Glory to God in the Land of Fire!

Azerbaijan is known as the Land of Fire. It comes from ancient travellers passing through, seeing the ground literally on fire. They thought it was supernatural and worshiped it, but its source is enormous amounts of gas beneath the ground leaking through the earth’s surface.

Quite amazing to see, actually, especially at night. Even more fascinating to see another kind of fire lighten up in this land - the fire of revival.

1994 we arrived to a war weary nation. They had just come out of a prolonged armed conflict with Armenia with much suffering on both sides. One million Azerbaijanis were internally displaced and found shelter in railway wagons, sports halls, sheds or big refugee camps across the nation. Poverty, dark streets and a broken people.

We held an evangelistic campaign, “God loves Azerbaijan”, in a sports stadium in Baku. Carl-Gustaf Severin was preaching and we had a big team in place to minister to people’s needs. Lame walked, deaf heard and there was a great joyous tumult.

One Ukrainian girl on the team was so happy and as she spoke in tongues, an local resident asked how she could speak his language. She told him she didn’t. But he persisted and told her that she had said in Azerbaijani – ”God loves Azerbaijan, He will raise up a big church here and He will perform many miracles.” She was in awe when she heard the translation!

There was a great harvest to take care of.  Missionaries moved in to work long term and have since done an incredible work to raise this church up. One year later we had the great joy to baptise 300 people in the Caspian Sea.

20 years have now passed. The church has grown and is nothing short of a miracle. A one thousand-member church, among a people that 1990 was considered one of the least reached and hardest to reach peoples in the world, is quite unique. This weekend we celebrate 20 years, looking back in thankfulness but also forward with great expectation.

Glory to God in the Land of Fire.