Editor’s note: This is part 2 in a 2-part series. Click here to read part 1.

“Knowing that Billy Graham’s real influence on America began in a tent in California … and has continued to fuel a worldwide soul-winning organization encourages us to believe it can happen again in America,” Leslie McNulty says.

“We appreciate the knowledge of those prophecies as confirming what we have put our hands to,” Kevin McNulty says.

The couple are co-founders and lead evangelists at Christian Adventures International (CAI).

The Vision: Ministry in Tents All Over America

CAI leaders have set the goal high for America: 50 tents, 50 teams, 50 states. Undaunted by the mammoth tasks ahead, the McNultys report that, to date, recruitment nationwide for volunteers has been spectacular.

“We are recruiting representatives from all 50 states,” Leslie says. “We have several states that have verbally committed, in Florida, Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, Texas, Oklahoma, Washington, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Mexico, Kentucky, Montana, Nebraska, South Dakota and Arizona.”

Initially, recruitment efforts draw volunteers from American congregations for ministers and evangelists to start the tent ministries in their states, Kevin says.

“There are a number of skill sets necessary for success that can be developed,” he says. “In your team, there must be strong hands. For obtaining necessary permits to erect a tent this size, there must be a mature leader who can understand local laws, and, of course, a preacher.”

The recruitment invitations are being extended to gospel workers comprised of believers, Bible school students, Sunday school and home group leaders. These leaders will form the teams in each of the 50 states. Ushers, volunteers, logistics managers and practical ministry helpers are needed, the McNultys say.

“Administrative team leaders and state coordinators are being recruited in order to facilitate the ministry outreach and team development for each area,” Leslie says. “These leaders should have strong administrative leadership skills. Recommendations from ministry and business leaders along with documented experience will be necessary.”

The “50 tents in 50 states” strategy does not mean just one tent in one state after the campaign catches fire, they say.

“Some of the states like Michigan and Illinois are ready to act now,” Kevin says. “A state like Florida where warmer weather is more frequent can provide an environment where tent ministry can operate year-round. We anticipate training tents going up all year in Florida.”

November Event in Florida Will Be the Test for Expansion

CAI leaders acknowledge that the November event in Daytona Beach will be a test for deciding when and where to launch in more states.

“We are willing to call this a ‘soft’ launch,” Leslie says. “In other words, if 10 to 15 states are participating in Florida in November, we believe that is a strong indication we should move forward. We will look to stage another training in 2019, possibly in another region of the USA, where we will set up a large tent.”

That does not mean the campaign won’t do another event in Daytona Beach, she says. They also anticipate that at minimum, volunteers from 25 of the 50 states will attend the November launch. CAI team members from Russian and the Baltics will also be there. Tent ministers will come from across Russia, from Moscow to the Evenki tribe area of Buryatia in the Far East to the Southern area known as “the land between the seas” (Black Sea and Caspian Sea), Leslie McNulty says.

The Russians will come in once the Russian authorities and US State Department grant the necessary visas. Despite the recent expulsion of diplomats from Russia and America from the respective homelands over political squabbles, the McNultys have several team members scheduled for interviews for visa applications. “We are praying for successful visas,” Leslie says.

Also, the McNultys’ decades of experience living and working in the former Soviet Union have taught them wise ways to avoid problems from existing political frictions between the West and former Soviet Union territorial governments.

“We have spent 25 years working in an environment where the US and Russian governments have been negotiating political influence on the world scene,” Leslie says.

“We always remind ourselves that our goal is to lift up Christ,” she continues. “We esteem each other. Many years ago when we first entered Russia, the Russian people would say, ‘We never hated you Americans. We didn’t know you. This was just a political game our countries played.'”

The CAI teams simply stay out of the politics and work in the spiritual realm of seeking God’s anointing to teach and preach the gospel and train others to do so within the laws of each location where they are working. A good example of CAI’s success to avoid political problems with this strategy is how their teams have been able to work in both the Ukraine and Russian regions nearby, where border conflicts have occasionally been heated.

“When Russia and the Ukraine entered into a conflict over the Crimea and Donbass region, it became very clear that in order to work on both sides of the border, we must stay above the political discussion,” Leslie McNulty says. “We have done our best to share this with our team leaders, and to encourage them to communicate God’s Love.”

In America, where political division from the left and right have reached historic levels of angst and sometimes violent reactions, the same strategy will apply to tent teams in their geographical locations, the McNultys say.

The campaign to reach America with the gospel is spiritual, not political, and although CAI is based on a charismatic doctrine, they stress the tent ministries are always open to participants from every denomination: Protestant, Catholic or otherwise.

“Our meetings and our preaching are trans-denominational,” Leslie says. “All pastors and churches are welcome to be involved and we hope that this would be the case in every area.”

“We do not come preaching against anything or anyone! We come in the Spirit of Christ lifting all to hear a message of hope, love and healing through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ,” she says.

What Will Transpire at the November Launch in Daytona?

The heartbeat of the entire campaign will culminate with the CAI vision for evangelizing the USA literally from the ground up, as an experienced tent team will raise the giant structure as it has a thousand times already all across Russia, Eurasia, French Africa and now in Europe. Americans will get their first look at Russian born-again Christians and their passion for Christian evangelism and ministry in the country that brought them the gospel.

At the November event, Russian music leader and virtuoso violinist Olga Kozorez will equip American musicians with an understanding of how to use music to preach the gospel. Egvenny Gurinovich will provide an emphasis on street evangelism.

International Director Akop Mkrtrumyan will provide insights into working with governments, pastoral councils and administrative teams. Kirill Kozores will provide insights into what is required technically to facilitate a tent ministry. And Johannes Kudrin will emphasize team ministry and community outreach.

• Voice of Life conference: This is conducted for church and ministry leaders, believers, Gospel workers, Sunday school leaders, Bible school students and youth will take place over 2-3 days. Our sessions focus on How Believers Continue the Ministry that Christ began with teachings on the Voices of the Harvest, the Voice of Redemption, the Voice of Miracles and LIVE Messages, discovering our legality, inspiration, validity and experience.
• A city-wide believers meeting: During this one-night event, we release the believers into the major role of inviting the population of the city and villages to these extraordinary meetings. These meetings are an integral part of preparation for the outreach. Leslie says, “We do not rely on the dollar value of advertising for the success of the event but on the personal invitations of believers.”

• The iMove daily tent training: Gospel workers will participate in the tent event through prayer, training, tent-set up, street evangelism and daily application of principles in a team environment within the Big tent. The McNultys developed the iMove program specifically to provide motivation, opportunity, vision and empowerment to help fulfill the desire of the hearts of believers to help hurting humanity, share their faith, release their God-given destiny and develop the character in them that is required to be a solution to society’s problems in this generation.

• Big Tent Festival: This is the time we take our Christian witness public. Our purpose is to give proof of the biblical truths that we have taught during the conference and training, and to publicly demonstrate that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. The Big Tent Festival is a full cultural program of music, drama and poetry.

Each night the people are offered the opportunity to receive Jesus Christ as their Savior and mass prayers for the sick are given. Kevin says, “Testimonies are a vital part of our meetings each evening. In conducting altar calls and public prayers, we seek a venue that allows us to communicate freely and affords us the opportunity to connect the new believers with the local church community.”

Editor’s Note: This is part 1 in a 2-part series. Click here to read part 2.

Since 1998, Christian Adventures International (CAI) has been training Russians, African, Europeansand Eurasians to be tent ministers and preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their homelands. On the strength of their anointed success and backed by 200 years of prophetic words concerning America, CAI is now focusing their mission of evangelism on the United States.

While most of America today is beleaguered with cable news saturation painting the Russians as meddlers in US elections and hackers of political parties here, Americans will soon find out that many Russians are born-again believers who are well equipped to preach the gospel and minister as Jesus Himself taught.

Yes—the Russians are coming! But they’re coming with the love of Jesus Christ and a passion for winning souls, healing the sick and reigniting the faith of spiritually faltering believers. The Russians will partner with their American friends to help them expand Christian outreach, build new churches and support Americans in their quest to guide the nation back to the Christian foundation on which it was built.

