Relaying the story of a missionary: David LeCompte has lived in some of the most war-ravaged areas of the world from Chechnya to Tehran. LeCompte is the author of
No Escape from Grozny: A Christian Working in War-Torn Chechnya.
I worked in Chechnya and the region for more than nine years, half of it in a post-9/11 world and, unbelievable to many, as a follower of Christ. Yes, a Christian walking the bomb-cratered streets of Grozny caring for Muslim children and refugees. I experienced the horrors and the tragedies of the wars both of them Yeltsin's and Putin's. I also escaped the literal minefields of ethnic and political roulette between the Russian FSB (formerly the KGB) and Muslim war merchants, which oddly enough turned out to be more dangerous than the war itself.
You ask: Why go to a place like this? Places with stories of horror like Grozny, Argun, Urus-Martan. Aren't the Chechens all Muslims by heritage? How can a Christian love them? Don't they hate us? There all terrorists! As a Russian Spetsnaz soldier once mockingly said to me, "Why would you come to this place of insanity to care for Chechen orphans? We will be putting a bullet through their heads five years from now!"
Yet in the time that my family and I went to Chechnya, we saw simple acts of kindness give hope to many living in the middle of an active war zone. In a defining moment one bitterly cold afternoon in January 2002, one of the reasons I had come to Chechnya became very clear.
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My name is Maddie Thompson, and I work with Harvest Sound Record Company in the Inner City of Nashville! I just wanted to say HELLO and see how everyone is doing!! I hope you are having a wonderful...
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