Stories from
AZERBAIJAN Baku • Sumgait EURASIA
Azerbaijan
Elshan Abdullayev—Baku Fuad Tariverdi—Baku Rasima Muradova—Sumgait
Grace Publications 6025 Moravia Park Drive BALTIMORE, MD 21206
Printed in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A. Copyright Š 2012
Grace Publications is a ministry of Greater Grace World Outreach, Inc. www.ggwo.org
INTRODUCTION These pages contain what we consider to be good news from afar. The words are written to take your imagination to nations, to places, and to homes so that you would understand more about the reality of what God is doing in His world. Think about the people as they tell you about the days of their youth. We believe their stories will stir you to pray and that the maps and sketches will give you a sense of where they are from and of what their countries are like. The stories you are about to read are true stories. They are from people like you who grew up in towns and neighborhoods like yours and did some of the things that you do. At some point in their lives, each of these people became believers in Jesus Christ. Each of them recognized their need for His saving grace and entered into real spiritual relationship with Him. Also, each of these people came to be a part of the ministry of Greater Grace World Outreach, a church devoted to preaching the Gospel and to the mission of making disciples of Christ in every nation.
Our prayer is that these series of books on these amazing people will help you to see the wonderful work of God. Through the reading of these stories, you may find yourself wanting to meet people like these people and to go to new places and be part of the great adventures of missionary life. Special thanks to those involved in producing this publication: Melissa Quickel, for her interviews and transcriptions; Daniel Dunbar, for putting these into story form; Karen Janssen, for the drawings of the people and the places; Sue May, for the layout and design; and for Bruce May, for the printing and production. Steve Andrulonis Editor in Chief Grace Publications
AZERBAIJAN Azerbaijan
Sumgait
Baku
Baku … Elshan Abdullayev Baku … Fuad Tariverdi Sumgait … Rasima Muradova
Elshan’s Home Town Baku, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Baku
Baku, Azerbaijan
Elshan Abdullayev
D
id you know that there are some people who truly enjoy school and studying?
Perhaps you are one of them and you will understand what I mean when I say that for Elshan Abdullayev school was a hobby. Some boys collect coins, action figures, or pictures of their favorite athletes. Elshan collected grades. He did not care what the subject was; he studied very hard so that he could get A’s in all of his classes. He was a perfectionist, always trying to be and do the very best, and that is why he worked so hard to excel in school. Elshan was very proud of his intelligence and his ability to figure things out logically. He thought he was smart 7
enough to be the president of Azerbaijan when he grew up. Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union when Eslhan was a boy and ruled by communists, so he was taught in school that there was no God. He heard in history class about a godly man named Jesus who had been killed two thousand years ago, but this was only information for him to learn to get a grade. After all, Jesus was part of the Christian religion, and he believed that if he was going to be religious, he should be a Muslim, since that was part of his Azeri culture. Elshan’s father was a communist, so his family was not religious. Elshan hated him because he drank alcohol and ignored his family when he came home from the army. He had never told Elshan that he loved him. The family moved to Baku when Elshan was old enough to go to university. His parents owned two apartments and decided to rent one. An agent brought two Finnish women, Elina and Liisa, to see the apartment and Elina played a song on the piano. Elshan’s mother loved the ladies right away and served them tea and coffee, because she wanted 8
them to rent the apartment. When Elshan’s father came home, he recognized one of the women and said, “I know you! You were playing the violin in that place,” and he told his family that he had been going to a nice cultural club where people talk about God. Elshan was shocked. Elina and Liisa said that their pastor would have to approve of the apartment before they could live there. They explained that they were missionaries and invited the family to come to their church. Elshan imagined a building with a cross on top, filled with sick, old Russian ladies with wrinkly white skin hoping to find some sort comfort in their Christian religion. He thought, “What are these two ladies thinking? I am a Muslim, not a Christian.” He knew his father could not refuse the invitation, because that would be very impolite for an Azeri to do, but he expected his answer would be a polite “maybe” which would have meant “no.” When Pastor Matti SirviŐ from the Greater Grace church arrived, he said the apartment was nice enough, but the neighborhood was too dangerous for two missionary ladies. Elina cried. Elshan’s family were amazed. How could someone they had known for so short a time love them enough that she would weep because she could not live in 9
their simple apartment? After this tearful display of unconditional love, Elshan’s father accepted the ladies’ invitation to their church, and the whole family went. Elshan was surprised to discover that the church was filled with hundreds of dark-skinned Azeris like him, and that they all were filled with joy and love. He thought, “This cannot be a church. This must be a club where people speak and sing about God.” He wondered, “Why are these people like me, yet very different from me?” The people had something mysterious inside them, and he was jealous enough of them to want to figure out what this mysterious something was. He paid little attention to Pastor Matti’s preaching from the Bible, but spent the service observing the other people like a scientist, trying to understand the “trick” that made everyone so happy. By the end of the service, Elshan had told God that, although he now believed in Him, he would never become a Christian, since he was a Muslim. He had no explanation for the trick. Thinking more 10