The U.S. campaign, entitled “Tent Nation,” is scheduled to launch in Daytona Beach from Nov. 9-18 (see ). CAI and its partners of local churches and volunteers from across the nation will make Florida the launch site of the national campaign to preach the gospel and minister in all 50 states.

Drs. Kevin and Leslie McNulty, co-founders and lead evangelists who together have been training leaders since 1988, began “The 100 Tent Project” in 1998 to train Russians and other citizens in the former Soviet Union to use large event-capacity tents to take the gospel across their homelands to unreached areas.

In the US, they will use the same tent-meeting strategy that has been extremely successful in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Poland, Armenia, Estonia, Latvia, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Bashkortostan and many other locations.

The McNultys call Daytona Beach home, but have spent much of their lives leading CAI campaigns overseas, including a key ministry base outside of Moscow. They are celebrating 30 years of marriage as well.

The 10-day event in November also will celebrate CAI’s Moscow tent factory completion of its 100th tent. Sixty of those tents are 3,000 square feet in size and can seat 300 to 350 people. The 100th tent will be erected and dedicated in Daytona Beach, where it will be used for children’s outreach. A larger circus-sized tent will be procured in the US to use for main events.

Local churches in Florida and from around the U.S. will be invited to send members for training by CAI ministers—many of them from Russia—to learn how to use the tent meetings across the state. The tent strategy for a decade has enabled home-grown evangelists to reach vast regions of towns and villages with events staged in the culturally familiar tents.

Today, CAI teams abroad have staged some 1,000 tent raisings and ministry campaigns in 22 nations. The McNultys’ work also has helped to spawn a large alliance of Russian churches under the leadership of Bishop Sergei Rikhovsky.

Prophecy: Now It’s America’s Turn

CAI’s leaders have of recent followed a calling to move into Western Europe, specifically—Belgium, France and Spain. Mass outreach campaigns conducted by the McNultys with Dr. T. L. Osborn across French Africa have mobilized African preachers to Europe. The combination of CAI’s tent ministers along with the African leaders have positioned the ministry for strategic European impact.

Osborn, the late American evangelist, was a key mentor to the McNultys. Always hovering in the future for CAI was America: The prophecies have always revealed that a campaign for America lurked somewhere on the ministry’s horizon.

CAI’s leaders now believe that time has come! The November launch in Florida—with its sights on all 50 U.S. states—is a bold move largely bolstered by a recent prophecy by a key Estonian evangelist in their own camp; a prior word by Dr. Osborn; a word of calling for evangelism in the US from Ann Graham Lotz and Franklin Graham, Billy Graham’s daughter and son, at Rev. Graham’s homegoing celebration and a pair of hair-raising historic prophecies from the late 1800s and early 1900s concerning Russia and the US.

There were other words given to the McNultys—some in passing by Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland concerning tent campaigns (“The tent anointing is back, big time,” exclaimed Copeland)—and some directly to them individually.

“When T.L. Osborn spoke in Russia for the first time in 1995, as I was listening to him speak, I heard the sound of an army that arose in lockstep and moved into action,” Leslie McNulty said. “I also heard the Lord say, ‘Will you?’ I said yes…”

Then in January 2016 while attending a U.S. ministers conference, she had a similar encounter. The speaker was telling of his hippie lifestyle and conversion to Christ in the Californian Jesus Movement.

“As he shared his story, I heard that lockstep sound in the Spirit again, the sound of the harvest, the heart cry for workers and evangelism, and I heard these words: ‘Another Jesus Movement is coming to America, and it is not like anything America has ever experienced,’ ” Leslie McNulty said.

“But I also heard the Lord say ‘The church is not ready for the generation that is coming in. It is a generation without identity, and the church is not ready to receive them…’ I doubled over with my head in my lap, contemplating what this meant, crying, listening, knowing that America was approaching its finest hour of Gospel Harvest!”

Also in 2016, the McNultys received a significant sign from a key evangelist from their team, concerning America, confirming their decision to move forward here.

As they contemplated the launch date of the U.S. campaign, they received a phone call from Estonian evangelist and missionary leader Joahannes Kudrin. Kudrin, who has served with the CAI tent ministry since the beginning, is a Russian-speaking Estonian. In the phone call, Kudrin specifically asked about starting a tent ministry in the U.S. Kudrin’s exact words were this: “I want to know what you think about initiating a tent movement in the USA?” Leslie McNulty said.

The McNultys were amazed at the timing—a confirmation—as they and their board of directors had just decided to begin work in the USA. “Evangelist Kudrin’s phone call was like a phone call from heaven,” Leslie McNulty said. Also, two very startling prophecies of major significance came from a British missionary and later, a Russian Orthodox priest, the McNultys noted.

Hudson Taylor, British missionary to China, had an amazing vision in 1889 of a great spiritual national awakening in Russia that will touch Europe before Christ’s Return. Taylor’s vision: “I saw in this vision a war that encompasses the world. I saw this war recess, and then start again (World Wars I & II). After this I saw much unrest and revolts that will affect many nations. I saw in some places Spiritual Awakenings.”

Hudson’s vision continued: “In Russia I saw there will come a general, all encompassing, national spiritual awakening, so great that there could never be another like it. From Russia, I saw the Awakening spread to many European countries. Then I saw an all-out awakening, followed by the Second Coming of Christ.”

Then in 1911, a Russian Orthodox Priest Aristocoli in the Kremlin told a Carmelite nun who became Mother Barbess of the Russian Church of St. Mary Magdelene on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, another startling prophecy.

Aristicoli said, in part: “An evil will shortly take Russia and wherever this evil comes, rivers of blood will flow. (The 1917 Russian Communist Revolution). This evil will take the whole world and wherever it goes, rivers of blood will flow because of it. It is not the Russian soul, but an imposition on the Russian soul. It is not an ideology, or a philosophy, but a spirit from hell.

“In the last days, Germany will be divided in two. France will just be nothing. Italy will be judged by natural disasters. Britain will lose her empire and all her colonies and will come to almost total ruin, but a female monarch will be on the throne and Britain will be saved by praying women.”

On America, Aristicoli said: “America will feed the world, but will finally collapse. Russia and China will destroy each other. Finally, Russia will be free, and from her, believers will go forth and turn many from the nations to God. The light over the whole world will be from Russia, who suffered more than anybody. Russia will be completely reborn!”

The McNultys have lived in Moscow and other parts of Russia, and clearly understand why the Russian people have a heart and desire for America to be reached with the Gospel.

“To truly understand, we must return to the year 1989 and the fall of the Berlin Wall,” Kevin McNulty said. “Then Americans sent thousands of missionaries to the ex-Soviet territories, planting churches, starting Bible schools, conducting mass outreaches and initiating TV programs,” he said. “The love that the Russian-speaking people felt from American missionaries was simply overwhelming. We were the answer to the prayers of their forefathers. We had come with the Good News!”

More recently at the Rev. Billy Graham’s homegoing celebration at his home in North Carolina, his daughter Anne Graham Lotz and son Franklin Graham both declared their father’s passing as a sign and call from the Lord for others to take up Dr. Graham’s mantle and begin carrying out the Great Commission in America—that America’s time had come.

The McNultys had visited Rev. Graham’s library before his passing, where they contemplated the worldwide ministry that Graham, too, had started with a tent ministry in the 1950s.

“The words from Anne Graham Lotz were like a shot across the bow—a sign from heaven to pay attention: This is the hour of America,” Leslie McNulty said.

This article was originally published in the October 1999 issue of Charisma.

In a sermon preached six months ago and circulated widely on cassette tapes, New York pastor David Wilkerson blasts prosperity doctrines, “holy laughter” and the flamboyance of evangelist Benny Hinn.

