March 8th
is International Women’s Day. Traditionally Spiritual Freedom has
provided humanitarian aid gifts, Bible courses, New Testaments and
other literature to all the women prisoners as well as all the women
officers. The gifts to the prisoners were handed to them individually,
in the name of Jesus, right after the gospel was preached in each
cell. This year looked as if it would be the first that the ministry
would not be able to help in this way.
Thinking that the
women’s labor colony outside in Majisk, outside of Moscow might
allow the program Phil Wagner called Alexander Volkov and asked him to
call the commanding officer and find out.
Upon his arrival at the Spiritual Freedom
headquarters Phil was pleased to see many hundreds of gift bags all
ready signifying, he thought, of the positive response from the Majisk
commander. Actually, the Lord had a bigger plan in mind.
Alexander called
Majisk as he was asked and obtained permission to send a team to do
the preaching and giving on Tuesday and Wednesday March 11th
& 12th. However Alexander also call the commanding
officer of the Bastille in Moscow (the women’s prison Spiritual
Freedom has not been allowed to enter for many months)
Alaxander had called
Svetlana, commanding officer of the Bastille and asked permission to
make the distribution in that prison, also! And she said, “Come on
over!” in defiance of the order of General Simenook.
The team loaded the gifts, enough for all the prisoners as well as
the female staff members and set off for “forbidden” territory.
They were met by a
male escort officer who opened each cell and announced, “These
people are here to give you the Word of God. It is the Word of God!
Read it. Obey it. Listen to what these people have to say to you
because it is very important. The team then proceeded to preach the
gospel in every cell and they passed out the gifts to every prisoner
and female officer.
Our friend Svetlana has put her career
on the line to get the gospel to the prisoners. Please pray for her
and that the ministry will be allowed back into the Bastille and all
the Moscow prisons.
Phil has arranged to have the same sort of preaching and distribution
in the women’s prison in Kazakhstan. That means a combined total of
about 6,500 women prisoners will hear the gospel,
receive God’s Word and be given some much needed humanitarian aid
by March 13th!
February 2003
Life was hard in the
Soviet Union in the summer of 1964. Premier Nikita Krushov was
fighting for his political life and, in any case, had no interest in
reforming the harsh “justice” system where an accusation was
sufficient grounds for an arrest and a lack of proof of innocence was
enough to convict.
A young woman named
Alexandra lived in the Western Kazak industrial town of Jam-bo. She
was a sales clerk in a yardage shop who had recently discovered, to
her dismay, that she was carrying her third child. She already had two
daughters (ages eight and ten) by her ex-husband. She was not married
to this child’s father. She was advised to have an abortion (the
common method of “birth control” in the Soviet Union and still
today in Russia) but she could not bring herself to end the baby’s
life.
The child wasn’t the
only surprise facing Alexandra that summer. She arrived at work one
day and found she was accused of stealing a bolt of material. She was
innocent but others had already agreed on their stories and caused the
suspicion fall on her. She was arrested, tried and convicted. Her
sentence required two years in Labor Colony LA 155 / 4 located about
an hour’s drive from the Soviet capitol of Kazakhstan – Almaty –
known then as Alma Ata. Soon after her arrival she gave birth to a
little baby boy. She named him Mikhile, after her own father. His
nickname was Misha. The baby’s father wanted nothing to do with her.
Upon Alexandra’s
release she and her baby returned to Jam-bo where her mother had been
caring for her daughters. She tried to put her life back together but
it was a small town and she was an ex-convict. Life was difficult. She
stayed on there until her daughters were both married and then took
Misha and moved to the Southern Russian resort town of Hadisisk, near
the Black Sea, and became a hair dresser. She devoted herself to her
work and showering love on her son.
When Misha completed
school he entered a technical institute, graduated in 1980 and went
into the army for his obligatory two years of service. He was
fortunate in that he was posted to an area of Eastern Russia rather
than the horrors of service in Afghanistan. Following his release from
the military he applied for and was accepted into medical school. In
1990, during his forth year there, while out for a walk he passed a
bookseller on the street. He bought a book with a title that intrigued
him; How to Find Peace with God by a man named Billy Graham. He
found it interesting and he said, “It planted a seed.”
It was in 1991 that
Misha transferred to a medical school in St. Petersburg to complete
his fifth and final year. While the Soviet Union and the way of life
he knew crumbled all around him he found himself in love with a girl
whom he thought was the only one for him. He quit school and went to
work as a medical laboratory assistant so he could support her. They
married and by 1993 he had a son, but he also had a very unhappy wife.
She divorced him, married another man and moved away. Mikhile was
heart broken.
One day, after work,
he was at home slowly changing from one radio station to the next,
more out of boredom than due to any particular interest. He stopped
when he heard someone talking about God.
He heard the gospel
and remembered the book he had read. The seed was being watered.
Each afternoon, when he got home from work he continued
listening as the man on the radio shared from the Word of God. He
followed the suggestion he heard to seek out a local group of
believers and there he was led to Christ. He studied the Word with
them and as he did he began to grow strong in faith.
In 1999 a relative
offered Misha a job in Moscow. He moved and began the new work. He
also sought out Christian fellowship. The Lord led him to a group of
believers who took evangelism and discipleship seriously. He felt he
had found a church-home.
He returned the
following week. There was a visitor, known to some of the people in
the congregation, who was from an organization called Spiritual
Freedom (the name of Set Free Prison Ministries in Russia). He met the
guest and heard of the work. He was touched by the plight of the
prisoners and how the Lord’s hand was on the ministry.
He began to volunteer
time with Spiritual Freedom whenever his work schedule allowed. Misha
corrected Bible courses, worked in the warehouse and helped distribute
humanitarian aid in Butirka Prison. He was there to help when the
ministry had to vacate its prison offices and warehouse.
His love for the Lord
and willingness to serve brought him to the attention of one and all.
It wasn’t long before he was asked to serve full time, which he,
too, felt was of the Lord.
When the door was
opened to the work in Kazakhstan he was one of the first to express an
interest in helping. Today he is serving as a chaplain in women’s
prison number LA 155 / 4 where he preaches the gospel and leads Bible
studies in the place where his mother served out her confinement and
where he himself was born.
Mikhile, our
“Misha” had the joy of leading his mother to Christ about two
years ago.
“And we know that all things work together
for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according
to his purpose.” Romans 8:28
