Visit the Other Georgia
If you picture in your mind a classic missionary pioneer of the past, you’ll come up with someone a little bit like Kontaktmission missionary Andre Krahn (although he might deny that picture). He’s extremely intelligent, he’s always on the move, and he seems to love to take risks. But beyond those characteristics, he’s a young married father of 3, who also very much loves both Jesus and the people of his mission field, the country called Georgia. We asked Andre to about his country and his work, and to share some elements of his vision with you. Andre writes...
Georgia is one of the Caucasus countries, located in the southwest part of the Caucasus region. On the west side of the country is the Black Sea coast. Then it’s bordered on the north by Russia across a high mountain range (up to 16000 feet), toward the east by Azerbaijan, and in the south by Armenia and Turkey.
Georgians are a very old people with many old traditions and a distinct cultural lifestyle. Christianity was adopted as the state religion in the middle of the 4th century. The Georgian language belongs to the Khartwelian group of Caucasus languages. Georgia was formerly a republic of the Soviet Union, but has been independent since 1990.In 1992 Georgia fought a civil war with Abkhazia, the autonomic republic within its own borders. Since that time the Georgian economy and infrastructure has not really recovered, and the people are living under very primitive conditions. National pride and hostility toward the Russians and Abkhazians remain strong elements of modern Georgian society.
The population of Georgia has been about 5 million throughout the recent decades. Most of the people nominally belong to the Orthodox Church. 12-15% of the population consider themselves Moslems (nominal only, not radical; see shaded areas on map). Only 0.3% of all Georgians belong to some evangelical church. The spiritual situation is desperate. Many towns and villages have no church or Christian group. The Bible is available in the Georgian language.Our work in Georgia consists of two aspects: 1. establishing of Bible schools (centers) (small circles on the map are existing regional centers, small stars are centers we plan to open in the next years), and 2. church planting work, which some of our students do with us.
We are looking for partnerships with American churches. A church can have a connection to one of our church planting works. (For example, one of our Georgian team members, Aneri G., has such a relationship with a Kansas church!). We also need help in building one permanent center (Bible school). For now we use the rooms of local churches in the various regions. Our dream is to have one center with a library, office, kitchen, and classrooms.The vision we have is to be effective in the whole Caucasus region. After “making missionaries” in our centers, we can send them out to reach other Georgians living in Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkey. This represents the long-term vision of our work.
Please contact us at Kontaktmission USA if you would like to learn more about or get involved in the Krahns’ work in Georgia. We can also put you in touch with Andre personally.