Drug addicts in Russia are finding hope through an Elim-backed project, as retired minister Derek Chittick reports…

 

I first came across Salvation Centre in Asbest, Russia, in 2000, when I spent an hour visiting there with a Russian Pentecostal pastor. My main memory of that visit is of a beautiful location in the middle of a forest, and the vegetable patch where they grew many of their own supplies for the year.

In 2009, I returned as part of a team of Scottish church leaders organised by Tearfund, when we spent more than a week getting acquainted with the work there and in two of the sister centres planted out in neighbouring regions.

What we saw then impressed us immensely, as we witnessed the transforming power of the gospel applied to utterly broken lives. Salvation Centre is built on the belief that if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation, the old has passed away and the new has come. The programme is rigorous, Christ centred, practical and effective. We wept as we heard tragic stories, but rejoiced in seeing the evidence of lives turned around by the Spirit of God.

The programme doesn’t just focus on getting people off drugs, but also on getting them back into society, living fulfilled and active lives rooted into a local church.

Since the 2009 visit, I’ve been back each year, and it’s been particularly exciting to see people who were going through rehab on that occasion now having progressed to the point of being able to open and lead new centres and bringing others into the freedom they have found in Christ.

It all started in the summer of 1998 with a young man working on a ambulance team as a male nurse. At that time there was a drug boom in Russia and a lot of people died of drugs.

The young man found himself in church, met Christ and started a dynamic work amongst drug addicts. He created an active team and a social organisation named ‘Salvation’ was registered.

After 16 years it’s estimated that about 600 people have been freed from addictions. There are now seven other non-profit centres with about 100 residents on the courses at any one time, free of charge.

A team from the Orenburg site visited Elim Bible Week in April, but since then Barnabas Fund has published details of raids that have taken place on four church-based rehab centres by the Russian authorities as part of a crackdown on Protestant churches.

For more details, visit www. salvationcentre.org

 

 

 

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