M o s c o w – A bicycle mission tour from Varel, Germany on the North Sea toVladivostok on the Pacific has reached its goal after 113 days. This was reported by the tour’s sponsors, the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB). The tour began in Varel on 13 May when participants filled several bottles with North Sea water. 14.711 kilometres later, that water was poured into the Pacific Ocean at Vladivostok. Thirty-one riders surmounted the distance in four stages. One cyclist, the church deacon and father of ten, Vladimir Skovpen (Klintsy near Briansk) rode the entire distance. He was the USSR’s national cycling champion in 1980. The tour’s motto was “The Gospel to the Peoples of the World”. Its goal was to tell people en route about faith in Jesus Christ. Evangelistic meetings took place on most evenings; as many as 500 people attended. There were also special children’s hours with as many as 100 young guests.

Leonid Kartavenko (Moscow), Director of Home Missions for the Russian Baptists, drew positive conclusions from the tour: “One has many more possibilities for conversation when sitting on a bicycle. We then have much better access to people.” Pastor Valery Pashkovetz (Kaluga), a one-time military pilot, underscored in closing festivities in Moscow the significance of biking missions. The Baptist Union had in recent years traveled throughout Russia on evangelistic tours with lorries and automobiles. Yet the populace had interpreted their arrival much more strongly as “evangelistic agitation” than the appearance of sweating cyclists. On bicycles conversations are much easier to start – especially with youth. One often began with general questions on lifestyle, on sport and health. That usually led quickly to the topic of alcohol abuse. Pashkovetz rode on the first stage from Varel to Briansk in Western Russia. Afterward, he along with 33 volunteers from his congregation did a smaller tour through the villages in their region. “Our church is up and moving,” he concluded. Baptists have until now been largely “lethargic and isolated” from the world. But now they are out on the street looking for contacts. The big tour apparently helps foster similar tours on a smaller scale. Moscow church headquarters reported evangelistic bike tours in 32 of the country’s 52 Baptist church districts this summer.

Missions Director Kartavenko notes that government authorities have also expressed interest in the tours. Almost everywhere local authorities had helped free-of-charge to organise evening meetings on central market places. Officials have come to realise that Baptists could be their allies in the fight against drug and alcohol abuse. In Vladivostok the Vice-Minister for Youth and Sport even invited Baptists to help organize a joint tour next year in the opposite direction from Vladivostok to Moscow. Kartavenko assured: “That`s something very new – that the government would request a favour from us!”