Education

A few years ago a stranger approached my landlady at the local bazaar, and told her about a man who could help her with her problems. “Is he a rich man?” she asked, because she needed $2000. The stranger was talking about Jesus, and he encouraged her to pray, which she did. A few days later, someone knocked at her door and asked to rent some of the rooms. When she asked how much they would pay, it was $2000.

My landlady found out more about this faith and became a believer. Her attitude to her husband and family became more loving. As she stopped beating her children, they recognized the change in her and they too believed. When her daughter was desperately ill with typhoid, they prayed and she recovered. Her husband doesn’t allow her to have regular contact with other believers, but we’re sometimes able to pray and share together.

If you look in an atlas published before 1991 you won’t find the Central Asian republics- the five ‘stans’ west of China. They were occupied by the Soviet Union for much of the twentieth century, and underwent huge upheaval after the collapse and withdrawal of the Soviet Union in the early nineties. However these are ancient lands, through which invaders, explorers and merchants such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Marco Polo travelled on their camels and horses along the Silk Road.

The Central Asian country I work in is predominantly Muslim, and the majority of the people live in serious poverty – the average annual income is only 2% of the average New Zealand income. They are people scarred by a history of violence and oppression, and feel powerless in the face of injustice, high unemployment and substandard public services. They long for their country to become peaceful and prosperous, but there is much political corruption, incompetence and naivety amongst the country’s leaders: despite the authoritarian brutality of the Soviet regime, many people desire the return of the stability it brought.

Living in Central Asia is not easy, with extreme heat in summer and bitter cold in winter. Outside the main city there is limited or no electricity for four months of winter – ironically, the country ranks among the top in the world for water resources and electricity generation potential. Where I live, the water that comes out of the tap is often chocolate-brown dirty – we call it ‘typhoid water.’ My housing is much better than one of my visitors, though: I was shocked to discover she lived in a hovel, with cardboard boxes along one side serving as walls and a dirty drainage ditch running through the middle of it. She lived right next door to a grand embassy building.

I am a teacher working with educated adults: young professionals, bankers, business people, government workers and university students.

A taxi driver told us his story. He had been in prison – not a pleasant place – and a religious leader told him this was his destiny. The man was angry at God for this, but had a revelation of Jesus in a vision and said, “God, if you are real, of course I will follow you.” Now out of prison, both he and his wife are believers.

It was very important for local people to be able to slot me into a role (“Oh, she’s a teacher”), in order to accept me. They also value the contribution I’m bringing to their community: education opens doors to employment and further education opportunities, and is needed in order for the country to develop. Some of our former students completed further studies abroad before returning to Central Asia to take up high level leadership positions with international development and aid organisations.

School provides more than education, though – it also provides opportunities for students and staff to build meaningful relationships. Several women in my classes told me how they made supportive friendships and gained a sense of self–worth through school. In one particular class the women formed a strong bond, and a group of them would come regularly to my home throughout the summer break. They witnessed how God answered our prayers – for example, a student’s mother who was desperately ill with a bleeding artery in her neck recovered after we prayed for her. Some of these women and their families have become my long-term friends.

People are very hospitable, and I sometimes found myself in unusual situation, such as singing The Yellow Submarine at a karaoke party held to celebrate Women’s Day. The philosophy was that we had to make the most of this day as it was the only day in the year that was any good for women! The hostess, a somewhat vodka-drunken Russian-speaking downstairs neighbour, ended up becoming a good friend, and proved to be a real help when I had a flood and unexpected intruders in my flat.

The local people generally think of Christianity as a foreign religion, and consider their own religion (mainly folk Islam) to be an integral part of their national identity. A handful of my friends, however, expressed a serious interest in Christianity as they saw it being worked out in my life.

A Sixteen Year Journey God has led me gently and step by step into crosscultural work. It started back in 1992 when I made the decision to do something purposeful with the rest of my life. At the time I was picking carnations on a flower farm, which gave me plenty of time to pray for God to show me His direction for my life. I wasn’t really considering going overseas because I wasn’t a very confident traveller, but then in 1993 the door opened up for me to go on a short-term mission trip to Vietnam. It really inspired me, and since then I have spent a year in Russia, made two short-term trips to the mountain areas of Pakistan, and lived in Central Asia for two years.

