Monday, February 28, it has launched a fund to spread "Biblical values" and an "anti-drug [and] sexual purity" message among Russian children and youth amid international concern about an AIDS epidemic in the former Soviet Union.
In a statement to BosNewsLife News Center in Budapest, Russian Ministries said its ‘Time to Live! Fund’ planned to help at least 40,000 Russian children in the next 12 months, many of whom are infected with the HIV virus which causes AIDS, or almost dying because of the disease.
"As American Christians, it’s difficult for us to imagine anything that would threaten the future
generations of our people to the point of extinction," said Anita Deyneka, president of US-backed Russian Ministries. "But this is exactly what is happening in Russia today. The survival of future generations in that country is at stake."
RUSSIA COULD "VANISH"
The Russian Federal AIDS Center in Moscow has reportedly expressed concern that Russia "is going to vanish in 20 years" if politicians don’t start dealing with the AIDS epidemic now.
"Russia has experienced one of the most explosive rates of HIV spread in the world. There are already nearly 300,000 people living with HIV registered by the health authorities," said the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). "Experts believe the total number to be much greater, and it is growing all the time," the UNDP added.
It estimated last year that close to 1.8 million people are infected in Russia and the former
Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and Estonia.
HIV ORPHANAGES
"Every day more HIV-infected children are in Russian orphanages. Even more children end up in orphanages just because their parents contract the disease or abuse drugs," Russian Ministries said. "One of the saddest things is HIV positive orphans [are] isolated from the other children…even receiving food through a chute in the wall so that others can avoid contact with them."
The organization claimed it "knows of some instances where teens who are suffering with HIV/AIDS are kept in locked cells. The only contact they have with other people is from a slit in the door of their room through which nurses pass them their daily food and medicine."
Russian Ministries stressed it wants to support Russian Christians to reach out with "mercy ministries" to "hurting, dying children already infected with HIV" and youth who are at risk of contracting this deadly disease.
"GOD’S PLAN"
"Our goal is to help teach young people God’s plan for sexual purity, ways to resist the allure
of illegal drugs, and strategies for how to cope with the many difficulties they are facing in
the new Russia," since the collapse of Communism, said Sergey Rakhuba, vice president of the organization.
Promoting the use of condoms is apparently not part of the evangelistic plan. “We are incorporating biblical values and the anti-drug message into our training programs,” President Deyneka added. "We are also working with partner ministries—teaching a ‘No Apologies’ sexual abstinence curriculum as well as translating and distributing Focus on the Family youth-oriented materials."
The organization also plans to reach youth through special Time to Live! Festivals, with music,
presentations and counseling. Russian Ministries made world headlines last year when it send aid and counselors to the troubled Russian town of Beslan, where militants demanding independence for the Russian republic of Chechnya stormed a school. Over 330 people, many of them children, died in the September hostage drama. Russian Ministries can be reached via the Internet at website: http://www.russian-ministries.org/
(With: Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent, BosNewsLife).
