Russian Federation – 1
Oct 10th, 2007 by pfadmin
In case you didn’t get to pick up a Mission Paper from the service this past weekend, sections from it will be posted here.
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Over the month of October, please dedicate some of your prayer times to focus on this month’s mission emphasis (Russia). (Information excerpted from Operation World, calendar targets).
Targets for Prayer:
The government faces a daunting task. The election of President Putin brought a ray of hope that the catastrophic decline of the 1990s might be reversed. Major issues for prayer:
a) Political wisdom in balancing the need for strong government but with democratic accountability and respect of basic freedoms. A new tyranny is likely to arise if the present system fails.
b) Economic stability. Much must be done to set up the legal framework and financial accountability to successfully privatize industry, make services work and encourage investment. The poverty of the majority and their hopelessness has stimulated crime, drug abuse, alcoholism, family breakdown and suicide to alarming heights. Many ordinary people live for months without wages.
c) Justice. The economic levers of society have fallen into the hands of criminal networks that have crippled business initiative and subverted the bureaucracy. There is no chance of change for the better without confronting these dark forces which make a mockery of legislation that cannot be enforced.
d) Building a multi-cultural nation after centuries of imperial and Communist tyrannies and, at times, ethnic genocide. The Chechen war is one manifestation of the feelings of ethnic minorities having suffered injustice and mistreatment not only in the Caucasus but also the Urals, Siberia and the Arctic. Russification policies deprived minorities of their land and wealth and suppressed their languages and cultures. Such attitudes threaten the integrity and survival of the Russian Federation. Inflamed nationalism severely hinders the progress of the gospel
e) Upholding constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. An alliance of the Russian Orthodox Church (hostile propaganda and misrepresentation), the Press (biased reporting) and the local and regional authorities (imposing arbitrary restrictions on religious minorities) all threaten it. Non-Orthodox have been made into second-class citizens, or even strangers in their own land. Pray that this legislation may be nullified and repealed, and true religious freedom re-established.
f) Health. The combined effects of the collapse of funding for health services, the availability of free abortions for birth control and a general sense of communal despair is causing accelerated population decline through family disintegration, alcoholism, TB, AIDS, high infant mortality and emigration. Pray for improved funding, morale to be restored, and Christians to play a greater role in health care.
g) A facing up to present and looming ecological disasters. Many thousands of square kilometres have been made uninhabitable by nuclear disasters and weapons testing (Chernobyl 1986, and parts of the Urals, Kazakhstan and the Arctic) and chemical/biological poisonings. The oil industry has massively polluted vast areas.