40 years ago in a restaurant in Stockstadt, West Germany, two men met for an important lunch. One was Andrew Sememchuk, an American who worked with the Slavic Gospel Association. The other, Johann Pauls, a pastor from Detmold in the north of West Germany. There the two men met and dreamed about what God was doing across the Iron Curtain.

At the time there was no way to reach across Europe and into the Soviet world with the Gospel. There were faithful churches and people in the communist countries that came out of World War 2, but very few ways for the believers on the other side of the Berlin Wall to help.

Sememchuk and Pauls dreamed about an office for Slavic Gospel Association here in West Germany, with the hope that God could use them to bring Bibles into the hard places of the world. 

Now 40 years later, we want to look back on the legacy of ministry and faithfulness from the Lord! Here is a story from the mission field for each decade of Bible Mission, though there are so many stories of what God has done! 

Let’s begin in 1988, shortly before Christmas at the Bible Mission camp in Stockstadt. A truck is prepared to head into the Soviet Union. The cargo is extremely valuable, seven tons of Bibles in Russian. The Eastern Bloc countries were still closed, the Berlin Wall had not fallen yet. 

Bible Mission had been using riskier methods to transport small quantities of Bibles across the borders into the Soviet territories. However in 1988 they had received permission to take a truckload of Bibles to the town of Brest in current day Belarus. To get there Johann Pauls, Bible Mission’s founder and leader, and Waldemar Schröder had to drive through East Germany and Poland. 

This is a dream come true. A true miracle of God. Paul Hagelgans, who helped load this truck, remembers: “I watched the truck for a long time. I thought of my first New Testament, that my father had given me back then. I was 14 years old at the time. We lived in Kazakhstan, in what was then the Soviet Union. And it had always filled me with awe that people had risked a lot so that I too could receive the word of God.”

“I was converted on the basis of this New Testament and started preaching,” Hagelgans said. “When I was 20 years old, someone got me a Bible, which was later confiscated by the KGB. Now I had been allowed to lend a hand to transport such a large load of God's word to the Soviet Union. It was impossible to look after this truck without tears of gratitude.”

As the truck finally passed the border crossing and rolled through the Iron Curtain, the brothers Pauls and Schröder started to cry. When they arrived, the Christians in Brest were full of tears when they received this precious cargo.

In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell, and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. This opened up the east again for Bible Mission to minister. 14 new countries came out of the collapse, each with their own unique culture and needs. Bible Mission was in place and had the structure to invest in these reaches of the world. 

A civil war raged in Tajikistan in 1994, reaching the small village of Sarkar. The power vacuum there caused great instability. Sarkar would soon become important for another reason.

The first Tajiks to come to faith in Jesus Christ. In this remote village six people become Christians, and are the first generation of believers in Tajikistan.

Sobir and his wife Dilorom are among those first believers. Sobir was a soldier in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan. He repeatedly survived battles and found himself questioning what the meaning of life was. He searched in the Quran and didn’t find answers.

Sobir visited a friend and he saw a copy of the Gospel of John in Russian. He borrowed it and started to read it. He began crying, and with every page God’s word penetrated his heart. He prayed to God alone asking for Jesus to come into his heart. Soon his wife also converted.

These first Christians in Tajikistan aren’t just hunted down by authorities, but also by their own families. 

“My wife and I were evicted from my father's house,” Sobir said, “because we have done something illegal. For having come to faith in Jesus, we are cast out. We have been on the run in our own country for a long time. Our first daughter died tragically. One of our two sons suffers from a severe disability. But God still gives us three daughters and carries us through these difficult times.”

Sobir is now a pastor and missionary, and Bible Mission is helping to support the ministry in Tajikistan. He travels tirelessly to proclaim the Gospel. Even in the completely unreached Pamir region, God is building his church among the people of Tajikistan. To the first six Christians, he has added over 3,000 to date.

