IRVINE, CA (ANS) — The president and founder of East European Outreach, Jeff Thompson said on his return from Eastern Europe last week that he was gravely concerned for the situation in Eastern Europe.

“We do a lot of work throughout the region with the poor and the needy ; the dispossessed and orphans, and war is never welcome,” he said.

Thompson asked for Christians throughout the world to pray for the people of Eastern Europe at the time, and particularly those affected by the problems in Georgia.

Joel Griffith of Slavic Gospel Association that supports churches across the border in the Russian region of North Ossetia echoed Jeff’s Thompson’s call. Speaking to Mission Network News (http://www.mnnonline.org), Joel Griffith said that SGA is asking Christians around the world to pray for an end to the fighting. He said, “Pray for the protection of the evangelical churches that are there and are ministering. Just pray that even through this crisis that the Lord will be able to use this to be able to find an open door for the Gospel.”

Jeff Thompson said that he disagreed with those who thought that the incident in Georgia was not serious.

“When is read that the leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Estonia and Latvia had flown to Tbilisi last week to show support for the Georgia’s position, I realized that this is serious,” he stated. “They must be concerned that this could expand throughout Eastern Europe and the former USSR.”

After meeting in Tbilisi to show support for Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, the foreign minister for Ukraine said, “The scale of Russia’s military actions has become enormous, and Russia is violating the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent country. Therefore, the Presidents of Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania and Estonia have made a decision to meet in Tbilisi today and discuss with their Georgian counterpart means of resolving the situation.”

Thompson said that he thought it would be disastrous for the people of the region, if the conflict did expand throughout Eastern Europe.

“It is a great worry for us. So many people would be affected. So many dreams would be shattered,” he said.

His concerns were justified by reports coming out of Georgia this week where the unofficial death toll arising from the conflict stands at 2000. Associated Press (AP) reported that in the wake of the Russian troop pullback, residents of the strategic central city of Gori returned to find a city battered by bombs, suffering from food shortages and gripped by anguish.

One man interviewed by AP explained how he had tried to bury three relatives killed by a bomb, placing what body parts he could find in a shallow grave covered by a burnt log, a rock and a piece of scrap metal.

His next-door neighbor, a 70-year old woman retuned to find that most of her apartment had been destroyed, leaving only a room the size of a broom closet to live in. She is now relying on her neighbors to feed her.

There are also continuing concerns that the invasion of Russian territory by Russian is still not over.

Russia is claiming that it is allowed to be in so-called “security zones” under the terms of the peacekeeping agreement that ended fighting in the separatist Georgian regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in the 1990s. The United States, France and Britain disagree and say that Russia has no claim to the alleged “security zones” under the cease-fire accord.

AP is also reporting that the pro-Russian South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity has indicated that ethnic Georgians will not be allowed to return to their homes in South Ossetia.

They said that there has been extensive looting and burning of Georgian homes in South Ossetia.

SGA’s Joel Griffith explained to MNN the Russian side of the dispute. He said that there are number of issues that he believes pushed Russia over the edge. “Georgia has sort of been a thorn in Russia’s side for some time because of their desire to join NATO. You also have a situation of the Balkans when NATO helped separate Kosovo from Serbia. That’s been something the Russians have been very vocal in their opposition. There are just a whole lot of geo-political threads running through this situation.”

Writing in the Christian News Wire (http://www.christiannewswire.com), Barry Feder has also provided another perspective on the Georgian conflict. He reports that Barry McLerran, producer of “Demographic Winter : the decline of the human family” (SRB Documentaries) has pointed out that that Russia’s population crisis was the overlooked factor in its recent invasion of Georgia.

McLerran is reported to have said : “Russia has one of the lowest birth rates in the world, 1.17 children per woman. A nation needs a birth rate of 2.1 just to replace current population. Because of its low birth rate and early deaths — due to disease and other factors — Russia is losing approximately 750,000 people a year.”

He said that Murray Feshbach, with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, thinks Russia’s population will drop to 101 million and could go as low as 77 million by mid-point in this century.

In this predicament, Russia is trying desperately to bolster its sagging birth rate, but that none of it seems to be working. One answer for Russia is territorial expansion that will incorporate other populations into the nation.

A BBC Perspective

The BBC traveled to the Dila Camp for displaced people on the outskirts of Tbilisi last week with British Foreign Secretary David Miliband and reported that there is still anger and disbelief at the scale of the violence in Georgia.

“Why are they killing us ?” a woman in her late 50s who fled her home in the Gori region during the recent conflict asked the Secretary who was visiting the Georgian capital.

“We had an absolutely beautiful orchard with peaches, beautiful peaches already ripe. Why did they destroy the trees and the garden ?” she asks.

The Dila Camp that has been set up on waste ground is home to about 600 displaced people.

It comprises eight giant tents donated by the United States - some draped with massive Georgian flags. Under the canvas there are rows of camp beds on bare concrete.

People say they are getting the help they need, but the mood is subdued.

“The stories that are being told are of random violence, stories of killing and intimidation, stories of families being broken up and people fleeing for their lives and the lives of their children,” Mr. Miliband said. “Obviously, there is an immediate humanitarian crisis here that needs emergency support.”

He said that the Georgian government’s coordinator for humanitarian affairs has told him that more than 230,000 people were believed to have been displaced.

He said that the longer Russian troops stay in Georgia, the worse it is going to get.

Alan Metcalfe is the Publisher of the Missionaries News Service. He is also the chairman and CEO of Internet Business Systems, Inc. (“IBS”) ; the discoverer of universal logic ; and the principle designer of the Safe Worlds e-business platform that is being used to create MNS and provide missionaries with access to IPTV and way to promote their projects and raise support. He is an Australian citizen with wide international business experience. He is also a lifelong Christian and Bible student. The Missionaries News Service can be seen at : http://www.missionariesnews.tv