When you support School Without Walls, it’s more than an academic exercise. It’s support of a generation of godly, young national Christian leaders, who are ready to pick up the baton of faithfulness from the previous generation, and confront the realities of a changing society.

Even in the high-risk regions of the former Soviet Union, School Without Walls students are reaching out to the needy as the helping hands of Jesus.

School Without Walls students from Kabardino-Balkaria are no strangers to the violence that rocks their Northern Caucasus region.

In early spring, police killed a rebel leader in a shoot out on the streets of the capital city of Nalchik.

In July, School Without Walls students went to Makhachkala, Dagestan to hold an evangelistic summer camp for children in the community. A week after the students returned home, a pastor of one of Makhachkala’s largest evangelical churches was gunned down.

But, according to a recent report from Sergey, the School Without Walls coordinator in Kabardino-Balkaria, none of this has slowed down the students’ outreach and ministries in this region.

We have School Without Walls programs in Prokhladny and Nalchik. The School Without Walls students from Prokhladny regularly visit an orphanage, where they sing, tell the children about Christ and play soccer, volleyball, checkers, chess and other games with them. The students have also connected with the youth of the orphanage. Some of the children regularly read the Bible and pray. The students are accepted and liked by the children. Vadim, one of our School Without Walls students, has become friends with one boy. Vadim watches out for him, and recently bought him a new soccer uniform. The two of them now play soccer together, both wearing their new uniforms.

When the students drive up to the orphanage, one can often hear the joyful cry, “The Baptists have arrived!” and everyone runs out to meet the students.

School Without Walls students from Nalchik decided to take on missions work in the city of Tyrnyauz. For two years now, a small group of 12 believers has had no church leadership or support. These young leaders travel there to help out with Sunday morning services, encourage the believers and help them share the good news of Jesus in the community. This ministry is just beginning, but we have plans to develop it and reach many Balkars, who need Jesus.

Interested in supporting a School Without Walls student? Find out more here.

For the past four summers, young Next Generation Christians in the Northern Caucasus region have traveled to Grozny, Chechnya to hold an evangelistic summer day camp for Chechen children.

There have been summers where the sounds of exploding bombs were a backdrop to teaching and singing, and armed security guards patrolled camps.

“Nowadays it’s calm in Chechnya. Still our pilgrims feel a bit uneasy,” reports Gennady Terkun, Russian Ministries’ ministry director in Vladikavkaz, Russia.

While fighting in Chechnya has eased, many children are still affected by the war. Marina, a young Christian leader from Vladikavkaz, asked the children to draw pictures of their homes and families. One girl turned in a blank sheet of paper, with the caption: “This is my house.”

Moved to tears, Marina was even more motivated to share with the campers the hope that Jesus gives, and to help them understand the peace of God.

Victor traveled from Chisinau, Moldova to help with the children’s camp in Grozny. “I’m very thankful to the Lord for the chance to join the team that was bound for Grozny,” says Victor. “My attitude to this country has changed. The news reports on Chechnya are often one-sided, but the campers helped change my attitudes about them and their country!”

As a father, Victor was touched when the young campers would rest their heads on his shoulder, and show other signs of affection. “We were able to show these children that the world is not as cruel as they might think it, and they were able to show me that I shouldn’t judge a whole country because of one tragic event, or horrible things done by a small group of terrorists.” (Victor was referring to the Beslan school tragedy that took place in 2004.)

Even when the campers figured out that their camp leaders were Christians, not Muslims, the children kept returning to camp. “We played with them and talked with them a lot,” recalls Victor, “and they shared with us their impressions of camp, their worries as well as their Chechen traditions.”

Your online gift to Russian Ministries’ evangelistic summer camps helps build these bridges to Muslim families today.

When refugees pour into your city or you’re stopped endlessly at police checkpoints en route to an evangelistic summer camp, you quickly learn to dispense with the “extras” and focus on what it really means to serve Jesus.

That’s a lesson young Next Generation students at the School Without Walls program in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia have learned from experience. In this region of the Northern Caucasus, students hold summer evangelistic camps in Grozny, Chechnya for Muslim children, present programs and events at an orphanage for children with disabilities and venture into the public schools to talk to students about drugs, AIDS, abortion and family issues.

