Peoples of the Silk Road – The Goal of New Missionaries

We have just finished the Central Asian Missionary Bible School, where we have had students from almost every Stan country. They are missionary candidates whose hearts burn with a desire to evangelize the unreached people groups living along the Silk Road, such as Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kyrgyz people, Uyghurs, Karakalpaks, Turkmens and Tajiks.

The First Christian Church in Jerusalem sent Andrew, Bartholomew, and Taddeus to plant churches in Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus region, after which the gospel began to spread eastwards. Especially in Central Asia, God’s Word was well received. Subsequently, the Christian movement called Nestorianism experienced a great spiritual breakthrough in the 7th and 14th centuries.

In the 700s, its influence extended all the way to China and the south of India. Some historical sources assume that Nestorianism was the largest church in the world in terms of membership in the 800s. However, during the reign of the Mongolians, major attacks were carried out on many Christian centers. These left quite a devastating mark on spiritual work.

Although educated and multilingual Nestorians achieved high positions in both Muslim and Mongol rule, discrimination against Christians led later to the decline of Nestorian Christianity in the Middle East and Central Asia. Recently, however, interesting writings have been published in Slavic sources about how the activities of this revival movement also left their mark for people groups in the Siberian region. About 1000 years ago, for example, hundreds of Buryats, who are close relatives to Mongolians,  were baptized in the Baikal region.

During the time when some Mongols converted to Islam, many Christians faced great persecution in the 1200s, which in turn caused the disappearance of Nestorianism in countries like China. However, small groups of Nestorians can still be found in Syria, Iran and India. Today, however, their combined number is only around 90 000.

The New Testament Apocrypha mentions that the disciple Thomas went to India to spread out the gospel. Therefore, it cannot be ruled out that the Nestorian Church had some connection to the early church in Jerusalem, or at least to the revival of Antioch and Samaria (Acts 13).

A new revival is emerging 

In the mission schools of the Nestorians, theological studies were combined with vocational training. Centres of study were established, for example, in Samarkand, Mari in present-day Turkmenistan and Kashgar in China’s Sinkiang province. Now the students of our Central Asian school shared their visions and dreams of reaching the youth and unevangelized peoples along the Silk Road – they want to reach the gospel for them before Jesus returns. Even countries and peoples that had a Christian history in the past should be reached by God’s Word again, before it is too late.

These forgotten regions of Central Asia have in recent decades, despite the long-standing historical influence of Islam, been under ideological pressure from atheism and communism. The time of change has, in a very dramatic way, weakened the room for manoeuvre of Islam. Now, in the midst of a religious vacuum, the people are looking for a new direction in their lives – hope and faith for a better future lives in hearts of many people. Would Christ be the way to truth and new life, and real peace with God, for these Turkic peoples?

Students who have finished our mission school believe that a new time has come, when opportunities to expand the boundaries of God’s kingdom have opened up in new ways. When Uzbeks talk about the revival in the Aral Sea region and the churches registered after 30 years of discrimination and persecution, hope for a new spiritual breakthrough is kindled in their hearts. Prospective missionaries now want to spread out God’s word through the Turkic region to neighboring countries: Afghanistan, China, and Iran. Message of Jesus spreads along the Silk Road, just as it did during the great years of the Nestorian churches for about 1000 years ago.

Rauli Lehtonen, Jesus4Eurasia

(AI translation from Swedish)