Reaching the Uyghurs of Kazakhstan for Christ

By Abdul Masih —

When Marat and Nurlikiz Urazov moved to Shonhzy, Kazakhstan to evangelize Muslim Uyghurs, they lived in a barn. They couldn’t afford proper housing.

“We didn’t have any money,” Nurlikiz says. “We were sitting and crying about what we should do.”

Jesus answered their prayers: “I will give you strength.”

Two years later, they have a fledgling church of 12. The Uyghurs, of Turkish descent, number above 12 million, mostly in China where they face persecution. But in Kazakhstan where policies have loosened in recent years, their evangelization is taking place. Third generation missionary Wally Kulakoff says he’s seeing the fruits of the prayers of his grandparents and parents who labored for 100 years without much fruit.

“I can rejoice in the fact that they are coming to know God slowly but methodically,” Wally says. “Jesus Christ appears to these people in dreams.”

That’s what happened to Gulnisa, a Muslim who converted to Christ. She suffered chronic illness for five years. The Muslim ritual prayer did nothing. The mullahs did nothing. She even went with the tarot card readers.

“I couldn’t find any help,” Gulnisa says. Then she got a dream.

“I had something like a ball in my hand, and Jesus said to me, ‘It’s ours,’ and smiled at me,” she tells. “I looked for Jesus’s images online and I realized he was the man in my dream.”

She now attends Urazov’s church.

Of 300,000 Uyghurs in Kazakhstan, some 300 are now Christians.

The Uyhgurs have been Muslim for about 1,000 years.

Based on reporting by CBN. Related content: the evangelization of Kashmir, a Hindu swami came to Jesus, she fights sex exploitation in Nepal.