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A Siberian Mission History - 2007
In high school in 1965, Diane gave her life to Christ and to missions. In 1969 while preparing for the Roman Catholic priesthood in the Order of Mary (Marist Fathers), Mike received God’s free gift of eternal life and a mission’s call. After Vietnam era service in the Navy and USCG (SAR team), Mike and Diane ministered together in home missions from 1975 to 1996, and raised 4 children to love God. For seven years Pastor Mike built a pioneer work in inner city Philadelphia, entering crack houses and alleys alone from 10pm-5am to minister to drug gangs and street people. There, in 1993, the Meaghers met and “adopted” a newly emigrated Russian family whose heartbreaking stories planted the seeds of Siberian Mission in Mike’s spirit. Visiting Siberia in 1994 with two other pastors, Mike heard God’s clear call there.
In 1996, with no agenda except to serve, and just $5 in assets with no promise of US financial support, the Meaghers left for Siberia by faith, using a friend’s SkyMiles to get to Russia. For two years they lived in the Sakha Republic’s capital city of Yakutsk, working for the Education Ministry, building relationships with the republic’s key leaders. They taught English and computers to children; 14 hrs a week for 85¢ an hour as their only income. Where missionaries are strictly forbidden, they have forged an eleven-year reputation as servants and lovers of the Sakha, in Jesus’ name.
In 1998, to honor a leprosy mission in the 1890’s, and a US Army Air Corps humanitarian aide drop in World War II, God moved the regional governor to invite the Meaghers to live and work in Vilyuisk (capital of the infamous “Black Hole” region). There, in 1999, Mike and Diane purchased a two-story log cabin at the strategic crossroads of 4 impoverished regions.
Their region was a perpetual testing ground for 40+ years of Soviet nuclear bomb detonations and for testing the effects of exposed toxic waste on humans. Vilyuisk is in the earth’s coldest continually inhabited region, where for seven winter months, temperatures can drop to minus 70° F (102°F below freezing), and climb in the brief summer, to +100°F. Scores die daily of pandemic diseases aggravated by nutrition-poor diets.
To the Sakha, the Meaghers demonstrate their love and God’s by living as Sakha without complaint. As a result, they are now free to work throughout the republic through teaching and administering their low profile humanitarian aide program to the most isolated and destitute villages. Government officials have articulated that the sacrificial lives exhibited by the Meaghers in Vilyuisk clearly communicates that their Sakha tribe is worth dying for, and that their Message of eternal hope is worth dying for (1 John. 3:16).
The Vilyuisk region has no hotels, so the Meagher’s log home has become a haven for all who come in peace. They receive free lodging, food, large doses of love, prayer, gospel tracts, and Bibles. The home is also a Christian printing house. Mike utilizes his upstairs office to create training materials for pastors, as entire villages have come to faith and need well-trained native missionaries and leaders.
Broken in health by the rigors and perils of their first three years in Vilyuisk, Mike and Diane oversaw their work from the US and regained their health from late 2002 to April 2007, returning to Vilyuisk each year for several months. Mike used those 4½ years to develop 23 practical inventions he is creating to help bring Sakha villages out of the 17th century. The Meaghers again live and minister in Vilyuisk despite threats from militant enemies of the Gospel. Three of the pastors Mike trained have assumed leadership freeing the Meaghers to help plant and minister to new village churches, and disciple new indigenous pastors.
The Meaghers continue representing and ministering to those who are among our worlds most forgotten, isolated and suffering people, in a region still officially closed to the Gospel. Please pray that US churches and believers will come to love and pray for the Sakha too per Matthew 25:32-46 and James 2:13-17. Mike and Diane ask our Father for the practical help latent among His US saints, to help advance their unique and effective pioneer work.
In 2004, Mike earned a Doctorate degree in Practical Theology and Diane, earned a Masters in Biblical Counseling. Today they use their advanced degrees to give an increasing number of indigenous leaders practical and effective resources for the edification and maturity of their beloved Sakha saints.
In January, 2007 Siberian Mission ended a three-year experiment as a 501(c) 3 entity, and went back under the financial umbrella of a local church as a ministry arm of their fellowship. This once again frees Mike and Diane to fully focus on their passion of sustaining by prayer, theological training, humanitarian and fiscal aid: the fledgling churches in Siberia’s “Black Hole”.
“He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep—to gain that which he cannot lose” American missionary and martyr Jim Elliott
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