In Wilkerson’s April 11 sermon, titled “Reproach of the Solemn Assembly,” Wilkerson warned his 7,000-member Times Square Church to burn books written by any propagators of these doctrines. He also told his parishioners to stay away from evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne’s Good News New York (GNNY) crusade that ran from July 7 to Aug. 14. The GNNY campaign reported more than 48,000 decisions for Christ, the majority of them first-time salvations.

In his sermon, Wilkerson leveled blasphemy charges at the prosperity doctrines of Bible teacher Kenneth Copeland, with one mention of Word-Faith preacher Kenneth Hagin Sr. “It’s an American gospel invented and spread by rich American evangelists and pastors,” Wilkerson said.

Wilkerson described how one of the speakers at a Copeland conference bragged about owning a $15,000 dog, a $32,000 ring and was selling his 8,000 square-foot house to buy a larger home. Wilkerson says he takes issue with the notion that “the Holy Spirit cannot be poured out until you first are in the money flow.”

Wilkerson also attacked manifestations common to modern revivals. “I weep when I see these videos that are sent to me from all over the country. Whole groups of bodies jerking out of control, falling on the floor, laughing hysterically, staggering around like drunkards,” Wilkerson said. “Anything that cannot be found in Scripture has to be rejected outright—totally rejected.”

He listed Hinn and Howard-Browne as examples of those who have perpetrated misrepresentations of the Holy Spirit’s manifestations.

At the close of GNNY, Howard-Browne declined to respond directly to the criticism. “I have been thoroughly blessed by the ministry of David Wilkerson,” Howard-Browne told Charisma. “He is an awesome man, used mightily of God.”

Howard-Browne does not use the term “holy laughter” to describe the laughing that often occurs in his meetings. He says it is the same joy that erupted when the early disciples appeared to be drunk on the day of Pentecost.

Kevin and Leslie McNulty are reaching thousands in the former Soviet republics and in Russia –where Vladimir Lenin’s communism once repressed Christianity.
PLUS: Russian Women Lead the Way
PLUS: 100 Tents to Reach Russia
PLUS: Haunted by a Bloody Past

At the foot of the towering Tien Shan Mountains, a brisk, cool wind whips down from snowcapped peaks, whisking along the worn concrete tarmac of a closed airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan–capital of the central Asian republic that declared its independence from the former Soviet Union in August 1991.

Early May brought balmy weather after a long, cold winter, but there were more than crystal blue skies luring thousands of Kyrgyz (Keer-geez) from surrounding villages to bustling Bishkek, a city of 700,000 where Russian remains the main language.

Beyond the old runways accenting the Tien Shan’s dominance of the horizon rests a huge yellow-and-white circus-style tent. For 10 days in May, thousands of Kyrgyz and Russian residents celebrated a Savior during a gospel crusade hosted by American missionaries Kevin and Leslie McNulty.

The McNultys call Daytona Beach, Florida, home in the United States but juggle their schedule between their missions headquarters outside Moscow, where they train and equip an expanding team of Russian evangelists. Since 1991, through their ministry, Christian Adventures International, they’ve been breaking ground for the gospel in nations that once belonged to the Soviet Union.

In Bishkek, the McNultys are exuberant. Their first successful attempt to lead a government-approved open crusade in Kyrgyzstan proves to be historic. Bishkek turns out to be just as groundbreaking as their October 2000 campaign in neighboring Karaganda, Kazakhstan, where thousands of Muslims accepted Jesus as Lord and the McNultys gained favor with government officials.

But the successes did not come without the normal obstacles to ministry that could be found when the . held power. Corrupt Kazak border officials were extorting money from trucks entering the country. Just days before the McNultys’ team arrived, the Kazak minister of transportation fired all the corrupt guards and issued a fax that ordered the new guards to give the McNultys free passage.

In May, the Kyrgyz Religious Committee at first approved, then denied the McNultys’ request because they feared a Christian event might stir up Taliban Muslim extremists who are trying to infiltrate the region. After the committee reversed its opposition, the Kyrgyz government approved.

“The government and the committee saw that what we were doing is for the good of the society,” Kevin McNulty says. “We did not speak out against religion, but only for Jesus. It was the first time we offered humanitarian aid. We offered to feed and clothe the poor. And it proved to be very successful.”

However, Kyrgyz government support didn’t prevent one last attempt from the KGB to stop the Bishkek campaign. Just two weeks before the May start dates, the KGB refused to approve religious visas for the McNultys, forcing them to seek and receive their visas from the Kyrgyz embassy in Washington, D.C.

Miracles in Bishkek

In Bishkek, the McNultys’ Festival of Music and Miracles gathering brings 300 to 700 people nightly to the altars for salvation, and thousands more receive prayer for healing. The tent that seats 5,000 is jammed, and on each of the last two nights, some 1,000 people give their hearts to Jesus–in a mostly Muslim country where Soviet-ordained communism reigned from 1936 to 1991.

The nightly rush to the altars for salvation and the numerous healing miracles that follow are mind-boggling. The McNultys offer a simple, blanket prayer of faith after inquiring how many need healing. Every night, this question draws a raised hand from almost every attendee.

Charisma witnessed the miraculous healings of several people, including:

* Sergai, 12, couldn’t walk since birth due to a paralyzing disease. God had a different plan. His father carried him into the tent. After Kevin McNulty’s prayer, Sergai’s legs were healed. Sergai walked himself home that night.

* Tamara, 61, had a heart attack last year that paralyzed her left arm. During prayer, she was instantly healed and raised both arms.

* Dima, 19, lost his speech eight years ago after a flu and fever caused severe infection in his ears. After prayer he was healed and rushed forward to share his story, speaking clearly for the first time in years.

* Vladimir, 81, a World War II veteran who served in the Soviet army, suffered deafness in one ear caused by artillery shelling. Because of another war injury he couldn’t raise his right arm high enough to feed himself.

Sporting his war medals the day after May Day, Vladimir answered an altar call for salvation and after being prayed for, instantly raised his right arm high above his head and gained hearing back in his ear.

As word of the healings spread into the city and outlying villages, more Kyrgyz brought their sick. Wheelchairs lined the front row. One woman who had been crippled from polio for 45 years was healed–and got out of her wheelchair and walked to prove it.

“They reverence God, but they don’t know who God is. They think He might be punishing them with illness,” Leslie McNulty told Charisma.

“Sickness and disease is not from God,” she tells a crowd in the tent. “He doesn’t teach us with sickness and harm. He teaches us with love.”

The Bishkek campaign represented a major first for Christian Adventures International. It was the first time a religious committee of a former Soviet republic wrote a letter thanking them for coming–and invited them back.

“They called us at the end of the meeting to tell us how good it was and that we could come back any time,” Leslie McNulty says. “They never call! That was a first. They promised us a letter as well, which has never happened!”

After the last night of the campaign, the McNultys are resting in the lounge of the Hotel Pinara near the tent. They are surprised when the manager of the Kyrgyz state orchestra walks up with his wife and children to greet them.

The manager formerly worked in the Kyrgyz government’s visa-application office and had often hindered the McNultys from getting entry visas. On this night, he had brought his family to the tent to hear the festival’s music.

He had heard Kevin McNulty preach the gospel and told Kevin how he and his wife came down to the altar for salvation. He then offered to bring the Kyrgyz orchestra to tent festivals the McNultys are planning for next year.

“When people in high places come to the Lord, that opens the nation to revival,” Leslie McNulty says. “That is extreme evidence that God gave a real outpouring of His Spirit here at this time. And there’s a lot more outpouring on the way.”

Ancient Strongholds

Most Kyrgyz profess to be Muslims, though most are nominal and do not study the Quran or pray five times a day, despite the hundreds of mosques across the country, Vasilii Kuzin says. Kuzin is senior pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ in Bishkek, a Pentecostal organization that has grown from 300 members three years ago to 6,000 members and eight churches today.

Kuzin is senior pastor over all the churches, which have headquarters at the main church in Bishkek in a building that housed a common Soviet center of culture and art. A bust of Vladimir Lenin over the church’s entrance is covered up.

The McNultys credit the success of their tent campaigns to the persistent efforts of Kuzin’s network and other local churches to influence the city with evangelism and prayer for revival.

