Russians—A People With Such “Thirsty” Souls
Out of remorse for having been an atheist, I longed from the first day of my conversion to be able to witness to the Russians. The Russians are a people raised from childhood in atheism. My desire to reach Russians has been fulfilled, and I did not have to go to Russia to reach them. Its fulfillment began in Nazi times, because we had in Romania many thousands of Russian war prisoners among whom we could do Christian work.
It was a dramatic, moving work. I will never forget my first encounter with a Russian prisoner, an engineer. I asked him if he believed in God. If he had said “no,” I would not have minded it much. It is the choice of every man to believe or disbelieve. But when I asked him this, he lifted his eyes toward me without understanding and said, “I have no such military order to believe. If I have an order I will believe.”
Tears ran down my cheeks. I felt my heart torn in pieces. Here stood before me a man whose mind was dead, a man who had lost a great gift God has given to mankind—his individuality. He was a brainwashed tool in the hands of the Communists, ready to believe or not on an order. He could not think anymore on his own. This was a typical Russian after all these years of Communist domination! After the shock of seeing what communism had done to human beings, I promised God that I would dedicate my life to these men, to give them back their personalities and to give them faith in God and Christ.
Beginning August 23, 1944, one million Russian troops entered Romania and, very soon after this, the Communists came to power in our country. Then began a nightmare that made suffering under the Nazis seem easy.
At that time in Romania, which now has a population of about 24 million, the Communist party had only ten thousand members. But Vishinsky, the Foreign Secretary of the Soviet Union, stormed into the office of our much beloved King Michael I, pounded his fists on the table and said, “You must appoint Communists to the government.” Our army and police were disarmed and so, by violence and hated by almost all, the Communists came to power. It was not without the cooperation of the American and British rulers of that time.
For me, to preach the gospel to the Russians is heaven on earth. I have preached the gospel to men of many nations, but I have never seen a people drink in the gospel like the Russians. They have such thirsty souls.
An Orthodox priest, a friend of mine, telephoned me and told me that a Russian officer had come to him to confess. My friend did not know Russian. However, knowing that I speak Russian, he had given him my address. The next day this man came to see me. He longed for God, but he had never seen a Bible. He had no religious education and never attended religious services (churches in Russia then were very scarce). He loved God without the slightest knowledge of Him.
I read to him the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of Jesus. After hearing them, he danced around the room in rapturous joy proclaiming, “What a wonderful beauty! How could I live without knowing this Christ!” It was the first time that I saw someone so joyful in Christ.
Then I made a mistake. I read to him the passion and crucifixion of Christ, without having prepared him for this. He had not expected it and, when he heard how Christ was beaten, how He was crucified and that in the end He died, he fell into an armchair and began to weep bitterly. He had believed in a Savior and now his Savior was dead!
I looked at him and was ashamed. I had called myself a Christian, a pastor, and a teacher of others, but I had never shared the sufferings of Christ as this Russian officer now shared them. Looking at him, it was like seeing Mary Magdalene weeping at the foot of the cross, faithfully weeping when Jesus was a corpse in the tomb.
Then I read to him the story of the resurrection and watched his expression change. He had not known that his Savior arose from the tomb. When he heard this wonderful news, he beat his knees and swore—using very dirty, but very “holy” profanity. This was his crude manner of speech. Again he rejoiced, shouting for joy, “He is alive! He is alive!”
He danced around the room once more, overwhelmed with happiness! I said to him, “Let us pray!” He did not know how to pray. He did not know our “holy” phrases. He fell on his knees together with me and his words of prayer were:
“Oh God, what a fine chap you are! If I were You and You were me, I would never have forgiven You of Your sins. But You are really a very nice chap! I love You with all of my heart.”
I think that all the angels in heaven stopped what they were doing to listen to this sublime prayer from a Russian officer. The man had been won for Christ!
In a shop, I met a Russian captain with a lady officer. They were buying all kinds of things and had difficulty speaking to the salesman, who did not understand Russian. I offered to translate for them and we became acquainted. I invited them to lunch at our house. Before beginning to eat, I told them, “You are in a Christian house and we have the habit of praying.” I said the prayer in Russian. They put down their forks and knives
and were no longer interested in food. Instead, they asked question after question about God, Christ, and the Bible. They knew nothing. It was not easy to talk to them. I told them the parable of the man who had a hundred sheep and lost one. They did not understand, as they were brainwashed with the Communist ideology. They asked, “How is it that he has a hundred sheep? Has not the Communist collective farm taken them away?” Then I said that Jesus is a king.
They answered, “All the kings have been bad men who controlled the people, so Jesus must
also be a dictator.” When I told them the parable of the workers in the vineyard, they said, “Well, these did very well to rebel against the owner of the vineyard. The vineyard has to belong to the collective.” Everything was new for them. When I told them about the birth of Jesus, they asked what would seem blasphemous to a Westerner, “Was Mary the wife of God?” In talking with them and many others, I learned that to preach the gospel to the Russians, after so many years of communism, we had to use an entirely new approach.
This truth applies in many different cultures. The missionaries who went to Central Africa had difficulty translating the words of Isaiah: “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow” (Isa_1:18). No one in Central Africa had ever seen snow, so they had no word for it. The missionaries had to translate, “Your sins will become white as the kernel of the coconut.”
So we had to translate the gospel into the “Marxist language” in order for them to identify with it. It was something we could not do by ourselves, but the Holy Spirit did His work through us.
The captain and the lady officer were converted on that day. Later, they helped us much in our underground ministry to the Russians. We secretly printed and distributed among Russians many thousands of Gospels and other Christian literature. Through the converted Russian soldiers, we smuggled Bibles and Bible portions into Russia. We also used another technique to get copies of God’s Word into the hands of Russians. The Russian soldiers had been fighting for several years and many of them had children back home whom they had not seen for all this time. (The Russians have a great fondness for children.)
My son, Mihai, and other children under ten years of age would go to the Russian soldiers on the streets and in the parks, carrying Bibles, Gospels, and other literature in their pockets. The Russian soldiers would pat them on the head, talk to them
lovingly, thinking of their own children whom they had not seen in years. The soldiers would give them chocolate or candy, and the children, in turn, would give the soldiers something—Bibles and Gospels, which they eagerly accepted. Often what was too dangerous for us to do openly our children did in complete safety. They were “young missionaries” to the Russians. The results were excellent. Many Russian soldiers received the gospel this way when there was no other way to give it to them.