Each trip made me more ready for the next, and caused me to grow in faith. I’m so glad that I went, as all the trips have been amazing highlights and growth periods in my life.

The decision to come to Central Asia was more difficult, as I didn’t have a strong sense of calling to this country. But I came because I was available and needed, and was confident that I would be given sufficient support from inside and outside the country to enable me to do a good job. “Send me forth, Lord, bearing seed, destroying our fears, conscious of our needs.”

When a 14 year-old neighbour became seriously ill with meningitis, we prayed for his recovery and, after two months in hospital, he came home. It was a delight to once again hear him singing in the stairwell and thumping out one-finger tunes on my old Russian piano.

My once-a-week cleaning lady became a loyal friend, and introduced me to her village relatives. She knew how to fix important things like telephone lines that wouldn’t connect. Her sister had died of tuberculosis, and over the months we walked through her grieving together. Although she still holds to her traditional superstitious beliefs she has recognized that God answers our prayers.

The church here is small, weak and doesn’t seem to be growing. But I have a lot of respect for the local believers, who are unafraid to shine their light courageously. One pretty young woman has a visible joy; she is undeterred in her continued witness even after recovering from a tragic neardeath encounter a few years ago, when a bomb explosion targeting young Christians succeeded in killing ten. There’s a solo mother who bravely runs a business, undaunted by harassment from family and officials with their long interrogations; a flatmate who, even though only a young believer, steadfastly preached out in the villages despite there being strong opposition and demands that she stop; and the busy mother of five young children who took the time to patiently and sensitively befriend a lonely refugee woman of a different faith. These are just some of the people who give me hope that Christ is at work in this land.

Robin is currently on Home Assignment, and is available to share about her experiences with interested groups. Please contact the Interserve office for more information.

Education

A few years ago a stranger approached my landlady at the local bazaar, and told her about a man who could help her with her problems. “Is he a rich man?” she asked, because she needed $2000. The stranger was talking about Jesus, and he encouraged her to pray, which she did. A few days later, someone knocked at her door and asked to rent some of the rooms. When she asked how much they would pay, it was $2000.

My landlady found out more about this faith and became a believer. Her attitude to her husband and family became more loving. As she stopped beating her children, they recognized the change in her and they too believed. When her daughter was desperately ill with typhoid, they prayed and she recovered. Her husband doesn’t allow her to have regular contact with other believers, but we’re sometimes able to pray and share together.

If you look in an atlas published before 1991 you won’t find the Central Asian republics- the five ‘stans’ west of China. They were occupied by the Soviet Union for much of the twentieth century, and underwent huge upheaval after the collapse and withdrawal of the Soviet Union in the early nineties. However these are ancient lands, through which invaders, explorers and merchants such as Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great and Marco Polo travelled on their camels and horses along the Silk Road.

The Central Asian country I work in is predominantly Muslim, and the majority of the people live in serious poverty – the average annual income is only 2% of the average New Zealand income. They are people scarred by a history of violence and oppression, and feel powerless in the face of injustice, high unemployment and substandard public services. They long for their country to become peaceful and prosperous, but there is much political corruption, incompetence and naivety amongst the country’s leaders: despite the authoritarian brutality of the Soviet regime, many people desire the return of the stability it brought.

Living in Central Asia is not easy, with extreme heat in summer and bitter cold in winter. Outside the main city there is limited or no electricity for four months of winter – ironically, the country ranks among the top in the world for water resources and electricity generation potential. Where I live, the water that comes out of the tap is often chocolate-brown dirty – we call it ‘typhoid water.’ My housing is much better than one of my visitors, though: I was shocked to discover she lived in a hovel, with cardboard boxes along one side serving as walls and a dirty drainage ditch running through the middle of it. She lived right next door to a grand embassy building.

I am a teacher working with educated adults: young professionals, bankers, business people, government workers and university students.

A taxi driver told us his story. He had been in prison – not a pleasant place – and a religious leader told him this was his destiny. The man was angry at God for this, but had a revelation of Jesus in a vision and said, “God, if you are real, of course I will follow you.” Now out of prison, both he and his wife are believers.

