Dear Phyllis,
The Lord has embarrassed me. I wonder if there has ever been a man on this planet that has had more privileges than me. I am reduced to silence and tears to think of the inexpressible goodness of God to me. It will tax eternity to set in order a narrative of my indebtedness to Him, and the astounding things He has done for me. One chapter that is extremely short, but it would fill a library to properly record, is the testimony of Russia.
For years I thought of Russia like dreaming of living on Mars. But the Lord fulfilled that, beyond my wildest imagination in a short period of four months. In 1970 it was utterly impossible to imagine the collapse of world communism, and the opening of Russia in a brief moment of time. When Russia opened up, one of the early pioneers to go in and blaze an unbelievable trail, was John Cathcart. He was only there a short time, but accomplished things that go beyond imagination. In 1994 he had the ambition to get a team of 40 workers to evangelize the inaccessible regions of northern Siberia, along the coast of the Sea of Japan. He signed a contract for a large ship to take seven teams of workers up along the coast line to evangelize those cities there for a month. The story of what happened would be a book that would be rejected by any publisher as ridiculous fiction. But I was with John through it all and can verify it was true. To pay for that ship, John promised to provide 70 used Japanese cars that they would pick up in Maezuru. I won't tell you what happened as no one would believe that story. The ship never came. People will be scratching their heads as, someday, they see the video of that in heaven. But it happened. I was there.
But skipping that story, in July 1994 I was with a Japanese team of seven that flew from Niigata to Vladivostok to participate in this unprecedented dendo outreach. Three young Russians joined our team as we went up the trans-Siberian railway 400 km to Chernigovka. Our main interpreter was a 18 year old girl, Natasha. She was a phenomenon like I have never seen before or since.
Natasha had been an exchange student to the US, and her English was as good as mine. A year before then, she had run into a team from Juno, Alaska who asked her to be their interpreter for dendo. She had no interest in Christianity, but she loved Americans and loved talking English. She had been working with them for several days, when one night Mick sat down to try to lead Natasha to the Lord. For her, that was just another conversation over a cup of coffee. In his presentation of the Gospel, Mick said, “To get saved you have to accept Christ.” To illustrate that, he held out a pencil and asked Natasha if she wanted it. Russians are the most straight forward people on earth. What you see is exactly what they are. When Mick offered her a pencil, Natasha simply took the pencil. Mick went crazy. He shouted, “Praise the Lord! Natasha is saved!” Everyone came running, hugging her, and praising the Lord. She thought, “Are these people crazy? All he asked me was if I would take the pencil.” She was confronted by a social dilemma with two options. There was a clear misunderstanding, and she could clear that up by saying all she did was take the pencil. Or, she could go along with the misunderstanding, and say she was a Christian. As she weighed the two options in her mind, she thought, “Why not? Why not be a Christian?” Two hours later, when she went home, her sister looked at her and gasped, “Natasha, what happened to you? Your face is glowing like an angel.” And she led her sister to Christ.
That had happened a year before I met her. But she was as rock solid a Christian as any you will ever meet. She was easily the finest interpreter I ever had. One night I was preaching the Gospel to a large crowd in a civic auditorium. My text was the Mount of Transfiguration. When I was right in the middle of my message, Natasha said to me, “Make it simpler. They don't know what you are talking about. They don't know who Moses and Elijah are.” I was stunned. I couldn't imagine an 18 year old girl in Japan telling the speaker to make the message simpler. I couldn't imagine any interpreter in Japan correcting a speaker during a message.
The Russian Bible and the English Bible are different. The 23rd Psalm is the 22nd Psalm in the Russian Bible. But Natasha knew both Bibles well enough to know exactly where I was. She had only been saved a little over a year but she knew her Bible like a seminary graduate. When we were out visiting, she would talk to peasant women, putting her arms around them, and praying with them like they were her mother. She was utterly fearless. The KGB had lost their teeth, but some men were still acting like the old days. One night, when we came home from a meeting, a KGB man was hiding in the bush at our compound. He called her aside to question her who we were and what we were doing. She handled him like he was a newspaper reporter. We had several meetings with the mayor of Chernigovka. She told me, “I know how to handle him. He is weak to women.” A few days later we were in his office talking with the mayor and I marveled at the way she conducted herself with him. Indeed she was able to manipulate him. But he also knew what she was doing, and got revenge when we left. He was a strong man with an unusually powerful grip. When they shook hands, he put Natasha on the floor. I was next, and he tried the same stunt with me. We had an extremely firm handshake, but I was able to match him grip for grip as we squeezed each others hand smiling.
One day I was attending a Bible study with some young people. The passage they were studying was Moses' meeting with the Lord at the burning bush. Moses protested that he couldn't do it because he was “slow of speech” (Ex. 4:10). There is a passage that contradicts that in Acts 7:22 that says Moses was “mighty in words and deeds”. I thought I would impress them by pointing out that little known fact; but a 19 year old boy showed them the passage before I could open my mouth. I have never seen young people who grew so fast and were so well taught in the Scripture as those young folks.
