No father should have to bury a son.
But the world can be a sad place — particularly the piece of it called Udmurtia (ood-MER-ti-yah) in the foothills of Russia’s Ural Mountains. On a spring day there last year, Leonid touched his son Yevgeny’s cold, pale cheek for the last time and wept as Yevgeny was lowered into the silent ground.
Yevgeny, 21, hanged himself after a drinking binge. It was the third suicide of the year in the tiny Udmurt (OOD-mert) village of 30 families.
Why? Hopelessness. Aimlessness. Spiritual poverty.
"Young people want everything and they want it now," Leonid said, sitting at his kitchen table a few months later. "My son was that way. They watch TV and can’t tell the difference between fantasy and reality. With no work, all they do is drink."
The gulf between soaring expectations and grim, jobless reality overwhelms some young Udmurts. They brood, drink, sniff glue, become depressed — sometimes suicidal.
Leonid folds his burly arms and shakes his head. For a long moment, he looks out the window at the rolling hills that stretch to the forest. He pours more tea for his Christian guests. Normally good-natured and cheerful, the 43-year-old former teacher manages a smile and even a quip or two. He brags about the homegrown herbs he uses to brew his tea. But soon he grows pensive again.
"We Udmurts are famous for healing herbs," he said. "Yet we have the second-highest suicide rate in Russia. I don’t understand it."
In many ways, Leonid’s personal tragedy symbolizes the struggle of the Udmurt people. But Leonid also symbolizes hope for the Udmurt, because he has become a believer in Jesus Christ.
He was led to faith by Vasily Zagrebin, an Udmurt Baptist evangelist, and Southern Baptist missionary Tim Wicker. Now he wants to help take the gospel from village to village so other Udmurts might know hope and escape the hopelessness his son suffered.
The Udmurt people, who number about 770,000, are one of the larger non-Muslim groups in Russia.
Traditionally Udmurts revered sacred forests (they are known as "people of the woods"), the land, the sky, the sun, water, spirits, ancestors, their mythical creator "Inmar" and a host of lesser deities. They made sacrifices to their gods in forests and sacred barns, but they knew nothing of personal repentance or divine forgiveness. They saw their offerings as barter in exchange for a good crop, fertility and prosperity.
How much do the old ways influence Udmurts today? Some say paganism has faded. Others see a direct link between pagan practice and the alcoholism and suicide that torment their people.
Because of this, the Udmurts are the focus of this year’s Day of Prayer and Fasting for World Evangelization, which Southern Baptists will observe May 27 (Pentecost Sunday).
"We’ve got to get people praying," Wicker said. "We’ve got to get the gospel out there."
For more information, visit www.imb.org. (BP)
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