“If not for the would not have happened,” Kevin McNulty says.

Kyrgyz’s spirituality is steeped in paganism and the occult, Kuzin says. Many will take a fortuneteller to a cemetery to pray to a deceased loved one. Some spend a Sunday afternoon at a city courtyard paying one of the 30 to 40 fortunetellers who gather there to break curses or advise seekers about their personal futures.

Another Kyrgyz tradition involves the worship of Manas, a spirit of war. A huge statue of Manas stands prominently in a Bishkek square. He rides a horse and waves a sword.

President Askar Akaev recently led a centennial celebration of Manas, and hundreds of cattle were sacrificed to him. Billboards proclaim “Kyrgyzstan is Manas!” on main highways. Worshipers also visit a traditional tomb in Talas to pay their respects, though scientists recently proved that a woman is buried there, according to Kuzin.

“They have a little piece of literature that says Manas existed,” he says. “It offers some impossible facts. But because they have no one else to worship, they worship him.”

Kuzin believes that Kyrgyzstan’s bloody battles with Uzbekistan in 1999 and 2000 were attributable to the Kyrgyz’ worship of Manas’ warring spirit. Russian support kept the Uzbeks from winning their former land back.

The Uzbeks fought the Kyrgyz for fertile land that belonged to Uzbekistan until it was annexed into Kyrgyzstan by the Soviets. The extremist Taliban regime in Afghanistan and its heroin-trafficking proponents planned to take over Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and combine them into one Taliban-run extremist Muslim state, the McNultys said.

By press time for this story, U.S. soldiers were based in Uzbekistan, poised to play a role in a ground war in Afghanistan to remove the Taliban. Russia and the United States began cooperation in the region after the September 11 attacks in America by Afghanistan-based terrorist Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network.

Russians Reaching Russians

Izhevsk, Russia, is located approximately 580 miles east of Moscow in the Republic of Udmurtiya, within the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS)–the federation founded in 1991 that comprises 12 of the former republics of the . Yuri Degtyar, 35, pastors Word of Faith, a Pentecostal church in Izhevsk, where the McNultys conducted another groundbreaking tent campaign in July.

Degtyar says the Republic of Udmurtiya, population 1.6 million, has the second highest suicide rate of any country in the world, a sad fact that Degtyar says is a result of residents reaping what they sow. He says a “spirit of death” curses Izhevsk because a World War II-era weapons factory still manufactures the Kalashnikov machine gun.

He tells the story of a woman who worked in the factory. Her son joined the Russian army and went to fight in Afghanistan, where he was killed. The Russians killed the Afghans who shot her son, and they traced the Afghan soldier’s machine gun back to her factory line. They determined that she had made the gun that killed her son.

Drug addiction in the Republic of Udmurtiya is widespread. There are 60,000 heroin addicts in Izhevsk alone, or almost one-tenth of the population of the city of 655,000 people. Paganism also is rampant, Degtyar says, and animal
sacrifices to pagan gods are common.

“The son of one of the leading pagan priests got saved and now attends our church,” Degtyar notes.

Word of Faith opened a Bible school in 1995, and the 300 students who have graduated since then have helped Degtyar plant 150 churches in the Republics of Udmurtiya, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan and the Kirov region. Degtyar sees persecution in many forms, but he says, “I would lay my life down for the Lord.”

One of Degtyar’s protégés may have done just that. On the night of July 24 or early morning of July 25, six masked gunmen suspected to be local drug kingpins kidnapped pastor Dmitri Marenko, director of a drug-rehab center operated by Word of Faith. Marenko’s car was found in a ravine, but he has not been heard from since he disappeared.

Izhevsk is one of many transitional distribution points for the illegal drugs that pass through central Asia en route to Russia, where 1 in 5 teen-agers are drug addicts. Word of Faith opened New Life, its substance-abuse rehabilitation center, last year. Today, 60 are enrolled, and another 1,000 addicts are waiting for treatment.

Evangelical Christians, especially Pentecostals, face persecution from the Russian Orthodox Church and from local and regional governments that are influenced by Muslims or Orthodoxy. Often the local governments ignore superceding Russian laws passed in 1996 to protect the religious freedoms of registered churches.

In many regions where the Soviets once ruled, the gospel is preached in a vacuum that lingers from communism’s premise that there is no God, that religion is only a symptom of hardship in society, and that hardship is something government–not God–can cure.

Despite the persecution, the McNultys and many Russian Pentecostals are enjoying great success in raising up and training Russians to evangelize
Russians. The McNultys don’t believe God is going to allow the door to Russia ever to be closed to the gospel again.

“That doesn’t mean that prophecy will never be fulfilled with Gog and Magog,” Kevin McNulty said. “But it has been shown that what door God opens can never be closed. You don’t think Jesus is going to come back and hell will be more populated than heaven, do you? God is not about to let the devil win.”

Natasha Schedrivaya was the first woman ordained a pastor in Russia and elected to lead a nationwide church network.

Women believers in Russia are working the hardest to evangelize their nation. But they are getting the least recognition for their efforts.

This common handicap won’t dampen Russian women’s zeal for servanthood–a trait not common in Russian hierarchy, according to a key female leader in Russia’s growing Pentecostal movement.

Russian women make up approximately 80 percent of the membership in Pentecostal, Baptist or charismatic churches, and they are doing the hardest work. But they rarely are recognized or given the opportunity to advance their gifts in a male-dominated hierarchy, says Bishop Natasha Schedrivaya, president of Calvary Fellowship of Churches of Russia.

Schedrivaya is the first woman to be elected by male peers to such a key leadership post. Calvary Fellowship consists of 60 churches in Russia and 300 churches across the lands of the former Soviet Union. Schedrivaya also is considered to be the first woman ever to be ordained as a bishop in Russia–a very respected title there.

“Russians know how to order and to command, but we need to better understand that a leader is really a servant, especially in church structure,” Schedrivaya told Charisma during an interview in Izhevsk, Russia.

She said many of those evangelists who came in the wave of the early 1990s brought with them a teaching on spiritual authority that emphasized the absolute control of a pastor or leader. “This only produced what we had before [under Soviet rule]–over-control and resulting rebellion,” Schedrivaya says. “The body of Christ needs to set a new standard of leadership as a position not of control and power, but one of true biblical servanthood.”

With help from Leslie McNulty and Ladonna Osborn, Schedrivaya led some of the first women’s conferences in Russia. Women are taught the Bible’s principles for taking their biblical roles in the church. Many are surprised to hear they even can have a role. But Schedrivaya’s review of the roles women played in the Bible “gives them this fresh perspective on how we as women have a glorious future with God,” she says.

Schedrivaya’s election in 1997 as president of Calvary marked a huge step in progress for Russian women in the church. Her election occurred just one year after Calvary Fellowship’s leadership became Russian as American counterparts transferred leadership roles to indigenous people when enough leaders had been trained.

Today, Schedrivaya and other women in the many churches of Calvary Fellowship are implementing strategies to win Russia for Christ one village at a time. “Seventy percent of all the money is in Moscow. Let them have the money and the power struggle. The government will never help the villagers. But if 36,000 villages are reached for Christ, all of Russia will prosper.”

Inspired by a vision by missionary T.L. Osborn, Kevin and Leslie McNulty use circus tents for gospel outreaches.

Kevin and Leslie McNulty are the type of missionaries who will hear God say, “Go to China.” And with no more instructions than that, off they’ll go to a communist nation they’ve never visited before.

The McNultys did exactly that in 1989, when they found themselves in Beijing handing out gospel tracts to pro-democracy youth in Tiananmen Square–not knowing that soon after they left many would be slaughtered by the Chinese army.

Being in God’s timing is everything for the McNultys. This is how they live each day–waiting for their next assignment, tangling with obstacle after obstacle in the world’s most difficult places for evangelism. Their level of faith is contagious.

“Every time I think we should scale back, God tells me to increase,” Kevin McNulty says.

