In Depth:  Tajikistan

Luke Randall

Many Afghan Christians in Tajikistan are facing a “life or death” predicament in the form of forced deportation back to Afghanistan, according to a Sat-7 source.

The move follows similar schemes undertaken by Pakistan and Iran, from whom almost two million Afghans have been returned to their homeland in seven months.

The little church in a village in Tajikistan was founded around 70 years ago by believers mainly from Germany and Russia who were forcibly removed by the Communists to remote parts of Central Asia.

They began to reach out to their new neighbours, by preaching and living according to God’s word. New believers were born, and the church grew. In the 1990s, the country was overrun by civil war, involving aggressive Islamic forces, and the village became a centre of radical Islam. Many church members left. Only a few elderly sisters remained to carry on, faithfully serving the Lord. Then God did a wonderful thing. He sent a new revival, this time among the indigenous Tajik people, and the church revived.