"Kazakhstan"
Sermon Transcript for January 26, 2003 By George and Carol Steel
VIDEO
Who are we? We are the fulfillment of a vision given years ago. We are a ministry that is vibrant and alive and working a new vision. A few years ago God revealed a vision to several benefactors in America. Their dream was to start a feeding program in Kazakhstan--a program that would fill the tummys of children who don’t get enough to eat and fill the souls of children with the gospel of Jesus Christ. The vision became reality in May of 2000 when we fed our first children—kids from needy families from the Mikado area.
One of these children is Nina. Nina is 11 years old and lives with her mother and uncle in a one-room apartment. Because neither Nina’s mother or her uncle works, there is no income. The apartment has no functioning kitchen—no sink, no refrigerator, in fact, no running water. When we visited Nina’s home, Nina’s mother was cooking soup on a hot plate on the floor. With only one single-size bed, Nina sleeps on a pallet on the floor. Nina spends a lot of her time on the street begging or looking for food in garbage cans. Since being introduced to the center, Nina is able to come and receive two good meals a week, which is more than she finds at home or on the street.
Today we are feeding 160 kids like Nina twice a week. The program meets in space provided by a hospital and clinic and is staffed by seven believers who have a heart for the children and the families they minister to. In order to make things manageable for the small staff, the children come on different days and in shifts. Along with their meals, they take part in a program of singing, crafts, and other learning activity. The staff fixes its meals from this pantry. Along with vitamin pills these meals will probably be the most nutritious ones the children will receive the entire week. As a result of years of not having proper nutrition or enough to eat, some of the children have sustained mild learning disabilities.
In addition to feeding the children, the ministry assists by providing warm clothing. Each year, the staff tries to provide every child with a warm coat and a pair of boots to get them through the harsh Kazakhstan winter as well as with other pieces of nice clothing to help take away the stigma of coming from a poor family.
Early on we became aware that if we really want to make a difference in these kids life we would have to do more than feed them. We would need to know their families and how they live. Are drunk or ailing parents beating the children? Are they being abused in other ways? Who are the caregivers of these children—mother and father? As in Nina’s case there is no father in most homes and if there is often times he is an alcoholic. Sometimes, mother is an alcoholic too. Unfortunately, alcoholism is rampant. In some families, the responsible person is an older sibling—maybe only 13 or 14 years old and responsible for two or more littler ones. All of them may come to us to eat. And some of our families are just poor. They are doing the best they can and need a little help.
In order to find out about these families, we began a visitation program. Each family participating in the feeding program is required to permit home visits by the staff. Teams of staff members are assigned to families. They are the only persons who will visit those homes. And it is their responsibility to get to know the caregivers and let the caregivers get to know them. In this way trust is built and caregivers begin to let us know what is really going on in the home. At this point, we can hope to make a difference.
And it’s working! We see teams and caregivers begin to bond with each other. With the assistance of a lawyer we have helped several mothers’ work through the mass of paperwork required to get government assistance. We’ve also been able to give medical care to several children that wouldn’t get it otherwise. Seven-year-old Monyo was one of these. Born with cataracts on both eyes, he’s been legally blind since birth. Last summer we were able to provide the resources to have the cataract removed from one of his eyes. The other one will be removed soon. And when he’s a little older, the doctors will put lenses in his eyes. When Monyo first started visiting us he was a somber little boy who didn’t trust anyone. Today he comes bounding in the door loving to sing and be involved in all the activity. You would never know he was blind!
But we didn’t make a difference in him, God did! You see, Monyo’s mother and grandmother have joined the Living Vine church. They are both active in a home group and Monyo gets to go to Sunday school. The positive impact in Monyo’s life is clear. We are grateful for all the work the Lord has allowed us to do through OCD, but we believe this is only the beginning. For every child we are able to feed and visit, there are many on the streets that don’t have families or homes for us to visit. They live in basements and hallways in businesses in the area. In winter, when it is minus 30 degrees Celsius, they sleep around the pipes that provide heat for the city. We desperately need a shelter where these children can get a warm bread and bowl of hot soup.
And then there is the dark world of drug addiction. Children as young as 14 have been sniffing poisonous substances and sticking needles in their bodies since they were 7 or 8 years old. Many of these kids will be picked up by the police or become so sick that they will have to go to the hospital. Some have been in and out of the hospital several times enduring the horrors of detoxification each time, and after detox they are simply discharged. Those more fortunate have families who take them, but most are sent right back in to the same environment they have left and are soon lost in darkness once again. Our vision is to create a home for these hurting kids, located outside the city, away from the urban environment that got many of them in to trouble in the first place. Here there would be plenty of room for them to play soccer, ice skate, ride horses, or just run around. A plot of land could provide space for a garden in which the children could raise their own vegetables. Most of all we want to provide a safe and warm place where these children could live with Christian people. A place where they can meet a loving heavenly Father whom they can turn to for strength and support instead of turning to the street.