As we moved into the 2000’s, the regions of Eastern Europe and Central Asia began to stabilize, but still there is great need. However, God continued to call leaders and believers from these countries.

Galym was one of the first Kazakhs to come to faith in Jesus Christ during an evangelization event. Most of his family members turned away from him, although they are more traditional Muslims and know little about Islam.

He had been training to be a lawyer. Galym finished his studies and began a job working in a law firm, when the news reaches him that the church is looking for a servant to reach out to the Kazakh people. 

Out of love for Jesus Christ and his fellow countrymen, Galym laid down his desire to be a lawyer. He began a full-time job as a missionary and preacher. 

Islamists attack him for this, threatening him on the phone. For Galym, this is no reason to pause the service that God has entrusted to him. He gratefully takes advantage of the Bible school's courses in Kazakh, to train for this service. The Lord developed him as a leader through Bible Mission.

Today, Galym leads the ministry among the Kazakh people throughout Kazakhstan. Often the Kazakhs think the Bible is a Russian book, explained Galym. And that God is the god of the Russians. Now that God's word is available in their mother tongue, the Kazakh people can understand that God is a God for all people, who speaks to everyone in their own language.

Galym said, “God's word has the power to change lives. That is why we must use every opportunity to help the Kazakhs with God's word.” So in a way, Galym has become an advocate after all, an advocate for Jesus Christ, a lawyer who defends faith in him, whose plea speaks for the gospel and who, instead of passing judgment, proclaims God's love and grace. He began this journey in 2004 and still serves the Lord faithfully in Kazakhstan.

Bible Mission continued to serve across the world, and entering the 2010’s God began to give a vision for unreached people groups. In Tajikistan there is a region called Pamir. Pamir is a high mountain range, with a unique people group with their own language. They are one of many people groups not reached with the Gospel.

A man named Igbol, who belonged to the Pamiri people, walked one day to a building site. He found the place where a new house in the style of the Pamir people is being built. 

At the gate Igbol called out loudly: “Where is the messenger of God Rasul?” The construction workers call Rasul and the two men got to know each other. 

“Why did you come?” Asked Rasul. 

“God showed me this village in a dream,” Igbol said. “He said that a house is being built here and that you work here. Now I'm here and I want to hear what you have to say.”

Rasul and Maxim, the heads of the ministry in Tajikistan, told Ikbol about Jesus Christ. Ikbol listened intently. He had so many questions. The two brothers took the time to answer and finally pray with Ikbol, before he set off on the long journey back. 

What sounds like a chapter from a modern Acts of the Apostles is a testimony of God's work in the Pamir region today. This area has long been considered unreached. The people here are desperately poor. They live in spiritual darkness, characterized by occultism, Islam and personality cults. 

But the Christians of Tajikistan have been active in the Pamirs for decades. Bible Mission has supported them in aid campaigns, evangelization and construction projects. On one of the many expeditions to the mountain villages was where Ikbol also received the gospel. 

God sent him to the building site. That house that was built has now been completed, the first hope center in Pamir, a contact point for children and families. It is a base for further evangelization in the Pamir and a base station for missionaries and mission teams. 

Behold, this is our God. From a meeting 40 years ago at a table in West Germany, the Lord has used Bible Mission in a powerful way. He has blessed us tremendously and all glory goes to God. 

We are taking the time this week to celebrate what the Lord has done, inviting those from around the world to come to Germany to celebrate together and vision forward for the next 40 years. 

We would love for you to be connected to what God is doing across Eastern Europe, Russia, Central Asia and to the ends of the world. If you’ve been supporting, praying for, or following Bible Mission, we thank you so much.

There is still much work to be done, so please get connected by following our newsletter and stories. If you were moved by this story send it to a friend or tell someone! If the Lord is moving you to give, we would be very grateful.

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Isaiah 25:9

“It will be said that day, “Behold, this is our God, we have waited for him, that he might save us. This is the Lord, we have waited for him; let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation.”

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