Cutting of Funds for Women's Ministry Endangers Russian Babies
Addison, Texas - East-West Ministries, based in Addison, has achieved much success in evangelizing to pregnant Russian women who struggle with the choice of whether to abort their unborn babies or not. Missionaries in Russia provide abortion counseling to these greatly troubled women through spiritual guidance. The Chrisitan Women in Partnership program was happy to proclaim that 34 unborn babies were saved after establishing seven new crisis centers in Russia. Many of the women who have kept their babies lives became Christians and joined evangelical churches after receiving abortion counseling. The women who seek help average 10-14 abortions in their childbearing years. Despite the ministry's great achievements in aiding Russian women, there is a drastic shortage in funding for the ongoing program and some centers will be forced to close down. This unfortunate circumstance could mean that as many as 2,400 pregnant women will have to be turned away.
The loss of the much-needed grant would also mean the closing of 30 Mothers of Preschoolers ministries as well. The director of East-West Ministries' Women 's Ministries, Liz Loeffler gave this disappointing news to longtime supporters of the program. “It breaks my heart—these women have worked so hard to develop these centers,” said Loeffler, about the popular ministry to 259 children and 221 moms.
Since 1999, Christian Women in Partnership has helped subordinated Russian women in attaining more powerful roles in the Church and surpassing their customary roles of cooking, cleaning, and child care. The organization has continuously sought to instill spiritual strength in these woman in hopes that it will be passed on to the next generation of young women. Their mission is represented in Titus 2:3-5: “Teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live so they can teach the younger women.”
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Christian Women in Partnership's ministry consists of a seven-course training session that teaches women how to set up and operate ministries. Russian women are already in action operating 34 ministry centers at various locations in Russia. Currently, there are 500 individuals enrolled in these centers. For the future, the organization has planned to have a total of 156 ministry centers with 2,340 enrolled.
This mission started with the vision of former Communist party member, Valentina Karchazhkina after she came to accept Christ in the 1990s. Her vision has manifested into the Christian Women in Partnership ministry, which was founded in 1999. Today, they train women in the church in ministry skills so that they may be rolemodels and leaders to other women of their own communities.
