When I lived in Karatau, Kazakhstan, as a Peace Corps Volunteer, there were two mosques in the town. With Saudi funding, the townspeople started to build a new mosque to replace the smaller older one. Unfortunately, roughly a year before I came to Karatau, money ran out for the project. It was never completed.
In 1998, with money from the local community, the Muslims closed the old mosque and moved into the current mosque even though the building was not ready. It was at this mosque that I heard the Islamic “Call to Prayer” for the first time in my life. I was told that the mosque was finally completed a couple years ago. Someday I hope to pray there again.
