Ruslan Chaldanbayev worked as a youth pastor for 10 years in Central Asia, seeing many young people leave Islam to follow Christ. Today he helps lead a youth movement called 2CA; their goal is to see 2% of Central Asian youth become followers of Jesus Christ. He and his wife both have amazing testimonies of coming to faith in Christ as young adults, which you will hear as Ruslan shares his upbringing in a broken home where drugs were rampant and Islam was followed.
Ruslan was educated in a madrassa (Islamic school) and started to learn Arabic. But even with his growing Islamic knowledge he had many unanswered questions. His brother dealt with drug addiction, and through rehab, Ruslan's brother heard the gospel message and committed his life to the Lord. Ruslan's mother began taking him and his brother to church. Ruslan heard about Jesus on Sundays, but was still going to the mosque each Friday, where he was trained by imams in Islam.
You'll hear about the moment Ruslan cried out, "Who created me? Please show me yourself," and how the spoken Word of God brought him to repentance and saving faith in Christ.
But serving Christ hasn't been easy; Ruslan and his family have experienced Christian persecution from government officials and angry Muslims; they've even been harmed by "friends" who turned out to be spies against their work.
Listen for the story of a KGB raid on a pastor training seminar, and how God allowed Ruslan to share the gospel even in that stressful situation.
Ruslan says that today in Central Asia, only 0.01% of the people are Biblical disciples; pray the Lord would bless Ruslan's ministry so that more young adults in the region come to know Jesus. Learn how you can pray specifically for Ruslan and his family, and for Christians in Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan.
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