Kevin graduated from Michigan State University and became a successful tennis coach at Central Michigan University and Valley Forge Christian College before God changed his plans. He pastored in Detroit, went on mission trips to Spain and Haiti, and was on his way to minister to American Indians in Nevada when the Lord detoured him to Oklahoma.

It was at Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that Kevin met Leslie. They were married in October 1988 and immediately went into the mission field.

Kevin also earned a doctorate degree in missiology from Life Christian University (LCU) in Tampa, Florida. Leslie earned a business administration degree from Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, and a master’s degree in theology from LCU. She received a ministry certificate from Rhema.

Since 1991, the McNultys have been winning Russians to Christ and training them to reach their own people. When many Western missionaries left Russia or went underground in the wake of Russia’s new religious laws in 1996, the McNultys ignored the bad news and heard the Lord say, “Go big, go bright, and go above ground!”

“The doors have never closed, and we are legal wherever we go,” Kevin says. “The law has helped us because it clearly defines our rights.”

It’s kind of hard to miss them–their circus-style white-and-yellow tent holds 5,000 people. In 1996 they helped missionary-evangelist T.L. Osborn lead 10 leadership conferences across Eurasia. It was Osborn’s prophetic words to the McNultys that inspired them to set goals to reach Russia with tents.

“We owe T.L. so much–we really honor him,” Leslie says. “He gave us an epistle that really launched our faith.” Kevin was planning to use one tent until Osborn challenged the McNultys to think bigger. “He said, ‘No, you need 100 tents,'” Kevin says.

Christian Adventures International started with one tent in 1998. Today the ministry sends Russian evangelism teams with the ministry’s 12 tents. “The real secret to this ministry is the duplication of the people as evangelists,” Kevin says.

Today, when not at their U.S. headquarters in Daytona Beach, Florida, the McNultys occupy a mission house outside Moscow where they plan to build a training center for Russian evangelists–and a tent factory.

“It is an absolute miracle that we do what we do,” Leslie says. “We have no more than 100 people who are involved in our ministry, and we may have between 100 and 135 people who give regular financial support.”

Charisma readers can help send 100 Russian evangelists and 100 tents across the former . Send your tax-deductible gifts to Christian Life Missions, “Russian Tent Project,” P.O. Box 952248, Lake Mary, Florida 32795-2248. You can contact Kevin and Leslie McNulty at .

Lenin and Stalin rest i honor to Moscow’s Red Square, but some Christians say their tombs represent a demonic history.

Against the Kremlin walls in Red Square, amid the center of power in Moscow, lies what many Christians believe is a demonic stronghold–the prominent graves of two of Russia’s most famous yet most brutal leaders. Russian Christians say this stronghold must be overcome if their country is ever to shed the grip of the dark forces that brought it atheistic communism.

That the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and its two largest icons–Vladimir Lenin and Josef Stalin–are still being honored at Red Square’s most prominent place for national heroes makes some church leaders wonder what the Russians in government are thinking. Has the totalitarian reign of Soviet dictators really passed? Or is the new Russian federation just a Soviet cat with different spots?

In Red Square lies Lenin, still exhibited in a mausoleum built when he died in 1924. Lenin–who led the radical socialist Bolshevik Party to overthrow the provisional government in the 1917 revolution–hated God and those who worshiped Him.

Behind Lenin’s tomb are buried the remains of the other Soviet icon, Josef Stalin, whose purge of suspected or potential political opposition before World War II resulted in the deaths of at least 4 million of his countrymen. And yet there is his sculpted bust, scowling arrogantly on a pedestal above his grave marker next to the Kremlin wall.

The body of Stalin, who died in 1953 and led the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death, was on display with Lenin’s inside Lenin’s mausoleum until 1961. Then-Premier Nikita Khrushchev ordered Stalin’s remains removed and buried in an unmarked grave behind Lenin’s tomb.

In a rare admission of Soviet tyranny, Khrushchev noted Stalin’s dark record of murder for power and said he did not deserve to be in such a high place of honor. The grave finally was marked in 1970.

Throngs of people stood in line last July in one of the worst heat waves in Moscow in recent history, just for a chance to gaze upon the remains of Lenin–dead for 77 years. His wish was to be buried in his home village next to his mother, but Soviet leaders decided it better to keep his body on display to keep his spirit alive in Soviet society.

Russian soldiers guard every turn in the dark hallways leading to Lenin’s viewing room. Lenin’s body is illuminated by lighting–his upper torso, folded hands and color-treated face glow eerily through the clear, pressurized glass as he lies in his casket.

Whispers invade the room as viewers move around his casket, which is roped off to keep visitors at arm’s length. In the silence a question rings very loud: Why? Why is the body of a man who ushered in Russia’s darkest years still on public exhibit?

“They want to keep his spirit alive,” says Sergey Ryakhovsky, general overseer of the Russian Church of God and Christian political activist in Moscow. “However, the Russia today is very different than 10 years ago. The people love freedom, and they are eager to find God. They are accustomed to breathing freely.

“The door to these freedoms could become narrow. As long as Lenin’s body is on Red Square, that spirit will try to avenge this freedom. That is the concentration of demonic powers.”

Lenin “was demonic, had a demonic personality. On his order, millions of priests were tortured and killed,” Ryakhovsky says. “Lenin was the first leader to implement the communist ideology of Karl Marx, who said there was no God.”

Paul Steeves, professor of history at Stetson University in DeLand, Florida, specializes in Russian history, especially the history of religion in Russia.

“Lenin was very hostile to the Russian Orthodox Church, practically a psycho in his hatred of them,” Steeves told Charisma. “Lenin, however, actually showed favor toward evangelicals and Protestants because Lenin knew they were considered by Russian Orthodox as an enemy.

“So, many evangelicals thought Lenin’s government was a government from God. They knew Lenin was a hater of God, but they also knew that Lenin was struggling against their enemy. It was an alliance of convenience.”

Ironically, Lenin’s favor enabled American and Russian Pentecostal evangelists to sweep Russia from 1923 to 1927 with tent crusades, similar to the crusades in America’s 1950s and to Kevin and Leslie McNulty’s ongoing crusades in Russia today.

Steeves and Eugene Huskey, professor of political science at Stetson, both believe Stalin’s burial place makes more sense than does the public exhibition of Lenin’s remains.

“It makes sense to leave Stalin there,” Steeves says. “It would be problematic to imagine digging up graves of past rulers to do something with the body. That would be offensive to human thinking, more so than leaving them there, even though both Stalin and Lenin were inhumane people.”

Huskey, director of Stetson’s Russian Studies Department, said the display of Lenin and Stalin at Red Square is evidence of the ambivalence of Russians toward the Soviet legacy.

“They still feel themselves as partly Soviet,” Huskey says. “They are worried about the elimination of all Soviet symbols. They might lose their identity–and they have yet to create a new identity.

“To make a decision to remove Lenin’s body when no one is clamoring for this would be politically risky. It would alienate at least a small segment of the population. So if no one is holding up picket signs saying remove the body, why risk it?”

Steeves notes that the patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church has on occasion voiced support for having Lenin’s body buried properly, if only for humane reasons. “But he always backs off and says this is not the right time,” Steeves said.

Could be Sergey Ryakhovsky knows why the time never seems to be right. “When I asked one of the Russian Orthodox bishops why they keep silent on this subject of Lenin’s body, he says, ‘We do not want to see the Christian cemetery desecrated by that demonic power.'”

And so the spirit of Lenin continues to radiate and permeate Russian society from the Kremlin’s center of power in Moscow’s Red Square. Huskey and Steeves believe the Russians will within 10 to 15 years remove Lenin and bury him. Ryakhovsky and other Christian leaders believe the sooner this is done, the better. It will be a major victory in spiritual warfare.

“You can change the name of your country, and you can change the color of your flag,” Ryakhovsky says. “But you cannot change the mentality overnight. It will take many generations.”

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Billy Bruce, news editor for Charisma, traveled to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Russia to file this report.

Defying regional sentiments, Southland Church in Valdosta opened its doors in 1997 to people of all races.

