James and Mandy Baker are the only Christ followers they know of in a city of 500,000 people.
People there don’t even know what a Christian is supposed to look like, said James Baker, who, along with his wife, attended college and a Baptist church in Alabama.
“There are no known believers here, but we continue to share the good news with our neighbors, friends and anyone else we come into contact with on a daily basis,” he said.
“So far, we have spent most of our time dispelling preconceived ideas that [our people] have of Americans and Christians alike. Most think that we believe in three gods — the Trinity.”
Mandy Baker said it’s challenging — all the time.
“It’s hard, the reality that we live in a place where there are no known believers, no churches, no fellowship, no hope and then to know we can’t change that — we are at the mercy of the Holy Spirit to turn hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, to make blind eyes see and deaf ears hear,” she said. “It is hard to stare into those faces who are striving to please God and yet know nothing of the true God.”
But the Bakers have faith that God is going to do big things in their Central Asian city among a people who don’t know who He is.
So much faith, in fact, that they moved there with their three small children in 2010 after planning for 11 years to move to another part of the world.
“We had planned to go out on our own (to the other location). Even now, we are trailblazers but we will not be on our own for long,” Mandy Baker said. “Praise God, because our local church went to great lengths to train us and others around us to go out in teams.”
A couple from the Bakers’ church will be joining them soon.
“It makes no sense for longevity for a soldier to fight a war on their own,” Mandy Baker said. “The Spirit worked in our hearts … to go where a local body of hundreds have been burdened to pray for, to labor in and see a work of God done there.”
And the work is starting.
“The Father continues to surprise us in this place,” James Baker said.
God has been faithful to bring them to a city where people are willing to listen even when they don’t yet have the vocabulary to articulate the gospel fully, he said.
“Daily we have multiple conversations about the good news,” he said.
He asked that Christians in Alabama pray
• That their marriage and family would remain strong and centered on the Father.
• That their children would transition well into the local national school and be a part of the family’s ministry in the Central Asian city.
• That they would continue to be bold in the opportunities God gives them to share the gospel.
• That they would grow abundantly in language learning. “We are working on the first of at least two (languages) that need to be learned here,” he said.
Mandy Baker also asked that believers would pray for their hearts’ desire: to see their city come to faith in Jesus Christ.
There is “an all-powerful, all-consuming, beautiful, glorious God who wants many to know Him, to scream His name at the top of their joyful lungs from the rooftops as they see His hand all around them,” she said.
And that’s why they moved there, she said — to follow His call to make disciples and see the nations come to Him.
EDITOR’S NOTE — Names have been changed for security reasons.
Share with others: