Snapshot of a Disciple-Maker: Farhod in Central Asia

My name is Farhod. I was born in 1977, in an ordinary Soviet family A good, and as it seemed to me at that time, a strong family: mom, dad, me, and my little sister.

When I was only 10 years old, my father left the family.  I remember well that day when something broke in me and the world of my childhood was painted in dark tones. Dad was standing on the edge of the football field, holding a large suitcase in his hand. The guys and I were kicking a ball around when I heard my father’s voice calling me to him. He offered an inexplicable farewell and a promise that I would understand everything when I grew up.

The next difficult season of my life became drugs. I began at only 15 years old, and was fully addicted at 16. This began a long period of my moral and physical decay, my mother’s tears and despair, and my sister’s shame and hatred.

At one point, having completely despaired of rescuing me from my addiction, my mother turned to my father for help. He had moved with his new family and had been living in another city for many years. My father agreed to take me in. Suddenly I found myself in a city with a different nature, a different mentality, and its own terrible and diverse drug world. My mother’s hope and my father’s joy crumbled like an illusion after only 3 months of my stay in the “new life.” Everything happened according to the true proverb: “A pig will find dirt everywhere.”

The variety of drugs that this city offered, at the speed of free fall, killed the last human traits in me. I took all kinds of drugs like a madman in the darkest year of my life. I probably would have died that year if I had not ended up in prison, where after serving 3 months before the trial, I received a suspended sentence and was released.

I do not remember anything as well as this one March morning. I was walking on the gray melted snow and the sky was just as gray above me. I was very exhausted and completely lost. I was shaking from drug hunger and throwing up from nausea and vomiting. I had nowhere to go, since my father’s wife categorically forbade me to come to their house. I myself could no longer bear to see the helplessness and tears of my father, who, just like my mother, simply did not understand how to help me.

That morning, I asked myself the question, “Who am I?” I was a hopeless drug addict, a homeless person in a strange city, a madly lonely person who could hear the message loud and clear: Die already! Don’t torture yourself or others!

The thought of suicide was raising its voice louder and louder and already seemed like the last and most “sensible” thought in my head. I had already made up my mind and was thinking about how to do it.

But suddenly, from some very distant corner of my mind, a quiet, almost whispering thought about God appeared. I could not explain to myself why I thought about Him so suddenly. Why did I so clearly remember one drug addict who, in a daze, was talking about some Christian rehabilitation center, where, supposedly, with God’s help, they defeat addiction? It was only one moment, a few words that I couldn’t even remember.

But these words sounded in my head so clearly that I even heard the address of this center: 19 Yastrebovsky Lane

I stopped and looked around, trying to understand where I was. Anyone reading this may find it incredible, as I did at that moment, because I was right on Yastrebovsky Lane, and the Christian center was practically right in front of me, about a hundred meters away.

I crossed the threshold of the Christian rehabilitation center for drug addicts. I was met by a minister who, just by looking at me, immediately understood everything and invited me to a trailer on the territory of the center. The minister’s testimony about Christ, about His sacrificial love for me, led me to weeping and repentance.

This was a meeting with the One who, all my life, in spite of everything, was waiting for me with open arms. This turning point in my life became not only salvation from death breathing in my face, but also the right direction for my future life until this day! For three years I was a member, and then a minister of the church there.  Everything was fine: freedom, sober life, service to people.

I’d arrived in that country as an immigrant, but then lost my passport and paperwork. I had not filed a report of the loss and lived for a long time without a residence permit, so one day the city administrative court issued a ruling to deport me to my homeland. I begged the judge and implored God not to return me to my homeland. But the court was adamant, and God is not partial.

Only years later, I fully realized that returning to my homeland was also part of God’s plan. “I need you here!” – this is exactly what I once clearly heard from my Lord. And now, for 17 years, by predestination and the grace of God, I have been serving the people living here.

It has been 15 years since I met my wife and helper in the Lord. The opportunity for us to serve in this country is an honor and great trust from God. The population of our country is considered to be 90% Muslim. Despite the fact that we live in a secular state with freedom of religion, in reality everything is much different.

Over all the years of ministry, we have often come under pressure from local authorities. Searches in houses, confiscation of Christian literature, intimidation, fines, and even imprisonment threaten every Christian in our country.

At the beginning of 2023. God introduced me to Brother V from Tajikistan, who later became my mentor in discipleship and the creation of home groups in the context of Central Asian countries. It was this teaching that helped me and our team choose a more fruitful path of ministry, especially since this format of ministry is most suitable in our area.

We are just at the beginning of our journey to create many small home groups throughout our city and eventually beyond. We are now in a good process of reformatting the church in accordance with the teaching of “Mentoring and Discipleship” that we are learning. Despite all the challenges and difficulties that we face (spiritual, material and psychological), we live here! we serve here! we fight here! And it is here that we believe in the awakening and conversion of the nation to the Lord!

*Names changed