Kirill: a missionary and a doctor

Let me introduce myself. My name is Kirill and I was born in 1987 in Kursk. My parents were very dedicated parents; my father was a Protestant pastor. In 1991 he died in a car accident when he was cycling to a meeting. In my childhood I went to the church, but when I was a teenager I lost my interest to God and took up with wrong guys leading a wrong life. But I quitted just in time - my conscience was bothering me because I knew how to live right but committed sins, even attending church. All this led to a conscious repentance at the age of 14. As far back as I can remember I always wanted to be a doctor. Most probably it was the influence of my elder sister, who was studying at the medical university. In 2006 (at the second attempt) I was accepted to the Kursk State Medical University and graduated in 2012.

For the first time I seriously thought about the problems in "Black" Africa when I watched a TV-show about the mission in Kenya “Two briefcases” with Gennady Mokhnenko and Sergey Demidovich. It was 2010. Most of all I wondered why the church spent energy and money to support itself when there are so many opportunities for labor in our cities and in the country in whole.

The decision to go on a mission appeared under unusual circumstances; first, in spring of 2011, I received an invitation from Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko to a two-week exploratory trip to Kenya to find out and see what a mission in Africa is. It was my final academic year at the university and there was no opportunity for me to go there: the dates of the trip coincided with my graduation exams. However, I had a great desire to go. Later, as I was reading reports about the trip that I had not been able to go to, I watched the movie “A preacher with a machine gun” about the situation in South Sudan. Notwithstanding the fact that I am not a very sensitive man, the movie shook me to the uttermost. For some days I was repeating the phrase: “Children of Africa, children of Africa, children of Africa”. I felt that it was me, who had to go to Africa and help people. It led me to write to Gennady and ask him for contact info about the mission in Kenya. There were many obstacles in this matter, but finally, after almost six month, I received the information I had requested. The trip was organized very quickly; the brother, who was going to the mission in Kenya, found me by a single commentary in a social network, and it was perfect time for me to go. On the 20th of July of 2012 I arrived in Kenya for the first time.

Now I am working as a doctor being a part of a team in the town of Kitale. Here, besides my medical work, I also have some missionary duties not directly related to medicine. As a doc, I often visit our African teams (two teams in Kenya, a team in Rwanda and a team in South Sudan) helping them to set up free medical clinics for the poor at distant locations. All missions in Africa work by the following principles: organizing schools for children from poor families, managing the work of local churches and opening new ones, providing assistance to homeless children, widow families and orphans. Devotionals are conducted in local churches. Our team also performs missionary work in Turkana desert, in the tribe bearing the same name. It is biblical teachings, biblical lessons for children, distribution of foodstuffs, (the whole region is badly in need of food and water. Some regions are suffering from famine now), free medical aid.

Author: Kirill Kuznetsov

Published: 2014-05-11 16:34