RUSTAM: I was born on December 24, 1982 in the city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. I had a very difficult childhood. We were five children, but when my parents fell into despair because of unemployment, my father became very aggressive and began drinking. When he was drunk he was violent and beat us. Often, we did not have bread at home because Dad drank away all the money. Often as a little boy at 5:00 am I would I leave my home and walk through the garbage heaps in the city looking for something to eat. When my mother contracted tuberculosis we were removed from our home by the authorities and placed in an orphanage. I was five years old.
Four years later I ran away from the orphanage and ended up in the streets. While a street kid, Civil War broke out in my country, resulting in severe famine. I experienced first hand the horror of war. I saw many dead people in the streets, both men, women and children; even a pregnant woman was killed right in front of me. I did not understand why people were killing and doing terrible things to each other! Later my siblings and I returned home and lived there for a while.
Then, my older sister came to know about a church nearby. During the visit she heard the Gospel and became the first in my family to believe in Jesus Christ. She then asked me to join her. We began attending the church regularly, and gradually I came to faith in Jesus Christ. Learning that God loves me and is my heavenly Father brought me much happiness.
When my Dad found out that we were attending a Christian church, he beat us furiously. We were Muslims and believing in another god than Allah was illegal. So, we fled home, again and sought shelter at the church. We still loved our Dad very much, and would at times visit my parents and pray for them. I would cry over the fact that we could not live together, but my Dad insisted that we were no more his children.
On October 1, 2000, a tragedy took place in our church. More than 350 believers were gathered for worship service. Suddenly, during the collection two bombs exploded among the people in the midst of the sanctuary. It was carried out by Islamic radicals. Just before the explosion, I had gone to the bathroom so I was not in my seat when one of the bombs went off, only two meters from where I had been sitting! I miraculously survived but there were 11 dead and 48 wounded among my brothers and sister in Christ. One brother who was my friend died right there. The church survived—to the Glory of God, and became stronger and grew, as we kept fasting and praying.
I had a deep desire to play the guitar and God helped me quickly learn how to play correctly. After a while I began to play in a worship group and kept praising God for this gift. Later, I started two courses in the church for those interested in learning to play the guitar; many joined and became quite good. We began the study sessions with praying and sharing the Word of God with each other. As time went on we also began studying and learning the Word together. I led two groups, one for young men and one for young women.
A young woman by the name of Zamira joined to learn to play the guitar. I liked her, and gradually we became friends. She knew the Lord and had attended the church before we met; actually, her whole family were believers in Christ. After a while, we began praying for our future children and ministry. In 2009, we were married, and a short time after we moved to the capital city of Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. We have a daughter, Sevinch and a son, Daniyar.
Many years ago, I dreamed of having a good family and a good ministry. Today, the Lord has fulfilled everything that I dreamed of. He has given me a good wife in Zamira.
We do what we love doing among the Kyrgyz, Kurds, Gypsies and Russians peoples: serving with the love of Jesus widows, orphans, families, and parents who have lost their jobs.
The Lord has given Zamira the gift of healing. When she prays and lays hands on the sick, people often receive physical healing, which demonstrates God’s power and love to the unbelievers and encourages the faith of the believers. My dream is that as many orphans of widows and families as possible learn about Jesus Christ and accept Him as a personal Savior in their hearts. Thank you brothers and sister for your prayers and love for us and our people!
ZAMIRA: I was born in 1984 as one of four children to a Muslim family in the capital city of Dushanbe, Tajikistan. My parents were devout Muslims, so we learned the Surah from the Qur’an at an early age and knew the entire biography of the Prophet Muhammad. Every night we would gather to recall what we had learned from the Qur’an. The required 40 day fasting according to Muslim custom was also part of our lives.
Then, in 1998, the Lord Jesus revealed Himself to me. My classmate from school brought a few Christian pamphlets to my home. She told me she had left Islam and had accepted a different faith, in Christ and was going to a place called church to worship her new god. At the time, my family had trouble, so I thought that perhaps reading these pamphlets would help me cope.
I locked myself in my room and secretly began reading the booklets. Something happened to me as I read that Jesus loved me and what a good God He is. The presence of God filled me with such an overwhelming sense of the awareness that He loved me personally that I began crying and I kept saying, “You are so kind, so very kind, Jesus. I want to believe in a God like You, I want to accept You as my Savior.” I knelt and prayed the prayer of repentance printed at the end of one of the booklets and simply invited Jesus Christ into my heart.
