Tajikistan Baptist Union President Alexander Vervai reported that hundreds of professions of faith took place during the Jan. 15 funeral for murdered Baptist missionary Sergey Bessarab, in Dushanbe. Others committed themselves to Christian service, he added.
The believers in Tajikistan are praying for the murderers “that they would come to Christ,” Vervai said.
Vervai said local authorities speaking at the funeral “wished for peace between all nationalities and religions.”
In a powerful witness to Bessarab’s final moments on earth, Vervai said an open Bible, a songbook and a blood-stained guitar were around Bessarab who lay in a puddle of blood after four bullets took his life as he was praying on Jan. 12. In just two weeks he would have been 43.
“Sergey was a man of prayer and faith,” Vervai said, “and there is no church or group of believers in Tajikistan who have not known of Sergey’s love for Christ and others.”
A former prisoner, Bessarab was changed by Christ during the prayer services that met weekly in the prison.
After he accepted Jesus Christ, he became the leader of the Christian group that met there daily.
When he was released, Bessarab and his wife, Tamara, who had been involved in prison ministry for the last 10 years, received some church training after which they both heard the call of God to plant a church in the city of Isfara in northern Tajikistan.
Bessarab was one of six pastors who serve the approximately 400 members in the Union.
Vervai asks Baptists to pray for another family to go to Isfara to help Tamara and the young church there and for financial help for Sergey’s family. (BWA)
Share with others: