, a relationship, in order to bring the Gospel to this village, in order to share to people the Good News. We believe that the relationship that we started, will bring good fruit in due time.
03:49 Dear friends, we also want to encourage you, if you are not yet participating in the ministry together with us, you have a unique opportunity to visit these villages or you can help us with resources, if you do not have the opportunity to travel, so we encourage you to take part in this cause and you will experience the joy and blessing, not just for these villages, but for each of us who participates in this ministry! May God bless you!