Don’t tell Aundria Collins that racism in the Deep South is a distant page in history. But don’t tell her God isn’t moving to change hearts. Aundria found a unique racially mixed church in south Georgia–where peanuts, corn, tobacco and cotton were harvested by slave labor until the Confederacy lost the Civil War.

In Valdosta, Ga., 20 miles over the Florida state line along I-75, Aundria and her husband, Martin Collins, found racism. But God also led them to a mostly white church that is battling racism’s stronghold with a silent campaign to embrace African Americans.

The Collinses, who both are on active duty in the U.S. Air Force, arrived in Valdosta in 1997 on orders to Moody Air Force Base. Their spiritual background is in the Church of God in Christ. They had driven down from their New Jersey home in November 1997 and immediately faced situations they had never faced before.

They had “real estate” problems, Martin said, because of “our color.” And when they
enrolled their children in school, they were surprised when a white teacher suggested pairing their daughter Monica with a black student.

“We told the teacher that Monica is a little sensitive, and the teacher said, ‘We’ll put her with a little black girl,'” said Martin. “We said, ‘She doesn’t pick friends by whether they’re black or white.’ I began praying, ‘Lord, are You sure we made the right decision?'”

Pastor Lee Barnes of Southland Church in Valdosta believes God sent the Collinses and several other black couples his way because his mostly white church prays and strives to be a living bridge between Valdosta’s segregated church–a split that mirrors the city’s society.

Southland is an offshoot of New Covenant Church, an independent charismatic church located on Valdosta’s north side–the predominately “white” side of town. Barnes pastored New Covenant for seven years.

In July 1997, New Covenant’s 600 members were asked to seek the Lord about whether they should stay at the home church or join a church expansion at what today is Southland. Some 190 members left for the new church–and Barnes left New Covenant to pastor there. Southland, whose membership has grown to 600, is located on the south and predominately black side of town.

“We didn’t plan it that way,” Barnes said. “God gave us this former plant building in an industrial area. God just in His sovereignty placed us here.”

How does a white church convince local residents that it’s serious about opening its congregation to all races?

“You can preach until you’re blue in the face that, ‘We don’t look at skin color here,'” Barnes told Charisma. “But if you don’t invite them into your leadership, they think you’re lying. They will see right through it.

“When you see that God has called somebody to lead–let them. If they are called, if they are mature, if they are committed, let them lead.”

Martin Collins, for example, is a leader of one of several home groups organized by the church to bring members into New Testament-style fellowship, and many who attend Martin’s group are white.

Barnes learned firsthand about racism while growing up in Waycross, Ga. He had to ask permission of a white pastor to invite his black friends to a revival. And when a black high school student came to live with Barnes’ family in 1973, while the student’s family worked through some problems, the family was chastised for allowing a black person to stay with them.

“I just determined that we were not going to have that here,” Barnes said. “We treat everyone equally.”

Racism comes in different forms, Aundria pointed out. Her 10-year-old son, Adrian, has been accused by other black schoolmates of not “acting black enough” because he doesn’t speak in today’s rap lingo. And her 12-year-old daughter, Monica, had the same problem.

“We are not black or white. We are a Christian family,” Aundria said. “I praise God for this church. My children’s church friends, black or white, love them just for who they are.”

Mary Frances faced some ridicule when her fellow African American neighbors learned she was attending a “white” church. But when they saw white folks helping her move to a new home, they saw the real Jesus.

“I knew this church was where I was supposed to be because on my second visit a white man came across the aisle to me and said God told him to tell me that God would use me as a bridge,” Frances said.

Supporters say fair access and historic preservation at the heart of a petition to wrest jurisdiction from Muslims

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Christians should have a big stake in who controls the biblical holy sites in Israel for the sake of the sites’ survival and protection from Muslim encroachment, contend several Christian organizations that are promoting a petition campaign to make sure that control goes to the Israelis.

The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem (ICEJ), the Christian-operated Bridges for Peace in Jerusalem, Christian Friends of Israel in Jerusalem, and The Galilee Experience in Tiberias on the Sea of Galilee hope to obtain

10 million signatures worldwide to influence decisions by the United States and Israeli governments that affect control of holy sites.

“If other ministries and organizations network with us, it can happen,” said Eric Morey, who along with his Messianic Jewish wife Terry operate The Galilee Experience–a tourist stop on the shores of Galilee.

“I think this would have a moral and political impact on decisions by the United States, Europe and the United Nations by letting the world know that it’s not just the Jews and the Palestinians involved here. The interests are much broader than that,” said Morey, an American-born Christian who now holds Israeli citizenship.
Similar to a declaration from Christians delivered to then Prime Minister Ehud Barak last November that included opposition to any division of Jerusalem, this latest petition urges the biblical and religious sites holy to Christians in Jerusalem remain under the administration and protection of Israel. More than 125,000 Christians from 122 nations signed the November petition, which was sponsored by the ICEJ.

Today, several sites face danger from Muslims, including the Church of The Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, Church of The Nativity in Bethlehem, Basilica of the Annunciation in Nazareth, and others, said David Parsons, media spokesman for the ICEJ.

One traditional location of Simon the Tanner’s House in Old Jaffa, for example, was seized by Muslim extremists several years ago, and they continue to defy court orders to vacate the site, Parsons said.

“The Christian Embassy is extremely concerned with the mounting pattern of Islamic encroachment and damage at biblical sites throughout the land of Israel,” Parsons said. “We are convinced that it would be a tragedy to place any more sites of interest to Christians under the control of the Muslim-dominated Palestinian Authority. In contrast, the State of Israel has established an exemplary record of safeguarding freedom of worship and access to holy sites, and we urge Christians worldwide to support this petition.”

Morey concurred that the record proves that Israel is much more fair to all religious faiths, whether Jew, Christian or Muslim, when managing access to holy sites.

“When Palestinians desecrated Joseph’s Tomb in Ramallah, north of Jerusalem, during the ongoing intifadah Palestinian uprising last fall, Palestinian police stood by and watched,” Morey said. “Jews in Tiberias near Galilee reacted angrily and tried to set fire to an old mosque here. But Israeli police intervened and protected the Muslim holy site. Morey’s tourist business () is located across the street from the Tiberias mosque.

“In 1948, when Jordanians took over the old city, they destroyed the Jewish quarter and 58 synagogues and desecrated a Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives, using the head stones as latrine seats in Jordanian Army camps,” Morey said. “Today, Palestinians control the Temple Mount and will not allow you to pray or carry a Bible there. Access by Jews and Christians is being denied.”

Palestinians are using bulldozers to excavate a huge entrance to a new mosque on the Temple Mount, in an area known as Solomon’s Stables, on the mount’s southern section. “They are dumping off artifacts from Herod’s Temple into a trash heap to destroy elements of the temple,” Morey said. “The Israeli government is doing nothing about this, and, oddly, not even the archeologists are complaining.”

Barak in March did meet with Islamic Waqf officials in Jerusalem to attempt to halt the excavations. More recently, Israeli soldiers have had their hands full trying to protect Rachel’s Tomb in Bethlehem during the uprising, which started last September when now Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount to worship at the Western Wall–one of the last remaining structures of the Jewish Temple from King Herod’s and Jesus’ day.

Regardless of ongoing peace negotiations, Morey says only the Jews have proven themselves fair to all faiths. “When the Israelis have control, as any tourist can attest, there is freedom of access for all religions and all faiths,” he said.

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There’s no marriage in heaven, but one has to wonder if maybe God allowed an exemption for Dale Evans and Roy Rogers, Christian entertainers who warmed hearts for decades with their wholesome Western movies, cowboy songs and gospel music. Evans, who wrote her trademark song “Happy Trails to You” in 1951, died of heart failure Feb. 7 at her home in Apple Valley, Calif. She was 88.

“We take comfort in knowing Dale and Roy are together again, riding happy trails into the sunset,” cowboy singer Too Slim told the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). Rogers died in 1998 at age 86.

