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Imran stood over the fresh grave, enduring the cold winds of the mountain valley that leads to Magas, the capital of the province of Ingushetia in southern Russia. Imran's Ingush grandfather had been seven years old when his family and whole nation were gathered into rail cars by Stalin's KGB on February 23rd, 1944. His grandpa survived the three-week rail journey to the Central Asian steppe of Kazakhstan with no heat, no food, and only melted snow for water. Finally, in 1957, his grandfather was allowed to return to his home region of Ingushetia. Sadly, Ossetian families had resettled his village home, where Stalin had put them to take over Ingush lands. Imran, whose own father died in the 1992 war between the Ingush and Ossetians, now couldn't bury his grandfather in the centuries-old family cemetery. Mercifully, Imran's new boss in a Russian construction firm happened to be a Protestant Christian. His new boss was very helpful to Imran in his search to find a location to bury his grandfather. His boss even helped pay for the burial plot! Imran was left with a lot of questions, the foremost being, 'where does such love and compassion come from?'

In this story we read about a Muslim man who sees two kinds of Christians; those who are Christian in name only, and those who actually follow the teachings of Jesus to love one another. Elsewhere, Jesus fleshes out what it means to love others when he describes the self-sacrificing acts of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10). Which kind of Christian will they see? Most Muslim peoples, like the Ingush, have very little opportunity to see and experience the self-sacrificing love that Jesus calls for. The world is watching! Pray that entire Ingush communities will experience the self-sacrificing love of Christ's followers.

Names of major Ingush towns:
1. Magas
2. Nazran'
3. Slept-sovskaya
4. Malgo-bek
5. Oktiyabroskoe
6. Kara-bulak

* Scripture Prayers for the Ingush, Galgai in Russia.

* Pray for the Muslim Ingush people who feel double-harmed by both Russians and Ossetians, which are both known as majority-Christian nations.
* Pray for more of Christ's ambassadors to practice audacious love for Ingush people.
* Pray for the Ingush people to seek and find their Savior. John 13:34—"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Presently, of the 415,000 Ingush, there are approximately 30 known Ingush believers living in many scattered places, including a few inside Ingushetia.
* Pray for breakthroughs of Jesus' grace in Ingush villages.