A Day in the Life
My name is Khava, I am ten years old, and my whole people fits in one valley. We are the Kist, and our home is the Pankisi Gorge in the country of Georgia, a green corridor between mountains so tall they wear snow in June.
My great-great-grandparents came over those mountains from Chechnya almost two hundred years ago, leading their sheep through the high passes. We still speak Chechen at home, the way they did, and Georgian at school. On the hills above our villages stand old stone watchtowers, tall and narrow, where people once watched for trouble coming up the valley. Now the only thing coming up the valley is the river, loud with snowmelt.
My grandmother makes khinkali, fat dumplings pinched into pleats at the top, and we drink tea while the men talk in the yard. On Fridays the call to prayer sounds from our mosque, while an hour away, in the Georgian towns, church bells ring. We are Muslims in a country of churches. The Georgians are our neighbors and we trade and study together, but on the day of prayer, the valley and the country face different directions.
In summer I help take the sheep to the high pasture, where the grass is sweet and you can see the whole gorge at once: the river, the seven villages, all of us.
Fun Facts
- Nearly the entire Kist people lives in a single valley, the Pankisi Gorge, about 20 miles long.
- The Kist descend from Chechens who crossed the Caucasus mountains into Georgia in the 1800s.
- Medieval stone watchtowers still stand above the gorge’s villages.
- Kist children typically speak Chechen at home and Georgian at school.
- Georgia is one of the world’s oldest Christian nations, which makes the Muslim Kist a distinct island within it.
- The complete Bible exists in Chechen, the language of the Kist.
How to Pray for the Kist
Pray that the Chechen Bible, already translated, would actually reach Kist homes and be read. Pray for friendships between Kist families and Georgian believers an hour down the road, because the nearest Christians on earth to this people are their own neighbors. Pray for the handful of believers from the gorge to stand firm in a community where everyone knows everyone. And pray for the young people of Pankisi, who have been pulled in hard directions in recent decades, that the strongest pull on them would be Christ.
How Kids Can Help
Find Georgia on a map, the country between the Black and Caspian Seas, and look to its northeast corner where the Caucasus rise. One small valley there holds an entire people. Pray for all seven villages by holding up seven fingers. The January 2025 Wonder Letter, the very first one, was written from the perspective of a Kist child, with a map and vocabulary for your family.
Scripture to Remember
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” (Matthew 10:29)
A people of seven thousand in one green valley is not too small for the Father to watch. He sees every tower, every sheep path, every child.