It was very important for local people to be able to slot me into a role (“Oh, she’s a teacher”), in order to accept me. They also value the contribution I’m bringing to their community: education opens doors to employment and further education opportunities, and is needed in order for the country to develop. Some of our former students completed further studies abroad before returning to Central Asia to take up high level leadership positions with international development and aid organisations.

School provides more than education, though – it also provides opportunities for students and staff to build meaningful relationships. Several women in my classes told me how they made supportive friendships and gained a sense of self–worth through school. In one particular class the women formed a strong bond, and a group of them would come regularly to my home throughout the summer break. They witnessed how God answered our prayers – for example, a student’s mother who was desperately ill with a bleeding artery in her neck recovered after we prayed for her. Some of these women and their families have become my long-term friends.

People are very hospitable, and I sometimes found myself in unusual situation, such as singing The Yellow Submarine at a karaoke party held to celebrate Women’s Day. The philosophy was that we had to make the most of this day as it was the only day in the year that was any good for women! The hostess, a somewhat vodka-drunken Russian-speaking downstairs neighbour, ended up becoming a good friend, and proved to be a real help when I had a flood and unexpected intruders in my flat.

The local people generally think of Christianity as a foreign religion, and consider their own religion (mainly folk Islam) to be an integral part of their national identity. A handful of my friends, however, expressed a serious interest in Christianity as they saw it being worked out in my life.

A Sixteen Year Journey God has led me gently and step by step into crosscultural work. It started back in 1992 when I made the decision to do something purposeful with the rest of my life. At the time I was picking carnations on a flower farm, which gave me plenty of time to pray for God to show me His direction for my life. I wasn’t really considering going overseas because I wasn’t a very confident traveller, but then in 1993 the door opened up for me to go on a short-term mission trip to Vietnam. It really inspired me, and since then I have spent a year in Russia, made two short-term trips to the mountain areas of Pakistan, and lived in Central Asia for two years.

Each trip made me more ready for the next, and caused me to grow in faith. I’m so glad that I went, as all the trips have been amazing highlights and growth periods in my life.

The decision to come to Central Asia was more difficult, as I didn’t have a strong sense of calling to this country. But I came because I was available and needed, and was confident that I would be given sufficient support from inside and outside the country to enable me to do a good job. “Send me forth, Lord, bearing seed, destroying our fears, conscious of our needs.”

When a 14 year-old neighbour became seriously ill with meningitis, we prayed for his recovery and, after two months in hospital, he came home. It was a delight to once again hear him singing in the stairwell and thumping out one-finger tunes on my old Russian piano.

My once-a-week cleaning lady became a loyal friend, and introduced me to her village relatives. She knew how to fix important things like telephone lines that wouldn’t connect. Her sister had died of tuberculosis, and over the months we walked through her grieving together. Although she still holds to her traditional superstitious beliefs she has recognized that God answers our prayers.

The church here is small, weak and doesn’t seem to be growing. But I have a lot of respect for the local believers, who are unafraid to shine their light courageously. One pretty young woman has a visible joy; she is undeterred in her continued witness even after recovering from a tragic neardeath encounter a few years ago, when a bomb explosion targeting young Christians succeeded in killing ten. There’s a solo mother who bravely runs a business, undaunted by harassment from family and officials with their long interrogations; a flatmate who, even though only a young believer, steadfastly preached out in the villages despite there being strong opposition and demands that she stop; and the busy mother of five young children who took the time to patiently and sensitively befriend a lonely refugee woman of a different faith. These are just some of the people who give me hope that Christ is at work in this land.

Robin is currently on Home Assignment, and is available to share about her experiences with interested groups. Please contact the Interserve office for more information.

Education

Having just trained in development, I wanted to find a role where I could put my knowledge into practice, and I had a very clear interest in Middle Eastern or Central Asian countries. I was drawn to Interserve’s commitment to professional standards and was not quite ready for a long-term Partner commitment, so I was delighted to discover the On Track programme.

After interview I was offered and accepted a one-year position seconded to an NGO working in Central Asia. I was to be the Technical Adviser to the management of a disability and deaf education project in the eastern region of the country. I arrived in the country’s capital and within a few days began one-to-one language training. An understanding of the importance of learning the local language was also something that drew me to Interserve. It made such a difference in building relationships. The small amounts I learned were appreciated and extremely helpful.

