Story number 1 for 3 Jan 2000

Headlining the news today, the resignation of President Boris Yeltsin as
President of Russia surprised many, including missionary leaders. Russian
Ministries Peter Deyneka says he believes evangelism and religious freedom will
continue under the control of his replacement, Vladimir Putin (poo-tihn). “Apparently
he’s taking the same line as Yeltsin did, which was very apropos for Christian work
and evangelistic work right now. We can’t predict the future.” And they’re going to
need that freedom because Deyneka says there’s a new evangelistic opportunity among
the Chechen war refugees. “There are hundreds of thousands of refugees. We, here at
Russian Ministries are taking this seriously and are encouraging other mission groups to
join us in a partnership to participate in this evangelism. These are primarily Muslim
who for the first and maybe the only time in their lives will have a chance to hear the
Gospel as they are outside of Chechnya.”