What does it mean to be persecuted for
Christ?
1 Peter 4:13-14
But rejoice to the extent that you
partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you
may also be glad with exceeding joy. If you are reproached for the
name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God
rests upon you. On their part, He is blasphemed, but on your part He
is glorified.
Well, let me tell you a little bit of
what this means to me right now. This month in Ukraine, one of the
many things we have been blessed to do is go into the high schools
here are visit students and share our stories from the year. We have
made a presentation of countries we have visited and told stories
about people who have touched us and things we have seen that have
changed us.
to hang out with the students. We were surprised when they started
asking us for autographs at the end of our time with them because we
figured here, we wouldn’t be treated the same way they treat
Americans in Africa. We laughed with the students and just shared
stories. One school pleaded with us to come again and share more and
learn more from them. They gave us gifts and told us they would see
us in a week.
call from Maxim that the Minister over the schools in this area was
very upset with us because we were going into their schools and
preaching. To top it all off, we had not gotten clearance from her to
even go into the schools at all. Someone called into security and
said we had been preaching, but all we had been instructed to do was
share stories of our experiences. Because we speak English, they
can’t control the things we say so there is caution that we could be
saying things that they do not approve of..
The minister of schools apparently got
the head of security involved who used to be part of the KGB. For
those of you who don’t know who the KGB were, you should look them
up. So the head of security was involved and there was talk of us
being deported. So far, there is really nothing that can be done but
just to keep us out of the schools. We would be sad to be deported,
but we were blessed to be counted worthy to be persecuted for Christ.
Even if it was in the smallest way, may the Lord be glorified through
us! We plan to still do some other things in the area while we are
here and we hope to have clearance to go back into schools before the
month is over, but there is no guarantee, so we will just do the next
thing that is set before us.
with is have softball games every week. We have so much fun! This was
the first time I had ever played softball before, but I love it now!
