MY PARENTS WERE VERY SINCERE COMMUNISTS…


THEY BELIEVED WITH ALL THEIR HEART THAT THERE


WAS NO GOD AND THAT COMMUNISM WAS THE ONLY


HOPE FOR THIS WORLD. continued from page 13


grandmother sold her house and used the money to pay off the judge. I was given five years’ probation. Despite Pavel being sent to prison


and my own probation, my life didn’t change. I continued down the same destructive path I had been on—crime, alcohol, and drugs. In the meantime, out of desperation Pavel’s mother began attending a Baptist church. She was saved and began writing to her son about her new found faith. Every time she would meet me on the street she would share the Gospel with me. I never laughed in her face, but I did a lot of laughing behind her back. In my circle of friends, we thought religion was for weaklings, and that Baptists were a cult that would brainwash you and steal all your possessions. I thought that Pavel’s mother had literally lost her mind out of grief. When Pavel returned from prison,


he had changed. Te first few months he still hung out with our gang, and then he stopped. He finally told me that he had accepted Christ as his Savior. I thought he was nuts, but he was my best friend, so I told him I respected his decision and would not give him a hard time for it. Aſter


14


that, things began to change for me, too. As I look back on my life before Christ,


I see how God was always protecting me and drawing me to Him. When I was a child in Kazakhstan, there was a Baptist family that lived in our apartment building. I remember going into their apartment one day in December, and seeing a Christmas tree. Tis was strange to me because, Soviets didn’t put up a tree until December 31 to celebrate the New Year. In fact, the tree is called a New Year’s tree in Russia and Ukraine. Te family explained to me about Christmas and what it meant. Tat was the first seed of the Gospel to be planted in my heart. Pavel’s salvation also had a big impact on me. I began thinking about God, heaven, and hell more oſten, and wondering if maybe it really did all exist. One night, some friends and I were hanging out. Hanging out meant drinking and experimenting with drugs. I overdosed


theGLEANER n January/February 2012


on some tablets, and I guess I started having a heart attack. Someone was sober enough to call an ambulance. As I was being taken to the hospital, I realized I was dying. And for the first time in my life I prayed. “God, if you’re there, please save my life and I will live for you.” As selfish and as desperate as that prayer may sound, it changed my life. Suddenly I found no pleasure in my lifestyle. I was miserable. God not only saved my life that night, He had taken control of it. I just hadn’t realized it. Aſter my near-death experience, I entered into a deep depression. I was terrified by the


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