that
observation
combined with logical thinking would help him understand the trick, Elshan decided to come back to the church until he figured it out. Every Sunday morning he went to the meeting, and when he learned there were also Sunday and Wednesday evening meetings, he attended those as well, but he still could not understand what made the church people so happy. Deciding that he needed even more opportunities to observe, he enrolled in Bible college, a shy, unsaved Muslim guy, sitting in the corner of the classroom, not talking to anyone, just taking notes and feeling strange whenever the other students told him how much God and they loved him. He found himself looking forward to the meetings and his classes. Finally, after months of observing Christians, he realized he understood their trick: Nobody in the church or the college was any different from him, except that they believed what the pastor was preaching and teaching. He had learned enough to know what they did, but he was not believing it. He knew the Bible said that all men are sinners and that God loves sinners, but hates sin. He knew that God sent his only son to die on a cross to deal with sin so that people, like him, could believe and be free. It didn’t make logical sense to him, but alone in his 11
home, he prayed, “God, I want to be a Muslim and believe in Jesus Christ. Come into my heart and change my life. I want to have the same life that the people in the church have, and they say to just believe.” Little by little, God changed Elshan’s life. He began singing in the church and he finished Bible college. He married a wonderful Hungarian woman and together they serve God in the Baku church and as missionaries to Iran. Elshan’s father received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and he stopped drinking. He came home happy about his life and brought joy to his family. He told Elshan, “I love you,” for the very first time, and they became good friends as father and son. It wasn’t Elshan’s knowledge that changed his life; it was his simple faith in Jesus Christ.
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Fuad’s Home Town Baku, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Baku
Baku
Fuad Tariverdi
W
hen Fuad Tariverdi was growing up in Baku, Azerbaijan, he had many hobbies
and responsibilities. He liked to draw and play sports. He attended a special club where he learned how to build a radio and work with electronics. He enjoyed listening to music and practicing the violin and the piano. He took care of two birds, some kittens, and his fuzzy, jumpy dog Top. But Fuad’s biggest job was to look after his little brother. Because Fuad was five years older, he was put in charge of his little brother when their 14
mother had to go work as a doctor. Fuad told his brother stories and made up games to play with him while their mother was at her job. Because he did such a good job taking care of his brother, Fuad’s family nicknamed him “second mother.” Fuad had a busy life, but he sometimes found time to ride his bicycle on the great, long boulevard beside the Caspian Sea where families came to relax and play. He was a happy boy, but he did not know God. His grandmother was a faithful Muslim who prayed five times a day, but his own family never went to the mosque to worship. Fuad’s idea of God was a big, old, gray-bearded man who watched over him to make sure he was being good. He liked the idea that God took care of him, but he was afraid of what might happen if he wasn’t a good boy. Even though Fuad did not know God, when he became a teenager he began speaking in his heart to Him, praying, “If You are there, help me with this.” He became curious about the priests and the holy book in the Russian Orthodox church that was 15
next to his house. He sneaked in and watch the old grandmothers and grandfathers lighting candles and he tried to touch the mysterious, sacred book, but he got caught and was told he could not look into it. Fuad
had
questions
about many things that were happening in his life, like the death of his friend in the army, but no answers. He went to college to study to be a mathematician and fell in love with a girl who was studying mathematics too. One day, his girlfriend’s mother came home very excited. She had seen a poster that asked “Is There Life After Death?” and she had gone to a church to hear what a pastor named Tom Schaller had to say on the subject. Fuad heard that this pastor had spoken from the Bible, the holy book, and that the people at the meeting had sung songs, clapped, raised their hands, and laughed. He thought this was a joke, because he believed that people talking about God had to be very serious. After he met an American missionary, Fuad’s heart began to change. He went 16
to the Greater Grace church, which was meeting in a little hall inside a school, and when he heard Pastor Vladik preach the gospel from the Bible, he discovered who God is and received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. After his salvation, Fuad married his girlfriend. They went to church and Bible college together. Fuad began leading the music in the church, and when he graduated from Bible college, he became the pastor of his church. Nothing in Fuad’s life had happened by accident. Remember how he loved music and practiced the violin and piano? God had prepared him to be the music leader. Remember his hours as the “second mother” who took care of his little brother? God had prepared him to be the pastor who watches people’s souls. What is God preparing you to become? If you are one of His children, be sure that He has a plan for your life and that everything that happens to you is making you ready to serve Him in a very special way.