These new visions for ministry have yet to be realized. But we believe that when they are, the Lord will open more doors for even greater things. In the meantime, we wait and remain obedient knowing that He in His grace will provide everything needed to make these dreams reality. Could you be a part of that process by blessing the children of Kazakhstan with your prayers, gifts, and resources?
(End of Video)
George Steel: I said that to Dan last year, of course I said it in English. I said, “Welcome”. I’m saying it to you now because I hope that some of you will come and visit us in the near future. Let’s read a couple of versus out of the Bible. Psalms 127:3, “Children are a gift from the Lord. They are a real blessing.” And let’s jump over to Matthew 19:13, “Some people brought children to Jesus for Him to place His hands on them and to pray for them, but the disciples scolded the people. Jesus said, ‘Let the children come to me. Do not stop them because the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.’”
Almost ten years ago I was on a short-term mission trip to Russia and became deathly sick. And the people at the hospital where I was, which was the Kremlin hospital; I was in the politician’s hospital, the best hospital in Moscow and in all of Russia, didn’t know what was wrong. And I said, “Put me on a plane and send me back to Gainesville, Florida” where we came from. I said, “We have a wonderful hospital there and they can find out.” And they said the magic words. They said, “You might be dying.” I didn’t hear the “might”. They said I was dying to my ears. And I did what all good Christians should do, even the ones who just profess it. I turned my life over to Christ and I said, “Lord, forgive me.” I said, “Take me home.” I said, “Lord, if you want to leave me here, heal me.” And when I said that, immediately Christ talked to me. He said, “Get out of your bed.” And immediately, 6,000 miles from Gainesville, Florida, where a young bride, my wife, we’d been married two years at that time, was walking in to the church scared to death that this new husband of hers was going to die. Someone says, “How’s George?” And Carol says, “He’s okay.” God gave her the piece of mind that she needed to be able to understand that He was in control.
I asked God, “If you save me, where do you want me to work?” He said, “My children in Russia are dying.” And we started the process to become missionaries. Carol didn’t really know that. I came home. I got with my pastor that had been with me, an Associate Pastor like Dan, and we processed this commitment I made. “You know, I’m okay now, but I really need to go out and save these children in Russia.” God said, “Yes”. I got with a Stephen minister who is a young man that we work with. Carol and I are both Stephen ministers in our church back home. He said, “Yes.” So we started the process. Bob made another trip to Russia and came home and said, “George, let’s start a youth shelter and you and Carol go.” I said, “Yes”. And I said, “But how are we going to tell Carol?” And he said, “Let the Lord do that.” So we began.
Today we are at Kazakhstan. Today you just saw some of my children and you are seeing some of them in the picture. And we’re making a little bit of a difference. And let’s reflect back on how this church got started and how it’s grown. And you’ve stepped out and you’ve done things that you later thought when you first started never could imagine. And we went down and had lunch with George Jacobs yesterday down at the retirement home. And I just was amazed at how beautiful it was and how big it was because people like you stepped out and risked. People like Carol and I are stepping out and risking right at home. And I tell you what, I’m much more comfortable in Kazakhstan talking to people than I am right now. You all, you all scare me. I’m trying to let the Lord talk to me. Sometimes I try to get in control and I can’t do that.
But we’re over there working with young people. I went over there thinking we were going to start a youth shelter right away. God with His wisdom had other plans for us. He put Carol into a school and she’ll tell you about the school in a few minutes when she takes over. He put me walking the streets, learning the culture, getting to know the people. My previous wife was an alcoholic. So back in 1981 I learned about AL-ANON, which is for families of alcoholics. And I started AL-ANON in Keragunda. Seems like sort of a practical place. You probably have 98% of the male population over there that are alcoholics. And I started working with AL-ANON and we started expanding. I saw the kids of the AL-ANON families. Some of them came down and I saw them not having any place to go to play, to feel safe. So I started looking at a coffee house. In the 1960’s we went, listened to music, and drank coffee. Now in Europe today they have coffee houses springing up all over the place for missions, which is the same idea. They will be able to sit and talk with their friends, drink coffee, have a snack. Don’t pay anything though. That’s not a mission if you charge them. And just give them a safe place to go, a safe place to interact. We’re helping the kids with their homework. We’re helping the kids play act, to do skits about situations at home so they can learn how to deal with them.
