Volume 212, Mission news-country K, part 1

The gender ration significantly differs in countries of the Russian Federation. A statistic shows that the proportion of male and female is 90 females out of 100 male, but the female proportion of 20-30s whose age is a marriageable age is significantly higher than male. Especially in urban area, this phenomenon is widely spread, so there are lots of female who cannot marry. Due to the trend, the custom of Muslim that they have several wives in the past has been recently rising again. On average, males tends to get married three times, but it is difficult for females to marry even once.

The situation at DDalddikoreukan church in country K reflects this trend. There are many women who got divorced and live alone. Actually, there are many women who never get married. Let me introduce six families. There are two families that consist of a mother and four children. And there are two families that consist of a mother and three children. And there are two families that consist of a mother and five children. Unfortunately, the biological fathers of each kids are different. This situation in Almaty is same as well. However, because the believers in Almaty are young, they have two or three children.

In country K , there is a custom where people regard a female who has no child but live alone as the poor. It is not easy for women to get married if they don’t get married in 20s.

It is common that many single women in 30s get pregnant without anyone knowing. Most of women pregnant after a one night stand, but no one ask them about the pregnancy even their parents, relatives, or friends. Because a one night stand pregnancy is common and many people try to understand their situation that they cannot tell the truth, so people just celebrate their pregnancy.

In their society, there are lots of divorced families and single moms, so, it is not a strange situation.

Especially, in my church, a sister who was faithful and eager to serve the church got pregnant, so my wife and I were shocked. However, other congregations and she were never concerned but celebrate her pregnancy.

The reality that does not concern the broken family

The perception of children is also very different from Korean custom. Children belong to their mothers rather than their fathers. And raising a child mostly depends on mother, so, it is not easy for children to be independent from mother after they grow up. Especially, a single mom who raise up their children by herself depend on their children for their livelihood even if they marry. This burden affects their marriage life which causes a vicious circle of discord and divorce again.

In Almaty church, there was a woman who worked in prostitution. She had a daughter whose age was 14 years old. It was so sad that her daughter also worked in prostitution. Eventually, they could not live in a faithful life so they left the church.

The concept of marriage is different with ours. Ex-husband comes to see his child once a month and go to bed with his ex-wife. And if his ex-wife gets pregnant, she might raise the child by herself. Even though ex-husband remarries two or three times and has a current wife, he continues to have a relationship with his ex-wife. This is a reality in our church. We need your strong prayer to sever this chain of deception that breaks the family.