From that day on, big changes took place in my life. The Lord Jesus is never late, He comes on time. He found me and came to me, as His mission is to seek and find the lost.
The Bible promises that you and your whole house will be saved. I told my mother and sisters about Jesus and I gave them the same pamphlets I had read. They began to read I prayed to Jesus for them. One by one, each of my family members accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior. A joy we had never known before filled our home. Now smiles and happiness became part of our lives.
In 2000, I began attending church. One Sunday, I missed church. I later learned that that day there had been an explosion in our church and I realized that the Lord Jesus had saved me from the disaster. He is our great Protector! In 2001, our entire family was baptized.
I told my grandmother about Jesus. At the time she was a Muslim who faithfully read the prayers in Arabic from the three books of the Qur’an which had been left by my grandfather who had been a Great Mullah. When I told my grandmother about Christ and that God loves her very much, she listened very carefully. In the evenings, when I read the Bible to her, the Holy Spirit touched her and she would cry. Her leg and knee were painful. The day she agreed to pray with me, her leg was healed. She accepted Jesus as her Lord!
I began serving the church in a worship group. There were courses in the church to learn how to play the guitar. I really wanted to learn how to play that instrument, so I joined the group. The instructor was a young guy named Rustam. He later became my husband. In his testimony here, Rustam describes the events that brought us together. We have two children.
FROM R.K.’S CORNER
In this issue I am presenting you with a young couple from the country of Tajikistan. Rustam and Zamira Kazakbaev are serving the Lord among their own people in Tajikistan, as well among others in Kyrgyzstan, the country in which they currently live.
In June and July, 2014, I visited Central Asia and participated in the joyous celebration of Agape Evangelical Center’s 25th Anniversary in Almaty, Kazakhstan with whom we have partnered since its inception, and also visited one of our other partners, Yermek Balykbekov in the city of Karaganda. Then, I had a few days in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan where I met with a few Afghan refugees we had been helping. There I was introduced to Rustam and Zamira, who invited me to stay in their home for the duration of the visit. There was an immediate rapport, a kindred spirit between us. I was impressed by their strong testimonies of faith, their humility, clarity and simplicity in following Jesus’ commandments to love and serve the unlovely, the poor, the hurting, the marginalized communities ignored by the world. With much joy, I share their life stories with you! If you want to financially support the ministry of Rustam and Zamira, please mark your donation: 8347 Kyrgyzstan Workers. Thank You!
BRIEF DATA ON TAJIKISTAN AND KYRGYSTAN
TAJIKISTAN is a country in Central Asia surrounded by Afghanistan, China, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan . Tajikistan has the smallest amount of land among the five Central Asian states, but in terms of elevation it has the highest mountains of any other country in the region, with nine-tenths of the territory being mountainous, half reaching over 10,000 ft above sea level. It is the poorest country in the region. Dushanbe is the capital city. In 1991, Tajikistan became an independent sovereign nation as the Soviet Union collapsed. Almost immediately after independence, a civil war broke out between ethnic groups, lasting five years, causing much death and destruction. Since then, some political stability was reached, but under the present authoritarian regime led by President Emomali Rahmon who has been in power since 1994, there is still extensive corruption and widespread violations of human rights, including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, worsening political repression, and a lack of religious and other civil liberties. The Tajiks speak a form of a Persian based language. In a population of nearly 10 million, 98% are Muslims, so the small communities of Christians face hardship and persecution.
KYRGYZSTAN borders to Tajikistan, to Kazakhstan and the other countries mentioned above. It is also mountainous with one third of the country having peaks above 10,000 ft above sea level. It is also regarded as one of the poorer countries in the region. The population is appr. 5 million with Bishkek as the capital city. Kyrgyz, which is Turkish based, is the officially spoken language. Situated at the crossroads of several great ancient civilizations along the Silk Road with other commercial routes, it has a history which spans a variety of ancient cultures and empires. In 1991, it won independence from the Soviet Union. In 2021, the government embraced a presidential system. It has a history of enduring ethnic conflicts, revolts, economic troubles, transitional governments and political conflict. There is a measure of religious freedom, with 90% of the population being Muslim and 7% adhering the Christian faith.