Evans and Rogers both were evangelists at heart. “She was one Hollywood personality who truly lived what she preached,” longtime friend Johnny Grant told CBN. “She was a strong supporter of the family and religion.”

Evans was born Frances Octavia Smith on Oct. 31, 1912, in Uvalde, Texas, and attended high school in Osceola, Ark. She began singing on local radio stations in Memphis, Tenn.; Louisville, Ky.; Dallas and Chicago, where she also became well-known for her singing with several big band orchestras.

She reluctantly agreed to a radio station manager’s suggestion to change her name to Dale Evans because it was easier to pronounce. In 1942, she earned a screen test for the movie Holiday Inn. She didn’t get the part, but ended up singing with the nationally broadcast Chase and Sanborn Hour. She next signed a contract with Republic Pictures–the B-movie home of Roy Rogers.

The two starred in the 1944 film The Cowboy and the Señorita. “I liked him,” Evans said in a 1992 interview. “We hit it off because he’s so much like my brother. I mean, Roy’s like I am, and that’s it.”

They starred in more cowboy movies and were married in 1947. The couple recorded more than 400 songs–their most recent album being Many Happy Trails recorded in 1985. Their TV career blossomed when The Roy Rogers Show ran from 1951-1957.

Evans wrote the gospel music standard “The Bible Tells Me So” in 1955 and said her years of participation in Christian evangelism were “the most meaningful, the most enjoyable part of my life.”

Salim Munayer says Arab and Jewish believers in Israel are wasting a chance to model reconciliation to the world

As the ancient hatred between Arabs and Jews produces daily reports of gunfire, bomb attacks and deaths in Israel and Palestinian territories, nothing seems hopeful–or “new” in this new millennium. One Palestinian Christian, however, continues to sow the seeds of peace through Musalaha–a ministry that for 10 years has brought together Jews and Arabs who share belief in Jesus Christ.

Salim Munayer, 45, the director and founder of Musalaha, also serves as the academic dean at Bethlehem Bible College. The school is located near Rachel’s Tomb–the site of ongoing violent clashes between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers.

Abrupt gunfire on Bethlehem streets often interrupts classes at the college, and students often return to the school the next day–traumatized from the overnight clashes that sometimes leave their homes sprayed with stray bullets.

While the religions of Judaism and Islam slug it out for control of holy sites in Jerusalem and for territory across the Holy Land, Munayer’s ministry–based in Jerusalem–is uniting followers of Jesus to bridge the gap between two peoples who have viewed themselves as enemies for centuries.

Munayer, however, believes the crux of the modern conflict between Arab and Jew began 100 years ago with the Zionist movement to return the Holy Land to Jewish control, which occurred in 1948.

“We are in one ‘house,’ and there are two people [Arabs and Jews], ” Munayer told Charisma during a recent interview in
Jerusalem. “And we have no choice but to live together in peace.”

Munayer cited 1 John 4:20, which calls a liar anyone who says they love God but hates their brother or sister. He stressed that followers of Jesus the Messiah, no matter what ethnic background or nationality, are called by God to bring peace among enemies.

In Israel, believers have an incredible opportunity amid the ongoing violence to present Jesus as the one true Messiah. They can exemplify that Arabs and Jews who share faith in Jesus can overcome their hatred and prejudices and live together in a land where that seems impossible, he says.

Under Musalaha, Arab Christians and Messianic Jews have joined together for special trips into the Negev desert, the Sinai and other neutral places. They go for several days, share camping and survival duties, and learn how faith in Jesus enables them to respect one another’s races as peoples created by the same Creator.

Together they ride camels into the desert, cook, share water rations, exchange personal experiences and testimonies, and gradually break down the demonization and dehumanization each group has heaped on the other for generations.

“In the Bible, the desert is where the prophets go to meet with God. And it’s where we learn how dependent we are on our God,” Munayer explained. “The desert is where we learn the hard way that if we don’t get along, we won’t survive.”

After the desert excursion ends, the reconciliation continues in their hometowns. They trade special ministry tasks that bring Jews into Arab neighborhoods and Arabs into Jewish neighborhoods. And after a night of violence, Musalaha participants often call one another to see if their new friends are safe, Munayer said.

A Palestinian pastor and his family in Bet Jala, for example, were caught in the cross fire between Israeli and Palestinian gunmen. Several Jewish believers reached out to him and his church.

One Messianic family donated 15 baskets of food and supplies for Palestinian Christians, who often cannot leave their towns to go to jobs in Israeli-controlled areas because of the fighting. A Messianic congregation pledged to pray during their Saturday services for the Christians living in Bethlehem.

“I told my church this, and they were touched,” the Bet Jala pastor said. “We are carried by Christ and not politics.”

Munayer resents the demonization of Palestinians by Christians and Jews as the enemies of God. He believes that many people are misled into believing the Palestinians are a violent people because of the ongoing uprising.

“The majority of Palestinian Christians live in Bethlehem, and the area of Ramallah and Betz Shaour,” Munayer said. “Those towns are closed. People are not allowed to leave. They cannot go to work and are running out of money. I live in Jerusalem–I can shop and travel. But the people in Bethlehem cannot travel.”

Munayer, however, realizes that love and reconciliation–not violence–are required to bring peace and to lift the oppression Arabs and Jews have exchanged for years.

“It is harder to do peace than to go to war,” Munayer said. “We and the Israelis have learned how to make war. We need to learn to make peace. Jesus said, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers.’ It is really a big challenge.”

Avi Mizrachi says a community of Jews who believe in Jesus as the Messiah is growing throughout the Holy Land

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A congregation of Messianic Jews and a ministry center directly

associated with the church are reaching the Holy Land with the gospel from a base in Tel Aviv, a city known more for its night life and New Age influences than for traditional religious foundations.

Adonai Roi Messianic Congregation is pastored by Avi Mizrachi, who also leads the nearby Dugit Center–a Messianic outreach base located in the heart of Tel Aviv on Frishman Street.

Adonai Roi means “The Lord is my shepherd” and dugit in Hebrew is a small fishing boat. The Dugit staff boldly takes the gospel to the streets of Tel Aviv to win souls to Christ, and many of their “catches” attend services at Adonai Roi, where an average of 80 to 100 Jews from Israel, Russia, Ukraine, South Africa, the United States, Cyprus and the Philippines worship Jesus as Messiah.

“Tel Aviv is the place where people from all over the country really come for pleasure,” said Mizrachi, a Messianic Jew. “People are just searching, looking for all kinds of things–yoga, meditation, the occult. We
see how people are so hungry.”

Dugit and Adonai Roi have reached thousands of Jews with the salvation message. Today there are approximately 5,000 Jews now living in Israel who accept Jesus as Messiah, Mizrachi said. Just 25 years ago, Messianic Jews were hiding to avoid deportation. Today, in almost every city in Israel, one can find a Messianic congregation. “That is a miracle that God has done in two decades,” Mizrachi told Charisma. “It is the work of God.”

Sitting inside the Dugit Center, Mizrachi and his American-born wife, Chaya, told how God has blessed and protected them in a sometimes volatile environment of persecution.

Eight years ago, a Christian Baptist bookstore closed. Mizrachi, who graduated from Bible school in the United States at Christ for the Nations in Dallas, reopened the bookstore on lease as the Dugit Center. Mizrachi keeps office space there and utilizes the remaining space for evangelism and a coffee shop, where he entertains religious and secular Jews as well as Arab Muslims.

Dugit staffers are joined by other Messianic believers and volunteers from around the world to launch bold street outreach efforts that include music, drama, dance and testimonies about Jesus.

Not everyone is happy about Mizrachi’s work. The Yad Le-Achim is an anti-missionary organization made up of Orthodox Jews who believe that Jews who believe in Jesus are no longer Jews. They say Dugit’s evangelism activities are an abomination to Jehovah because they destroy the Jewish race and prevent the coming of the “true” Messiah.

The Yad Le-Achim often target Dugit street outreaches for protest. They try to shout down Messianic speakers and singing by yelling loudly and ordering them to stop their “blasphemy.”

