D A G E S T A N :
CALL FOR CONCERTED PRAYER FOR KIDNAPPED MISSIONARY COUPLE

ALMOST THREE MONTHS after a young Swedish missionary couple were kidnapped, church and mission leaders have called for an intensive prayer effort for the release of the pair - and for the unreached peoples of the Caucasus.

Daniel and Paulina Brolin, both 22, had been sent out by their Pentecostal church in Vasteras, near Stockholm, to work with a local church in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, Armed men forced them into a car as they were returning from a church meeting on January 8, abducting them to an unknown destination.

Swedish authorities in Moscow recently received a video from the kidnappers, on which the Brolins appeared together. According to a spokesman from the church in Vasteras, the couple appeared "reasonably well" under the circumstances.

Dagestan is a republic within the Russian Federation, bordering the Caspian Sea to the east, Chechnya to the west and Azerbaijan to the south. With less than two million inhabitants, 30 different ethnic groups and a sizable Muslim population, it has one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse populations in the world for its area.

Crime and corruption have been rampant in the region following the break-up of Soviet centralized control over society. Since the Brolins' abduction the situation has deteriorated further in the region, with bomb threats, and the further kidnappings of police and even a United Nations official.

Meanwhile, high-profile news coverage of the abduction in the media both in Russia and in Sweden has raised awareness of the current political and spiritual situation in the Caucasus. Now leaders of missions active in the area have joined the church leadership in calling for concerted prayer for the safe release of the Brolins, as well as for the 50 unreached people groups living in the Caucasus region between the Black Sea and the Caspian.

According to one missions leader in the region, there are "good reasons" why many of these groups remain unreached: in addition to the political instability, the territory is rugged, the people are often fiercely clannish and speak their own local languages. The region has the greatest concentration of unreached peoples west of the Urals, he added.

Youth With A Mission's European regional director, Jeff Fountain, commented that while kidnapping was "an awful business", God had often in the past turned such tragedies into strategies to reach the unreached.

He cited the biblical examples of Joseph and Daniel. The Irish were converted after St Patrick was kidnapped as a teenager, resulting in the dynamic Celtic missionary movement which swept across Europe, he added. The Vikings themselves - the Brolins' own people - often came to faith through their Christian hostages.

Fountain enthusiastically supported the call to prayer "to ensure that the Brolins' suffering will not be in vain".

Daily prayer profiles on the Caucasian peoples are available on request via e-mail at - Internet: 71233.1475@Compuserve.com.

For further updates on the Brolins, contact Vasteras Pentecostal Church - Internet: niclas.collen@swipnet.se.

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