Twice a month, School Without Walls teachers travel to Tskhinvali, South Ossetia (which was devastated in last summer’s Georgian-Russian conflict) to teach at the School Without Walls program there.

“For people to sacrificially and successfully serve the Lord, it wasn’t necessary to complicate our School Without Walls program with the deep theological disciplines,” explains Gennady Terkun, Russian Ministries’ national ministry director for the Northern Caucasus. “But it is essential to equip young people with the knowledge they need to have a practical Christian life and ministry.”

Terkun points out that each year, School Without Walls is expanding. “We are reaching new parts of our society, and getting young people involved in ministry—and that is expanding the kingdom of God.”

One region where School Without Walls has taken root is in Dagestan, a republic that borders Chechnya. Patimat (who asked not to be picture due to security reasons) is a School Without Walls student who lives in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. She is a Kumyk, which is a Muslim people group.

Patimat’s life was orderly and smooth—until her husband died. Suddenly she had more questions than answers: What should I do? How can I live? Where is God?

“Eventually, God calmed my soul,” Patimat shares, but she still faced an uncertain future.

When she heard that a School Without Walls program was starting at her church, she decided to help out in the kitchen, cooking for the students.

Curious about what the students were learning, Patimat would stand outside the classroom door and listen in, sometimes entering the class for short periods of time. “I enjoyed it,” Patimat recalls, “and I received answers to many of my questions, and now I attend School Without Walls as a student, not a cook.”

As the students studied children’s ministry, Patimat felt God’s leading to begin a children’s Sunday school class at the church. “I shared this with my friend Sabina, and we both began to pray and talk with our pastor and other church members.”

Today, Patimat and Sabina teach God’s Word and His great love to children from both Christian and Muslim families. “School Without Walls inspired me to begin this ministry, and now I have found my calling,” says an enthusiastic Patimat.

Read more about the positive effect of School Without Walls.

Beyond the Barriers
Even though Christians in Kabardino-Balkaria live in a Muslim-dominated region in the Northern Caucasus, they have established a good working relationship with a local orphanage. The orphanage director is Muslim and many of the children are from Muslim backgrounds.

But this hasn’t stopped this team of young Next Generation Christians from glorifying God through its puppet ministry.

As one puppet team member observes, “The kids eagerly watch our shows and even participate with us as we stage new stories.” She goes on to explain that children at the orphanage have either lost both parents or are so-called “social orphans”, whose parents have lost their parental rights due to alcohol abuse or other serious issues.

“My own family had an opportunity to invite one of the children to stay with us for a couple of days. Her name was Anya, and she was a very sweet and talkative little girl,” this national worker shares.

Anya, however, provided a hint of what her home life was like when a neighbor, who had too much to drink, began talking to the puppet team member and Anya. “She immediately hid behind my back and wrapped her arms around my legs,” describes our worker. “From her reaction, I figured that Anya came from a family of alcoholics who often mistreated her when they were drunk. As soon as my neighbor left, she became her usual cheerful self.”

A Father to the Fatherless
While the orphanage provides its young charges with food, clothing and even entertainment, the children still have a gaping need for love and kindness.

“We show them a lot of affection when we visit,” explains one national worker. “We repeatedly tell them that they are not alone, that they have a Heavenly Father who loves them much more than any earthly parents could.”

The puppet ministry team tries to visit the orphanage at least once or twice a month, but even that doesn’t seem enough time to tell the children about the wonders of God’s love and care for the fatherless.

“Once, as we put on an Easter performance for the children, we were so thrilled to hear the children comment about Christ’s crucifixion throughout the show. We are hoping that not only will the children know Bible stories through the [puppet] performances and skits, but they will also begin to live out the Word of God,” explains a young Next Generation Christian.

From July 24-30, the sixth annual Puppet Festival is taking place outside of Zaporozhye, Ukraine. Thirty-nine puppet ministry teams, representing some 300 people, traveled from Ukraine, Russia, Estonia, Belarus and Azerbaijan to attend the festival.

Throughout the year, Russian Ministries’ puppet teams present puppet shows at a variety of locales: evangelistic summer camps, outdoor festivals, orphanages, children’s hospitals, holiday programs and churches. Russian Ministries estimates that 220,000 children and their caregivers are exposed to the gospel each year through this ministry.