Pastor Zanzhar has led a Kazakh church for more than 20 years, but the government “de-registered’ it nine years ago. When a church is de-registered, front-line workers report that it is impossible for that church to re-register, which forces congregations to either disband or operate in secret. Pastor Zanzhar’s church kept meeting even after being de-registered, but police raided one of their services last year and fined him. He appealed but lost the appeal and had to pay a large fee.
Read MoreAn unregistered church in Oral was fined after a police raid in January, and officials continue to monitor the congregation regularly. On Jan. 8, police and officials from the Religious Affairs Department raided the church’s Christmas service, taking several members of the congregation to the police station.
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Prison pastor Imprisoned as a threat to the state, Pastor Kashkumbaev had every reason to feel discouraged. But a pointed question from a Christian brother changed his perspective, leading to a powerful work of God in a Kazakhstani prison. “You will serve 10 years of hard time,” the investigator said solemnly. The elderly pastor would be almost 80 by the time he completed his sentence, and part of it, he learned, would be spent in a psychiatric ward. Pastor Bakhytzhan Kashkumbaev knew that prisoners in the psychiatric ward were routinely drugged, causing them to lose the abilities to even think or move. They would drug him to a point of losing his mind. His heart sank. While he was not afraid to die, he didn’t want his seven grandchildren to see him in that condition. Death didn’t scare him, but losing his mind did. The “Crime” In May 2013, Pastor Kashkumbaev was arrested after being accused of harming the health of a church member at Grace Church, a legally registered church in Kazakhstan. Authorities filed five charges against the pastor, including a charge of inciting religious hatred. Although the church member defended the pastor, saying the charges were unfounded, these
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