February 2, 2015
It is almost a whole year now since the first peaceful protests began in Kiev, and what an escalation we have seen since then!
From the panel discussion at our CEP conference last October, Evangelical Times has published a well-illustrated article – read it here and please respond if you would like to help.
October 22, 2014
From 3-5 October, people from a wide area of East Europe gathered at the beautiful centre in Malenowice, Czech Republic – as well as a few from US and UK!
A few reflections from some of them :
– We had a great time catching up with everyone. Good time of fellowship, hearing from all the Partners, and quite a lot of new faces.
– The main sessions were based on Paul’s time at Ephesus. Paul and Relationships, Paul and Business, Paul and Education. Marek Marcus was really good with the talks. Everyone seems to have enjoyed and learnt from these.
– The panel discussion on Ukraine situation was really good with contributions from people from Ukraine as well as Russia. It was a very open discussion with quite a detailed feedback from Sergiy who is quite involved in supporting people who are affected in the area. Churches in the area are quite involved in support, and some money was donated at the conference and taken back to Ukraine – Slava writes ” I’m writing to tell you that I gave your money to the guy from the church who goes to the war zones with help gathered from churches, volunteers and NGOs. He is going there tonight. He bought thermal underpants to our soldiers to keep them warm in the coming cold weather on the money you kindly gave. Pray for his trip. He shared in church last Sunday how dangerous it is there but how much he grows in trust to God through that. He is only 20-something but very committed to help soldiers while our government is not.” They would welcome any support in this area and requested prayers mainly for Russians as the media in Russia is not really showing the truth.
– One significant outcome was that those Partners who are more involved in education decided to start a partnership to learn from and support each other; this was initially Nadya’s idea.
Some needs which the Partners expressed :
CS Lewis – Looking for Partnerships with UK schools, Sponsorship for students
YFC – The next main activity is New Year “The Beginning” conference. They have decided to invite Reinhard Hirtler to speak and need about £1800 for his travel and accommodation.
M2E – Two of the women from Poland really hope to visit Kazakhstan again soon, where the women are longing for their help and encouragement.
M2E – Slava – Next event is the Winter camp, and Slava will let us know what practical needs she has soon.
M2E – Bartek & Zhanna – Bartek said they are ready for their big change in few weeks time – with their baby due they really need a car for travels which probably will cost around £2500. Bartek would also like to raise funds to be able to take the young people to town every few months; each trip costs about £100.
SLOT – Andrzej said they will let us know the needs after their board meeting soon.
Parakletos – Pavel said they have about 7 conferences to lead this Autumn. A wireless headset would improve the quality of their recordings – costs about £300.
Daybreak – Adam not too well and couldn’t come to the conference. Wojtek said they are looking for general funds which will equip them to conduct more training.
All our Partners really value your prayers for them, and if you would like to help any of them financially, please get in touch!
November 1, 2010
This is by far the largest of the Partners, and has several strands. Integra Bulgaria and Romania now operate separately, and the website connection from CEP UK concerns only Integra Slovakia. In communist times, there were quite a number of American Navigators working in the USSR, out of which has developed the work of Integra Russia which Neil Lessman reported on to the conference:
The “micro-enterprise” model, ie loans to women to start up small businesses, which is no longer needed really in Slovakia, still works very well in Russia, and helps a great number of vulnerable women, mostly in St Petersburg and Moscow.
In Brest, Belarus, what started as a small bible study group is now a 600-strong thriving church. The catalyst was a Christian rock music group there, Spasenie, which Neil introduced to friends in his home church in Milwaukee; they went on a “tour” of other churches in America, and gradually more people became interested in them and in their situation back in Belarus. The band didn’t want to ask for financial help, but the Americans expected to be asked for help. Americans from a whole group of churches began to go to Belarus to help with camps etc, and to financially support the band, and gradually a very strong partnership developed. In the end that led to the profits from the band paying for a huge facility for their fellowship in Brest. This is now a sending and a training church, training people from a wide region, including from well outside Belarus.
