On a piercing, sun-scorched journey in a desert, from a great distance, you may see something so unbelievably amazing and life-giving as a lakebed or a river. With great anticipation and hope, you run to it. When you get there it could be real...but it might just be a mirage. Men and women from Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan, arriving in Austria from all varieties of desperate "desert journies," have discovered that the Oasis is a Real source of Living Water.
For 15 years I've been part of an informal network of Christ-following people who have prayed for the people of Chechnya. In early November, I had traveled to Europe for my "day job." and some "hobby work" related to loving Chechen people. I stopped by Austria, to see my Russian friend who is volunteering for 3 months at the Oasis. I was carrying with me 3 newly published Chechen Bibles. After 40 years, the Chechens are the first to receive a full and complete Bible translation out of all of the 45+ North Caucasus languages. My friend had a long list of Chechen women, men and families who would be greatly encouraged to hear about this Book.
A week was just a taste, a mere cupful, of the Living Water made available through the sacrificial servants who make The Oasis Real! Women's clothing day on Monday, Home visits on Tuesday, Bible Teaching on Wednesday, Coffee Bar on Thursday, and Women's evening on Friday.
I went into Friday Night with heaviness of spiritual and emotional Pain. My friend had told me, "Can you imagine? These refugees have the same passport as me! We are all citizens of the same country. They are not free. They are so afraid. The pain these women bear is unspeakable." So, What do you do with Pain like that when you may see these women only once?You offer to come alongside and carry their burdens for a moment of reprieve - until the day they can know the ONE, whose Yoke is easy, who's Burden is light (because He connects to us and carries more than we can).
At the Oasis, on that Friday night, 12 volunteers from Austria, America, Russia, Ukraine, Iran, and Armenia, joined hands as Living Water to 30 guests and 13 children. 24 spoke Russian as their first or second language. Of those 24, 18 were women from Chechnya. All mobile phones were pointed up to record the evening's musician from Russia, who shared her own Russian language heart-songs, reflecting Psalm 139 - that we are designed and created with purpose. These women got to hear, in clean Russian Language, about God Most High who will do anything to search for a Lost Coin. About God Most High who met Hagar in her desert place. About God Most High who offered himself as the Source of Living Water to the Samaritan woman at the well. During craft time, a few women requested Scripture in their languages. And when craft time was over, we played some Chechen music, composed by a Chechen woman who follows Jesus.
Typical in their culture, a spontaneous circle formed, and we danced the Lezginka - a fiery energetic, intricate Caucasus dance expressing the tensions between disciplined self-control & the passions of heart emotions. It's a dance we foreigners practice only at home with our children when no one is looking! For Chechens, when you celebrate, when you're sad, when you're out of words, you dance! Women drummed on the tables. We circled and clapped. We stepped in and out. And we danced. And we danced. Once again, just another "routine" moment when The Oasis offered streams from the River of Living Water. It's not a Mirage. It is Real.
- from a recent visitor to the Oasis
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