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Rasima’s Home Town Sumgait, Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Sumgait
Sumgait, Azerbaijan
Rasima Muradova
H
ave you ever known someone who was as close to you as your family? At church we
can meet spiritual brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, who love us and make us feel accepted. This is a story about a girl who found her place in the family of God. Rasima Muradova started her life in the countryside of Azerbaijan with her three sisters her parents, and grandparents. Her grandparents moved to Baku, the capital city, and it was like paradise for Rasima to go visit them. At her grandparents’ house there was warmth, plenty of delicious food, and many 19
kids and older relatives to play and visit with. Her grandmother expected her Rasima and her sisters to do chores when they visited, so they swept and mopped the floors, cleaned the countertops, and carried buckets of water long distances, because they did not have running water in the house. Rasima’s family moved to the small city of Sumgait to be closer to good schools and better jobs, but her father decided to go to Russia to find work, leaving Rasima’s mother to raise four daughters on her own. Because he spent much of his money on alcohol, Rasima’s father sent very little money, so Rasima’s mother had to move a lot to find work. The places they lived were usually small and cold, and two of the girls slept
in
the
bed while the other two slept on
the
floor.
Sometimes Rasima’s mother even had to sell her things to get money. Making sure her daughters had a good education was very important to Rasima’s mother, and she made Rasima study even though she would have rather been outside with the other children playing 20
soccer. Before the school year began, she would buy Rasima a new school bag and new white knee socks, but her school uniform was usually a hand-medown from one of her three older sisters. Rasima thought her mother was very strict about school, and whenever Rasima got into any trouble at school, her mother always sided with the teacher and made her respect her teachers. Although Rasima grew up in a Muslim family, she did not understand much about religious things, and she had many questions. When she went to university to study singing, she wanted to know more about God, but she did not know who could help her know him. It seemed that everyone she knew made mistakes, that nobody was perfect, and wondered how anyone could be right about God. She decided that God would have to speak to her Himself. Rasima’s cousin told her that she had to be clean to go to God, so she waited for her family to fall asleep then poured a pitcher of water over her head and shoulders three times, went to the balcony, opened the window, and talked to God. She 21
told God about how her mother had raised her sisters and her, how she felt she was not smart or beautiful, and how she feared ending up unhappily married like two of her sisters. She asked God to forgive her for not praying the right prayers to Him. Because she was afraid she was not praying right, she asked the tree outside the window if it would please pray to God for her. She thought that if she visited a Muslim mosque, the people there would tell her how to pray, but she didn’t go. One day Rasima heard a man speaking in public about Jesus. She was curious, especially when he heard him invite a woman to a meeting where people would pray for her healing. Although she was shy, Rasima wanted to know about prayer, so she asked him, “What kind of prayer is this?” He gave her his telephone number and told him to call later and he would explain. She called and he told her that she could learn a prayer called The Lord’s Prayer and that if she would come get it, he would give her the book the prayer came from. Rasima met the man at a metro station and went with him to get the book. He brought her to a place 22
where many Russian people greeted her, and she thought she was in a Russian government building, but it was a Baptist church. She tried to listen to the message, but her knowledge of the Russian language was not very good, so she had no idea what was going on. When the invitation to pray and accept Christ came, Rasima prayed what they told her to say. She went to the Baptist church for a year, but left because she had trouble understanding the preaching in Russian and was not learning enough about God. Rasima prayed for God to help her with her plans to be a singer. One day her sister asked her to have tea with her in the university cafeteria, something they usually would not do. A group of Greater Grace missionary ladies was having a women’s seminar in the cafeteria, and one of them was someone she had known from the Baptist church. She introduced Rasima to her friends as a beautiful singer. The women asked her to sing. Although she did not want to, she did. The women asked Rasima and her sister to come to their church on Sunday. Rasima and her sister went and heard Pastor Glenn Cannon preach. She stood, joined hands with the others, and sang, “How good and how pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity,” and the Holy Spirit spoke 23
to her heart and told her that this was the place she had been looking for, that these were her people. Rasima began spending a lot of time with her new church family, and this made her family members angry. In her culture, family is very important, and Rasima’s family expected her home by six o’clock every night unless there was a very good reason. Going to a Christian church was not a good reason to her family, but Rasima went anyway. She had found spiritual mothers and sisters, who hugged and kissed her and told her she was beautiful, something her own mother rarely did. She had found spiritual fathers who told her that they loved her and fed her the Word of God. It was a difficult time in her life, but, in time, many of her relatives believed in Jesus and became spiritual family members too. Rasima, her husband, and her son are now missionaries bringing people into the family of God by preaching the gospel wherever they go in the world. She knows how missionaries changed her life and desires to teach others how to love the same way God loves her.
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