Integra Slovakia operates from offices in Bratislava, where several salaried people co-ordinate a diverse range of enterprises, some of which are for-profit – the 10-Senses Fair-Trade import business, Integra Financial Services offering accounting services to other companies, and Oil Partner which began as a small enterprise to help vulnerable people into employment, and is now independent and running successfully – and many not-for-profit projects within the Integra Foundation. These are concerned with poverty alleviation and help for the vulnerable through enterprise development. To start with, it was mainly women’s micro-enterprises, which had support from the EU, but that support has been removed now, as it is no longer such a need, and start-up companies can now easily find bank loans. Integra has shifted focus to other vulnerable groups, and particularly to the deaf – they are now, after three years, recognised experts in this field, in fact the only organisation in the country offering business skills and support to this very needy group. The deaf, especially the over-30s, have had very little education, tend to live in their own communities, and very little has been done by the state to help integrate them.
“Enterprise” is an unusual word in Slovakia, funds for the socially vulnerable are not forthcoming, and there are still many social needs that are not addressed by the state. (more…)
May 18, 2010
In today’s Russia it is often women who bear the brunt of the problems of a society where there is a very high level of male alcohol dependency and indeed early death, leaving women abandoned or divorced, often with children to bring up
Integra Russia has helped countless women to gain dignity and a means of enhancing not only their own prospects but those of the economy and society of the country as a whole, by providing business training and small loans to enable them to set up a small business. This bi-lingual report gives several personal stories of individual women, showing how their lives have been transformed.
July 29, 2009
Written by Lisa K. Clark
(This article was originally published on Central Eurasian Partners’ US website.)
Adam gazed out the window from his seat on the slow-moving train through the rolling Polish countryside. The lush forests held wide their branches for woodpeckers, cuckoos, finches, and jays as they chattered and sang. In the dense brush beneath, hares, deer, foxes, and boars roamed freely. This was the land Adam had grown up in, the land of his family and home. Now-alone-he was heading to a strange land. Soon he’d be crossing the border into the Ukraine, Poland’s neighbor.
The trip, Adam knew, was not pleasant. The train cars themselves were designed for functionality, not comfort. If rolling along steel tracks with total strangers for hours on end was wearisome, then the border crossing was downright disagreeable. Barbed wire, watch towers, and a wide strip of raked sand all signaled the train’s imminent stop. Border crossings were a necessary evil when traveling from one country to another, even if they were allies. Trains coming into the USSR from Europe faced an additional inconvenience, though: switching the train’s wheel trucks. Because Soviet tracks were 24cm (roughly nine inches) wider than those used in Europe, an elaborate process of exchanging the wheels on a train to accommodate the wider gauge entailed an extended wait.
Still, those were minor nuisances. Adam felt his stomach lurch even before the train stopped for another reason: Soviet frontier guards and possible KGB representatives would inevitably search the train. And Adam was hiding something. As a Polish believer, committed to spreading the Good News, he was taking a great risk to smuggle Russian language Bibles into the Ukraine to give to secret contacts. He dreaded the consequences if caught.
The volumes were discovered quickly. Twelve hours later, Adam was still wondering what his fate would be. The train he had been riding had long since departed and he sat in a small office with nothing to do but wait. And pray. Finally, he dared to ask. “Excuse me,” he said to a guard. Surely good manners wouldn’t hurt. “Can you tell me how long I have to stay here?”
“They don’t know,” one of the soldiers answered. “They’re trying to decide whether to send you back to Poland or on to Siberia.” (more…)
March 4, 2009
Central Eurasian Partners are at work across central and eastern Europe, and into central Asia. This Google map shows some of the locations where Partners are working. Several Partners (ARKA, Youth for Christ, Daybreak) are based in the Polish city of Wroclaw, while Integra works across countries from Croatia to Russia in micro-business.
Central Eurasian Partners 