Story number 3 for 19 Feb 2003

(Russia) — A change in Russia’s visa law is making it difficult to be a foreign missionary there. Send International‘s Rex Durham says the government’s only issuing single entry, three-month visas, not the 12-month religious visas they had been receiving. “It means extreme amounts of expense added to the support of each missionary. They can no longer come here for a year. They would have to be here for three months, leave the country, coming back for three months, leave the country again, come back for three months, which we’re not sure how that’s going to work, or If that’s going to work.” Durham doesn’t believe this is an attack on evangelical Christians. “The law states, ‘to keep out all undesirables.’ Undesirables meaning, drug traffickers, AIDS carriers, and I think it may be a safeguard against terrorists.” Durham is asking people to pray that the law is changed.