Mission: Kazakhstan: Last (and First) Founders Meeting

You may remember that we have been working to get the Church officially registered in Astana ever since we arrived here. You may also remember that Kazakhstan passed a new Religion law in October 2011 that made it significantly more difficult to get the Church registered here. Nevertheless, we have been working it as best we (members and missionaries) could. One of the problems we encountered was that the government kept changing the 'interpretation' of what the law meant and the details of how they would enforce it. It also fell to our lot that we are in the capital city and they enforce these types of laws much more strictly here. About 2 weeks ago a decision was made to set the date of July 2nd as the date to hold the Founders meeting.

In order to be registered you have to have 50 people who live in the city limits willing to give their names as 'Founders' of the religious association. Since we only have 10 members and some live outside the city limits, that meant that we had to find 40+ folks who were not members of the Church but were willing to sign legal documents that they would be 'Founders' of the "Religious Association The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Astana". Needless to say, we needed a miracle ... and because it is His work, He provided many!!

Miracle - You may remember my blog post about going to a karaoke club ....

Last November Sis Maxwell and I were contacted by a young lady we had never met but who knew of us through our humanitarian work with her aunt who is one of our NGO partners. This young lady had taken a trip to Utah for a convention and decided to tour temple square. When she heard that there was a tour of the Humanitarian work of the Church she and her companion went on that tour. She ‘put 2 + 2 together’ and came back to Kazakhstan exclaiming that the world should know what our church does. She invited us to give a presentation on our Humanitarian work to her friends at their karaoke club and we decided to take the Elders with us. One of those Elders was Elder Turner. We were with them for about 2 hours and they were very touched by our work and the Church’s work worldwide and stated, at the time, that if we ever needed help they would help us.

Last week as we were brainstorming where we would get more names, E. Turner asked about the young adults at the karaoke club and we said sure and found Sabina’s phone number for him to call. She is in Almaty now but said they would still love to help and set up a meeting for E Turner to go back to the club and present the registration information.

All of those who had been at our presentation and a few others that had heard of the presentation are very excited to help. Some gave their documents that night and the others gave their documents the next day and committed to be at the Founder’s meeting to support us.

It is a great testimony to us that the Lord’s hand is in His work and if we will make ourselves available to be led He will set up our path for success. He certainly knew in November what we would need today and has given us the opportunity to see His works roll on unimpeded.

Miracle - You know of our work with families of handicapped children ....

We have mentioned our problems getting the Church registered to our NGO partners just to help them be aware of the issues we are having and why some projects have slowed down. Last week our main partner, who works a lot with handicapped children, invited us to a picnic for families of handicapped children. She told us that some of the families were willing to help us with registration and so she invited the Elders to also come to the picnic. At the picnic she gathered everyone around and talked to them a bit about and encouraged them to be proactive in soliciting help from the city/government for their children. She then reminded them about how generous the Church had been over the past year and encouraged them to help us and handed the microphone to me. I told them how much we loved them and what a blessing it was for us to serve them and turned the mic over to the Elders. They described the registration process and asked for people to volunteer their support. Immediately they had mothers giving them their information and pledging to be at the Founders meeting. Some mothers even traveled extra the next day with their handicapped child to get their documents to the Elders.

Our friend Zarina, on the right, has Down's Syndrome. We have known her and her mother for over a year.

E Turner talking to one of the mothers at the playground during the picnic. Viviane is in the background.

My princess, Natalie, with her mother and her friend - the chubbiest little Kazakh girl we know. Natalie cannot speak or walk and the Church donated a wheelchair for her. She always gets a big smile on her face when I call her princess and hold her hand.

Gathered around to hear the announcements. The little fellow (Dedar has Down's Syndrome), next to Zarina, in front wearing the hat and his Mom are our newest friends. His Mom is second from the right.

This little girl was a recipient of one of the winter coats that the Church donated last winter. She cannot walk although she can stand up when holding on the something. That is her mother to her left.

Dedar wearing my sunglasses. By the end of the day on the bus ride home he was mimicing my actions. He is so much fun.

Between these two miracles we received almost 20 names!!!

We held the Founders meeting and 30 founders came to it. All but 5 were non-members!! The Elders have collected all but one of the remaining signatures that we need to meet that part of the registration process. Now we are praying that those in the government who will review our application, with all of its various documents, will have their hearts softened and register us.