There was a time when Maksud’s heart raced with each telephone ring. He recalls gripping the receiver and working up his courage to simply say “Allo” (hello). He felt exposed and at risk even behind the locked door of his Uzbekistan home.
Usually, within a heartbeat, a friend’s voice on the line cut the tension. Yet Maksud had to steady his own voice to sound casual and normal as he talked into the telephone.
What is normal for a Christian believer living under a government that has grown increasingly paranoid? In the current political climate, anyone who has religious convictions — Christian or Islamic — is often tagged as a threat to the government.
Uzbekistan became an independent nation in 1991 after the fall of the Soviet Union. Flags and state symbols changed, but the mind-set of the ruling elite did not. Immediately after independence, some political controls eased, but soon the nation’s freedoms began to erode. In recent years, that erosion has increased, and for some believers, state intimidation has now replaced the short-lived freedoms.
For Maksud, the world took a dark turn several years ago when local police took him from his home and began questioning him about his faith in Jesus Christ.
“There is no law that says you can’t be a Christian,” he explained, “but the police will say that when a person becomes a Christian, he brings dissension to the family, and this is wrong.”
Police held Maksud for a day, questioning him about friends, family, faith and the other Christians in the area. “They let me go, but for more than three months, there was such fear in my heart,” he said.
The police never visited again, and in time, Maksud adjusted to his new tatus of living under suspicion.
His story is not unique. Uzbekistan has become one of the most repressive new independent states, according to a 1999 U.S. State Department human rights report.
“Only in Uzbekistan has the state formally criminalized religious dissent,” the report said. “Uzbekistan explicitly prohibits any kind of communal activity by such a group, even a Bible study in one of its members’ apartments.”
Yet this has not stopped the spread of the gospel, said Ryan Stewart, an International Mission Board worker who, along with his wife, Lauren, lives in Central Asia and works among the Uzbeks. “Despite the crackdown, there continues to be growth in the church,” he said of the situation. “The growth is not in waves like it once was, but this is still an exciting time for the body of Christ in Uzbekistan.”
Today Southern Baptists working with the Uzbek church estimate between 4,000 and 5,000 Uzbek Christians worldwide. The couple and their team have seen people come to Jesus Christ after literally years of witnessing efforts.
“In a recent month, we saw one man decide to follow Jesus after being witnessed to for 14 years,” Lauren Stewart said. “About a week later, a woman believed after 12 years of witnessing, and then another man after nine years. It was as if God let it all happen at once to let us see we needed to just hang in there.”
‘Raising up’ believers
It may be awhile until most Uzbek communities are free to openly consider the worth of God’s greatest gift — Jesus Christ.
But Maksud believes the time will come. He uses the collapse of the Soviet Union as an example.
“God was in the changes of the Soviet Union,” he said. “Has God changed since those days? No. It’s the same God and He’s raising up from my people those who will serve and worship Him.” (BP)
EDITOR’S NOTE — This year’s Week of Prayer for International Missions, Dec. 2–9, focuses on missionaries who serve in the former Soviet Union as well as churches partnering with them, exemplifying the global outreach supported by Southern Baptists’ gifts to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. The mission study focuses on Moldova. Names in this story have been changed for security reasons.
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