Radical Ministry Reaches Russian Drug Addicts July 02, 2001

The StreetCry project in St. Petersburg is "concerned with results, and not just theory."

An American-born evangelist is leading a radical ministry to a generation of Russians who still haven't found true personal freedom more than a decade after the fall of communism. John Russell's StreetCry project is taking the gospel to some of the thousands of drug addicts in St. Petersburg, Russia's cultural jewel.

Although many have come to Christ through StreetCry's outreaches, it has not been without a cost. "I've had my life threatened a couple of times," Russell told Assist News Service (ANS). "Most of our staff...have either had their nose broken, teeth knocked out, spit at and also had their lives threatened. It goes with the territory of the kind of people that we minister to, which includes Satan worshipers and people like that."

Many of the staff and students at StreetCry, which offers a two-year Bible school for new converts, are former drug addicts, criminals, prostitutes and alcoholics. With high unemployment and low wages, many young Russians turn to drugs to escape their despair. A lot of drug users contract the AIDS virus through using dirty needles.

"The drugs here are not very expensive, you can get heroin for $4 or $5 a hit," Russell told ANS. "...the drug addicts will do anything to get money for their drugs. A strange phenomenon here is that drug addicts still have very good relationships with their parents and love their parents and their parents love them. Although some of the parents have been bankrupted by their kids, they still don't like to kick them out."

Russell described St. Petersburg as being like San Francisco was during the 1960s and 1970s: "It's the gateway to the West; the cultural, music and arts capital of Russia, and kids flock here from all over [the country] and the former Soviet Union. It's the avant-garde center."

StreetCry stages Christian concerts at clubs, parks and drug-exchange areas, runs a coffeehouse, hosts a 24-hour telephone helpline, and publishes tracts and a monthly youth newspaper. There are plans for a drug rehab center and a music studio. The ministry describes itself as "concerned with results, and not just theory...seeing people repent and get baptized in the Holy Spirit, water baptized, and delivered from past habits of sin."

Russell said that the HIV/AIDS problem in Russia was "beyond getting out of control." He told ANS that it had been predicted that by 2006 there would be a "full-blown epidemic here, with people dying on the streets...the rate of HIV/AIDS infection is higher here than anywhere in the world, including Africa." Russell said that the problem was compounded by a lack of government funding.

ANS said that StreetCry's ministry was "as powerfully charged as a stick of dynamite," with the "lovingly militant" staff meeting daily to pray and study the Bible. "We are dedicated to seeing young people saved and delivered at any cost," Russell said. "We are deeply sure that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation."

(StreetCry Ministries: www.streetcry.org

e-mail: streetcry@onebox.com

Contributions: All tax deductible support checks should be made payable to: StreetCry

StreetCry
PO Box 7971
Athens, GA 30604
USA)