We started the coffee house 50 years ago. And we started out the first official function and a little girl in the middle of that picture right there was our first AL-TEEN child. She took AL-ANON with her mother. I was so embarrassed--only one child the first day. And she said, “Oh, will I get to speak?” She could never speak at an AL-ANON meeting in front of her mother. We now have over 100 children in Keragunda going to AL-TEEN every week learning who they are, learning who Christ is, learning about turning things over to God that I didn’t learn till I was in my 40’s. We went to Moscow several times. The last several years though we went to Holst, Russia. And that’s the picture you just saw of her and me and all those kids. That was at an Al-ATEEN meeting at Holst. And we got to meet other people. And then this October we went to Moscow to an AL-ATEEN convention. She couldn’t go. Last February her mother died as she held her mother in her arms. After her mother started drinking again, the doctor told her it would kill her if she did; and the doctor was right. Adias’ had a rough year; missed a lot of school. I got her in to a shelter finally. But her and her brother moved back in to their house last summer and this fall she’s in school. And I went to get permission to take her to Russia with me, but the administration there, they are the ones in charge of her, and she couldn’t go. So I took three other young ladies in different groups, three women, and we went to the AL-ANON convention. And they were having a business meeting and they allowed us to get up and speak about AL-ATEEN. They said they wanted questions and answers and I had those three young ladies come up and answer their questions. Those young ladies were so dynamic that as I walked out of the meeting, this young woman walked down the hall towards me, and as she got about this far from me tears just started busting off her face. And she said, “I’ve been trying to start an AL-ATEEN meeting in St. Petersburg.” But she said, “It wouldn’t work. And I just made up my mind last month that God didn’t want it to happen now. And you are here telling me it can happen.” She’s been to Keragunda since October and visited with Carol and I for a week to learn about how our AL-ATEEN meetings work. We have more AL-ATEEN kids going to AL-ATEEN meetings in Karagunda then they have all over Russia. Karagunda has 450 people; Russia’s up to 160 million…(lost some of transcript due to changing to other side of tape).
We have so many young mothers who came to the coffee house over the years for help. And I can’t help them a lot. I told Mareka’s mother, I said, “We’ll feed you.” And I started feeding them. And, oh, the people who worked there, the people would pile the soup on for these kids. If they’re hungry, they’ll be fed. The feeding program you saw in the movie a little bit ago. Last January, the KGB, the movie is a year old, a little older, last January the KBG came in and told them they could not teach about the Bible and to get the religious pictures off the wall. I became the Director of the feeding program in May. And my coffee house had a big breezeway between the house and the garage. And I closed that in and made it twice as big as the little one they had at the hospital. They were feeding 100 kids three days a week and then another 100 kids three days a week. Every week those kids are getting three meals a week. And on Sundays we started a Sunday school class in September that goes from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. And if the kids come to that they get fed. So they get four meals a week. That’s not much. I need two meals a day.
These are the kids. These kids need your help! They need your prayers! They need you to come and just go over and just touch one of them. And I go around and I touch them and I hug them and I scoot them over on the bench and I look at them while they are eating. My Russian language isn’t too good folks but those kids all understand what I mean. And I have one thing to ask them every day, “Who loves you more than I do? And I hear somebody say, “Jesus loves me”. Those kids, they know who loves them more than I do.
Carol Steel: When I think about Russia and the 16 satellite countries of the former Soviet Union, I’m reminded of the first two versus of the Bible. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was formless and void. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and God’s Spirit moved over the waters.” Kazakhstan definitely has survived a century of darkness, a century of formlessness and void, a century of oppression from the Czars of Russia and ultimately from atheistic Soviet era. God was forbidden. But that last sentence in those versus said, “And the Spirit of God was moving over the waters.” And that is the miracle that is the awesome thing about the former Soviet Union. That is why it is so incredibly exciting to have an opportunity to be messengers of God’s love because God’s Spirit was there in the hearts of the people. And everyone I meet, everyone without exception, is actively searching to fill the yearning emptiness. And they look for the answers in the bottle, the vodka. The government, the former government, was very happy to fill that emptiness with vodka because drunken people don’t get it together and object. So alcoholism is a huge problem. But the Spirit of the Lord is there and all He needs is a messenger.
