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A tiny country that most know little about, lying in the shadow of the Caucasus Mountains, Georgia captured the heart and mind of British-Canadian Tim Chandler*. The republic is only now beginning to recover from the decade of chaos that followed independence in 1991, and its people need the gospel.

Chandler’s interest in the Caucasus was born during the nearly seven years that he served with Operation Mobilization in St. Petersburg, Russia. When he finally moved out to pioneer a ministry in 1999, he chose Georgia as “the heart of the region-the only part touching every other part.”

Georgia, in fact, shares borders with Russia, Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan. The strategic corridor between the Black and Caspian seas has fallen to countless invaders over the centuries. Russia claimed it at the start of the 1800s. “Transcaucasia” later split into Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Compounding the hardships of a shattered infrastructure and widespread corruption, civil wars broke out in 1992 and 1993 among ethnic peoples in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia took license then to maintain military bases in the country. The former “fruitbasket of the USSR” fell on hard times that opened a wide gap between the haves and have-nots.

“The rich drive their Mercedes or BMWs as though nothing else exists on the roads, with special license plates guaranteeing that police won’t ever stop them, even for a hit-and-run,” Chandler says. “Then there are the old and destitute who must live on a pension of about $7 a month-if it arrives at all. There is lots of despair.”

Last year Chandler stopped one despairing man from throwing himself into a river. He listened to a sad but “all-too-common” story of seven mouths to feed and no income, and told the man that God had sent him to save his life. “I can’t give you work, but I can give you enough money to show that God does care for you,” Chandler told the man.

Most people don’t think of Georgia in terms of missionary work. “It was, after all, the second country in the world [after Armenia] to officially adopt Christianity,” Chandler says. “And Orthodoxy still reigns here, giving other branches of Christianity and any other religions a hard time. But I know there are plenty of real believers among the Orthodox.

“I also know plenty of Georgians whose Orthodoxy is just part of their nationality, a keeping traditions without an understanding of doctrine or a relationship with a living God-it doesn’t touch their daily lives at all.”

Georgians who meet Chandler usually view him with suspicion that soon gives way to trust. “Once they understand that I’m not here to drag them off into some other church, and that I believe in the same core doctrines that are found in Orthodoxy, we have a chance to read the Bible together and bring it into everyday experience,” Chandler says.

Only three million of Georgia’s five million residents are Georgians. Another 500,000 are Mingrelians, and nearly that many more are Armenians. Georgia’s border with war-devastated Chechnya also means that about 10,000 Chechens have sought refuge with its neighbor.

Chandler spent five months helping to oversee medical projects funded by World Concern. Although those funds are now exhausted, he is hoping to find other sources to continue this much-needed effort. He also looks for opportunities to show the Jesus film in the Chechen language. “They are crying out for attention and salvation,” he says. “[They are] devastated by war but not giving up.” So far there is no church among them.

Chandler also is concerned with reaching the 35,000 Svan people who live in Georgia’s western mountains. He has found only one small Orthodox church in the entire area. Although the Svaneti mountains, with a reputation for kidnappings and robberies, are not considered safe for foreigners, he has visited it four times with a Svan friend whose relative guaranteed their protection.

Last year several hundred armed Chechen Muslims moved into Svaneti from the Pankisi Gorge, where most of Georgia’s Chechen refugee population resides. Russia has been concerned that Georgia is not only hosting but supporting Chechen rebels. As part of the war on terrorism, the US is sending up to 200 military instructors to train Georgian troops to fight the Chechen guerrillas. Washington believes some of these groups have links to al-Qaeda.

Chandler is fearful for civilians who wouldn’t be able to flee a military assault. Last year he provided medical treatment for Chechen children in the Pankisi region, but it’s become too dangerous for him to travel there any more.

Safety can’t be guaranteed even in the 1,500-year-old capital Tbilisi. While hunting for another apartment last year, Chandler was assaulted, robbed and left unconscious. He still bears a scar from the attack but his enthusiasm for the country remains undiminished. For the past two summers he has led “Love Silk Road” teams-young people from other countries working with enthusiastic Georgians-preaching in villages, making friends with locals and inviting them to church.

The number of expatriate workers has increased. Sunday home groups have grown so large that seventy men and women representing a half-dozen mission agencies now meet in the Salvation Army building as the “Tbilisi International Christian Fellowship.”

Still, Chandler says ministries to children are largely neglected, and little or no outreach exists to some of the ethnic groups, such as the country’s 15,000 Jews and 500,000 Mingrel peoples. Relationships between churches need to be developed, and much more Christian literature needs translation. The republic has ten indigenous languages, but only one of these has a translation of the whole Bible, and only one other has the New Testament.

Chandler has no regrets for falling in love with Georgia. He hopes that as other people are introduced, they, too, will soon get it on their minds, and respond.

July 19, 2002