“In spite of all this, we see that the typical secular Israeli is open to hear what we have to say and we are able to share the Good News of the Messiah,” Mizrachi said.

The Dugit Center provides written materials and Hebrew Bibles as well as Bible studies for its visitors. But the center is targeted by the Orthodox.

The center’s walls have been defaced with swastikas. Its computers were attacked by viruses. Complaints to local police fall on deaf ears.

Still, Mizrachi refuses to retaliate. He noted that the Apostle Paul was brainwashed against believers in Jesus—until he met Jesus himself.

“The Yad Le-Achim believe what they are doing is for God–just like Paul did as Saul [when he persecuted Christians],” Mizrachi said. “We don’t respond in kind. We try to show everyone the love of Jesus for them. We pray for their salvation.”

God’s favor continues to rest on Adonai Roi, Mizrachi said. When the congregation outgrew its meeting place at Dugit, God again provided. Property in Tel Aviv is rare and expensive, and hard for Messianic Jews to obtain. But the Jewish owner of a former discotheque offered to lease the building to Adonai Roi.

“It was a discotheque, but it is redeemed today, and we are dancing for the Lord there,” Mizrachi said.

Despite forewarnings of potential legislation geared to stop evangelism in Israel, Mizrachi claimed: “The harvest is ripe, people are coming to know Yeshua, and absolutely nothing will stop the gospel from going forth.”

Kayy Gordon has braved subzero weather and harsh living conditions for 40 years to bring the gospel to the inuit people of Canada’s northern artic region.

Young Kayy Gordon of Vancouver, British Columbia, couldn’t escape the burden that God had placed on her heart. While praying one Saturday night in 1953, the19-year-old received a vision of herself ministering to the Inuit people of the frozen Arctic–a land of snow and ice, subzero temperatures, polar bears and caribou, reindeer herders and the aurora borealis. This was a land where few missionaries had dared to tread.

The Inuit, known to Westerners as Eskimos, have inhabited the Canadian Arctic for 5,000 years. They are relatives of Arctic inhabitants in Russia and other lands above the Arctic Circle. Their spirituality was founded on spiritism and occultic shamanism, except for some inroads made by ritualistic Anglican missionaries and others in Canada’s north.

Kay y had her work cut out for her. Her first test was to withstand the protests of Reg Layzell, pastor of Glad Tidings Fellowship, an independent Pentecostal church in Vancouver that she attended.

When Kayy told Layzell that God had showed her she would be a missionary in the Arctic, he chided: “Well, Kayy, God knows your address and your phone number. When He wants you, He will call you.” That retort sent Kayy, now 67, scurrying out of Layzell’s office in tears.

“Pastor Layzell was a disciplinarian, but a real revivalist at the same time,” Kayy said of her now deceased pastor. “He was the way he was because he was so anxious to develop ministry that would last. He was my mentor, and I have tremendous respect for him.”

Though Kayy’s pastor was more interested in supporting missions that had a chance to survive, during the next two years he watched her endure ridicule from family and friends. He also saw that her deep, inward passion for the Inuit people was not shaken. Layzell finally realized that this young woman, now in her early 20s, would not be swayed from answering God’s call to the Arctic.

Before Layzell would release Kayy to missions work, however, she had to meet one requirement: have direct contacts in the Arctic. On the very day that he was going to tell Kayy she couldn’t go without having developed those contacts, a couple wandered into Glad Tidings Fellowship.

Anna and Mikkel Pulk had lived in the Arctic for 30 years, herding reindeer from Alaska into Canada. They were vacationing in Vancouver and looking for a church to visit. Just moments before the Pulks entered the church lobby, Layzell was impressed by the Lord that strangers from the north were arriving.

“You people are from the Arctic, aren’t you?” Layzell inquired of the amazed Pulks, who wondered how he could know that. With their white skin and modern dress, the Pulks gave no clue they might be Arctic dwellers.

Kayy had her contacts. Layzell released her into ministry with his blessing and support. In 1956, at age 22, Kayy left her world for the icy territory of the Inuit.

FARMING SOULS IN A FROZEN WORLD Kayy arrived to a then primitive Arctic, gradually learning the customs of the Inuit, living in their tents and traveling with these nomads of the north as they herded reindeer. In most villages, no running water or electricity was available. Sometimes, however, she was blessed with the use of a few electric generators.

As an outsider, Kayy found adjusting to Arctic living conditions challenging. As an evangelist, she sometimes felt she was trying to farm frozen ground.

“Forty years ago, it wasn’t easy,” she said. “The Inuit were pretty steeped in religious and cultural traditions. It took them a long time to see the need to be born again–to have a Spirit-filled life. We had many years of sowing before the real harvest began to come.

“There [were] what they called shamans–like the medicine men of Africa. They felt they had special powers to cure or bless, which might include healing. But it great move of the Holy Spirit in the 1980s that really broke the power of shamanism for many.”

Kayy says she met only minor resistance as a woman missionary. That resistance faded quickly when the Inuit saw that her prayers for their healing were heard and that her words of prophecy came true. She also noted the generous nature of the Inuit and how this often made her work easy.

“When you live with them, they often have a wonderful way of yielding themselves to the Lord and to the moving of the Holy Spirit,” Kayy said. “That yielding permits God to bring great change in their lives rapidly. Because of that, they grow quite quickly as Christians and the qualities of humility, love and compassion become very evident in their lives.”

WOMEN LEADING THE WAY Today, Kayy is president of Glad Tidings Arctic Missions, which has established 12 churches and two Bible schools in the Arctic. Kayy’s goal to raise up Inuit leaders to evangelize and disciple their own people has been met beyond her expectations. She’s especially pleased that her presence as a woman minister inspired Inuit women to take on leadership roles in their villages.

Hattie Alagalak, an Inuit and wife of the mayor of Arviat, a village on Hudson Bay’s northwestern shore, emphasized Kayy’s influence. Hattie, who is pastor of Glad Tidings Fellowship in Arviat, first met Kayy in 1975 shortly after having accepted Jesus. The two began traveling together in 1977, and Hattie became a pastor in Arviat in 1990 after years of mentoring by Kayy.

“I really had a desire to work for the Lord and then seeing a woman who had a ministry gave me more urge to give myself to God,” Hattie said. “Being a woman, that amazed me that [Kayy] would come, that she would be a missionary.”

Another leader to emerge from Kayy’s missionary efforts was Lynn Patterson. Lynn was 28 years old when she first traveled north with Kayy, and she spent the next 20 years serving in Kayy’s ministry.

Now 48, Lynn is pastor of Glad Tidings Fellowship in Yellowknife, the capital of the Northwest Territories, and she serves as supervisor of Glad Tidings Arctic Missions–a job that requires frequent trips across the Arctic.

“We travel by plane–Kayy traveled by dogsled,” Lynn said. “We can’t forget what people like Kayy Gordon did. She blazed the trail.”

Kayy says because of God’s favor to her, she has faced little persecution as a woman minister. On one occasion an Anglican bishop sought to have her banished from preaching in a village, but Kayy attributed that incident to her delivery of the Pentecostal message, not prejudice against women in ministry. But what few incidents she did face–she overcame by staying focused on the mission God gave her.

“My attitude has been whenever anything negative is said, I don’t respond to it,” Kayy said. “I just get about doing what God has called me to do.”

Kayy has been courted a few times but has never married. “It’s true I did have others show an interest in me, but I simply felt too fulfilled in life to get involved,” Kayy said.

Forty-four years ago, one young woman heeded God’s call to the Arctic tundra. Today, as a result of her faithfulness, an entire people’s ancient culture has been penetrated by the good news of Jesus Christ.

Billy Bruce is news editor for Charisma magazine. He traveled with Kayy Gordon on a ministry tour of six Arctic villages in March 2000 along with evangelist Rodney Howard-Browne.

Austere beauty and severe weather mark the Canadian northern artic region–the homeland of the Inuit people, commonly referred to as Eskimos.

Following a move of the Holy Spirit in the 1980s, many of the native people began seeing their need for Christ.