So having had 25 years here in this country able to touch a child in the classroom and being touched by the children; I had the great privilege of being their teacher. We went to Kazakhstan and I was excited about the opportunity to touch the children now in a different environment especially those on the street especially those who were particularly in bad straits. And I went very willing. “God use me however”. Have you ever put limits on the Lord? I did; I confess. Twenty-five years I avoided administration in the schools. I avoided it like the plague. I said, “Lord, anything. Anything at all, except please don’t make me school administrator.” You’ll laughing because it’s happened to you, hasn’t it? Have you ever put the limits on the Lord and He says, “Ah hah, just see what I have planned for you”. Well it’s my great joy, I have to say after all those years of avoiding administration, it’s a great joy and I feel incredibly privileged to be what’s called the Director of Kazakhstan American English School. The school was started nine years ago amidst the social chaos of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the horrible economic crises as a result of all of that, by two American missionaries, a couple, who took the School of Tomorrow curriculum, which is a biblically based curriculum with them. And they went with a vision to start a school, teach English, and invite others to know the Lord and to hear of the salvation of Jesus Christ. Well, the couple wasn’t able to stay after the second year and our team assumed the leadership of that school. So when I arrived I was asked to prayerfully consider this work.
The children are tuition students. Their parents pay three times more for every month for their studies than many parents make in that same month for the whole family to live on. We have 20 scholarship students; and they are precious. They come from families who are making enormous sacrifices in order for their children to study at the school. And when you ask people, “Well, why in the world would they do that? To make sacrifices to not buy clothing, not eat, maybe, keep the heat down—why do they make those kinds of sacrifices? The answer is that without fail all and everyone who comes to the school says, “Something is different about the school.” And I think maybe you could understand that fully if I explain to you that the style of teaching, the style of education in all the former Soviet Union is power, control, fear, intimidation and humiliation thank you very much! And the children learn or else, but they don’t feel as loved, or they don’t feel the value and worth of being a child of God and they don’t learn it in their homes especially when their parents are alcoholics.
So we need more scholarships. It is unlawful for us to use the tuition of one family to pay for the children of another. So friends from the states help us with a scholarship fund to bring more than just 20 of those students. And there the students learn how to love themselves, how to love the Lord, and how to love their neighbors.
I would ask that you pray for this school. The Department of Education has told us that we have to get rid of the curriculum, as it’s not in compliance with the laws of Kazakhstan. I’m here looking for alternatives. I would ask, also, that you prayerfully consider this next summer inviting some of our students to come spend about ten days in your homes and in your church with your church family learning what it means and what it’s like to live in a Christian home where parents teach their children to love one another and their neighbors.
George Steel: One of the unique things about your church is you’re already involved with us over there. One of your member’s grandson, daughter, and great grandchildren are working in a village north of us about eight hours by train—the Cravens. We’ve been blessed with Dan coming over and we hope to be blessed with you coming over. We talked with Steve and the Children’s Ministry. You all have got a wonderful Children’s Ministry. I sat in on a meeting yesterday. It gave me some insight that I never expected to hear. We need your help folks. We need your prayers, we need your love, and we need you to think about what you did when your grandchildren or your children were small and what you could be doing to help children who don’t have anybody to help them because as an alcoholic, you don’t love yourself. If you can’t love yourself, you can’t give love.
Carol Steel: We’re so excited right now. Nine young couples are expecting babies in our church. And the couples are expecting babies—we have nine babies coming to our church! This granny is loving it. My little old granny heart is going pity pat. But here’s the problem. These young couples were raised in families where the State was the parent. The parents went to work; the children went to school or pioneer camp. The parents came home, drank, and went to bed. The children came home, studied, and went to bed. There was no interaction, no parenting on the part of their parents. So here are these young, expecting parents who have no idea how to parent their children in a country where the State is no longer doing that and their children have choices and the world is open to them. They have no idea how to parent, how to talk to their children, how to set the boundaries, how to be a Christian father or a Christian mother in a home. So that’s another place where it is our great privilege to be a part of the ministry talking about what it means to be a Christian parent.
Do you speak English? Come to our school and talk to our kids. Do you need a hug? Come to the coffee house, you’ll be hugged to death. Do you want to learn a little more personally about what it means to be a child growing up in Kazakhstan? Host one of those children this next summer. Be involved. Reach out. Let the world know what a blessing it is just to be a child of God. And all you have to do is love Him, love ourselves, and love one another. Thank you so much for having us come and telling you how incredibly God has blessed us. And come help us be a part of the blessing in Kazakhstan.
George Steele: God bless you and yours. Thank you.
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