After a month in the relatively liberal capital, I moved east to a more conservative and rural city. I lived in a spacious compound with very high walls (the norm for all nationals) which were topped with barbed wire (the norm for all foreigners). I lived with three other single women, and we had a dog and two guards. Outside our compound were open sewers and children playing. The children used to throw stones at foreigners; now they just shout names at us, identifying us as outsiders.

My daily work took me to a school for a few hundred deaf, blind and mentally disabled children. Just a small percentage are disabled from war injuries, more from untreated diseases that escalate to permanent disability, and perhaps the majority have congenital defects due to generation after generation of intermarriage. This is one of the few schools in the country where boys and girls are educated together. As they are seen as not normal, they are exempt from some of the national rules governing schools and share classes up to Grade 1, after which they are taught in single sex classes but in the same school. The hearing teachers teach in Sign Language, as do the deaf teachers for whom it is their first language.

Cultural adjustment My daily attire was a shalwar kameez (trousers and tunic) and a large chadar (scarf) that covered not only my head and shoulders but also my back down to my thighs. There are dress differences across the regions. In some areas, much smaller, almost nominal head scarves can be worn, but in the region I was in, the adherence to veiling is much more strict. Eastern women still wear the burqa when outside their home compounds. The more forward thinking families permit their women to be uncovered in their places of work and therefore seen by their male colleagues. Many long for the time when they will not have to wear the burqa.

The conservative customs of the city meant that I was not to drive and I was not to walk anywhere alone. I was not to greet any male unless he greeted me first, nor to offer my hand unless he did so first. I was not to be in a room with any man on my own, nor to laugh loudly or blow my nose in public.

Shopping, for foreign women, consists of making a shopping list for the guard and leaving him to go out and get it or sitting in the car on the bazaar road, sweating and being stared at, while the driver does your shopping for you. Kidnapping threats are regular occurrences as are random bombings in the bazaar areas.

Despite such prohibitive social practices, there are no restrictions on hospitality, which embodies the Persian saying that guests are God’s friends as well as the Arabic proverb, ‘A house that receives no guests, receives no angels’. We were always welcome at our friends’ and colleagues’ homes for meals at tables filled with freshly killed halal meat, vegetables, freshly milked yoghurt and cups and cups of green tea. If the neighbours cooked too much they would send round a plateful to us. And so we learned to do the same.

The people there know the importance of spending time with one another. Their cutlure speaks of the value of human beings not human doings: Take off your watch and sit cross-legged on the rug; do not be embarrassed about silences – speaking the same verbal language is inconsequential; sharing time and space is a blessing.

A year of challenge, a year of blessing There were hardships to the life: rare hot water and sporadic electricity; extreme heat in summer and no heating in winter; limited social options with other foreigners; no sport but what you could rouse yourself to do in your own room. And yet what a valuable year: learning about my own capacity to deal with an extremely different culture; learning a new language; living a very simple, timeconsuming life where the tasks of cooking, cleaning and washing leave little time to think of the television you do not have. A year to learn how to continue to be vibrant in my faith without the support of a local Christian community. How to minister to and encourage one another (my housemates and I) in our spiritual lives and in the trials of a life lived so contrary to what we were used to. How to survive such solitude from all the mod cons and social options of European life.

To say there were not times when I felt ashamed to be a woman, that I took on that spirit of shame which is so prevalent in that situation would be lying. There were times when I wanted to dance in the rain and laugh out loud, to wear jeans and walk bearfoot, to run up a hill, to be in male company of any sort without someone thinking ill of me.

It was at these times I had to look to the Lord and remember what he thinks of me: that I am not pure or saved by anything that I have done of my own merit or can ever do, but through the sacrifice of Jesus I can come to him as his daughter. When my love is wanting, he gives me more to pass on. When my spirit is weak, he gives me strength to persevere.

God took me to Central Asia for the year, and he was with me in all his abundance throughout. He blessed and protected those I left behind and has brought me back again, filled with ever more determination to give my life as a living sacrifice. I expected a desert and I got an oasis.