‘I Couldn’t Miss One Sunday!’
Pulling Back the Curtain on the Former Soviet Union is a wonderful read! I encourage you to go and buy it on Amazon. I'm sure you will be delighted by the stories you find in there, like the ones I've shared this week. Here's one more, about the Church of the Nazarene's food provision ministry in Moscow in those days. I'll read it straight from the book:
A Faithful Witness in the Snow
"Another pensioner who received food was Alexander. He lived a couple of kilometres from where the church was meeting, but he was so overwhelmed by the food that he wanted to come and meet the people at the church. He began coming every week and gave his life to Jesus."
"He had faithfully served the Communist Party as a guard at the Kremlin, but now, at nearly eighty years of age, he and his wife were childless. Most of their married life they had waited to be given an apartment. While waiting, they slept in the kitchen of an apartment they shared with two other families. Now they had an apartment but were lonely and had little food to survive."
"One Sunday morning, it was minus forty-five degrees Celsius and the buses were not running because the diesel fuel was too thick at that temperature to function properly. Our little family arrived at the church after getting there in a car that was nearly frozen. As we pulled up for worship, there was Alexander standing outside. His face was red, ice forming on his cheeks, but he was bundled up in a fur coat and hat. We asked how he got there, and he told us that he had walked. Then he said, 'After so many years of not knowing Christ, I couldn't miss one Sunday.' The one Sunday he didn't show up at church, we discovered he'd gone home to be with Jesus."
Treasure What You Have
Isn't that something? He so loved Jesus, that he didn't want to miss a single Sunday where he could gather with other Christians and worship.
On Tuesday we read about how scarce bread was in those days, and how one loaf was received with such gratitude by the people. It seems the same was true for spiritual bread! It was so scarce for so long, that when it became available, people didn't want to miss out. Yet here we are, in our lands of many churches - here in my town there is almost a church on every corner - and yet, so many Christians don't really feel the need to go.
Learn a lesson from Alexander today. He went to church in the snow because it was that important to him. The day he didn't show up, they found out he had died. That's the sort of commitment to church that will really impact your life in a significant way.
So may you have a blessed weekend, and may you find your way to that church that you love, to worship alongside your brothers and sisters with gladness!