When I later went back to Russia to live there my myself I had another interpreter, Annya. I asked Annya how she got saved. She told me that she and Natasha were good friends in high school. When Natasha got saved, she said there was such a powerful change in her that very shortly afterwards Natasha had led her to Christ. I asked Annya, “Have you led others to Christ?” “Yes, of course.” “And are they leading others to know Jesus?” “Yes, of course they are.” So Natasha had gone four generations like the Scripture says we should (2 Tim. 2:2).
My time in Russia was brief, but it might have been the highlight of a lifetime. The miracles were tremendous. Everything in Russia was extreme. The cooperation we got from the city of Chernigovka was astounding, and yet there was always sabotage from lower levels. The city office had contacted the other towns around there making arrangements for our dendo (evangelistic) meetings. One night we went to a neighboring city and were informed that the city office had told them we were coming the night before. A large crowd of people had come only to find we weren't there. That was clear sabotage. The manager of the city auditorium said we couldn't have our meeting that night as a movie had been scheduled, and he couldn't scrub it. In desperation we decided to have an open air meeting in front of the auditorium anyway. We got set up, and started our meeting with ten of us and two little boys on bicycles as our audience. We had been singing for about ten minutes when the manager came out to say he would stop the film, and let us have our meeting inside. We went inside, and had a very good meeting with a large crowd of people. The movie that was canceled that night was an American film titled “Satan”. Satan got canceled so Jesus could be preached.
Everything in Russia was in a large font scale. The problems were huge and the opportunities were amazing. I have never seen hunger in any country like we saw there. When I was living in Chernigovka, one of my interpreters was the principle of a high school. She was a marvelous lady about 50 years old. One day, as we were discussing past world events, I got a queer look on my face. She looked at my face and pleaded, “That is true isn't it? Please tell me the truth. We have written history books three times, and we don't know what happened.” She was shocked when I explained to her what actually happened at that world event. I told her, “In the near future I plan to live here and want to have a Bible study.” She leaped at that and said, “I will be the first one to come.” She meant it. She shared with me the grief, that they recently had the advent of INTERNET, and her son was feeding on filthy porno. That was something new, and there was no fence to protect them from sin.
One day she invited me to her school, and asked what class I would like to attend. I had heard that they had a Bible class, and opted for that. I was amazed to sit in a class with 18 enthusiastic students listening to their teacher explain the Ten Commandments. There was a copy of the curriculum lying on the desk where I was seated. In those days I was trying to learn Russian, and could read enough to find my way around the Bible. I had my English Bible with me, and could check the references in the study material. It was excellent! After the class I got a chance to speak with the teacher for fifteen minutes. I asked her how she became the Bible teacher. She said she was the Russian language teacher, and thought teaching the Bible would be a good job. She had been to a seminar in Vladivostok for Bible teachers, and loved the subject. But when I asked her if she was saved she came up with a blank. I asked, “How can a person get to heaven?” “You must keep the Ten Commandments.” I tried to explain to her that salvation was by faith – not works. But ran into a wall. I took her to 1 Jn. 5:11,12 – that eternal life is in Jesus Christ. To illustrate the point, I held up my passport and said, “Now let's suppose this is eternal life.” Then I held up my Bible saying, “And this is Jesus Christ.” Then I placed my passport in my Bible to illustrate how eternal life is in Jesus Christ. I asked, “Where is eternal life?” In Christ. “How do you get eternal life?” “By keeping the Ten Commandments.” I pleaded with her, “Please take my Bible with eternal life (my passport) in it.” I forced my Bible on her. Holding that in her hand, I asked again, “Do you have eternal life? (My Bible with my passport inside.) “No.” “How do you get eternal life?” “By keeping the Ten Commandments.” The bell rang and that was the end of our conversation.
Oh, how I longed to spend the rest of my life there with these dear hungry people. In early December I promised them that I had to go to the states for a brief visit, but I would return soon to spend the rest on my life there showing them the way to eternal salvation. Unexpectedly, three months later, when I was on the east coast of America, the Lord clearly spoke to me saying Russia was out. It was a disappointment to send an e-mail to my friends, saying I would not be back as planned.
You know the rest of the story. Three years later I had the great privilege of taking Bibles to desperate believers in Vietnam, Laos, and other places. My road has been watered with tears, but looking at the big picture, I wonder if there has ever been a man who has had as many privileges as the Lord has showered on me. But the greatest one of them all is the one that still reduces me to silence and tears. How can it be that the Lord has called me to Himself, and has come to live in my heart? That is the granddaddy of all mysteries.
And thank you for the privilege of your fellowship,
In the bonds of our wonderful Lord Jesus,
bill
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