Yup. True Statement.
Let me tell you a little about our first week (April 9-14) in Transnistria.
We began this month working alongside a small church in Tiraspol and their involvement with Campus Crusade for Christ. During the day half of our team would go to School #17 and teach English to students aged 13-18 while the other half would go to the University and survey people about Orthodox Easter (which was coming up), talk to them about our beliefs and invite them to English Club every evening.
I was a part of the latter group.
I’ll tell you a bit about our evangelism experience and you’ll have to tune in tomorrow to find out what English class had in store.
It was interesting working in a country that was so entrenched in communism. We would walk down the street and hear music blaring from megaphones, apartment buildings all looked the same, plain grey, schools were numbered rather than named and I even saw an armed member of the military briefly walk into the back of our church service one week.
You know that oppression and persecution that us North American’s truly only read about? I experienced it – to some extent.
The KGB is real and active; our ministry contacts had their phones tapped months ago and had previously been arrested. When we first were informed that a few of us would be evangelizing/speaking to people about Christianity at the University we were also told HOW we could speak about it.
We could not openly preach or speak about how others can have a personal relationship with Jesus. Any talk about religion or invitation to seek out Christianity had to be precariously brought up by relating it to our own personal stories about God. Our speech had to be strictly about what it means to be a Christian or about ourselves and what knowing Jesus has done for our lives … and then we had to hope that the students we spoke with would put 2 and 2 together and realize that could happen for their lives as well. Talk about intricate evangelism while beating around the bush – and I am not a beating around the bush type person.
It’s such a strange feeling to be censored in my speech about Christianity and MY beliefs. We had to be careful wording things for fear that it may be unsettling to the military or that someone might overhear and report it, jeopardizing the ministry that is already established. It certainly makes me grateful for the freedom of religion we have in Canada but also makes me even more appreciative for all of those willing to risk persecution around the world in order to spread the Gospel in many of these “closed” or “restricted” countries.
This is my indebted thank you to those oppressed, tortured, suffering, imprisoned and martyred in order to expand the Kingdom of God and speak truth to the ends of the earth.
