Norway

The ways of Providence are so wonderful. There’s a worldwide network of connections which the Lord has set up, and insofar as we play our parts faithfully and try to follow up the leads and make the connections, great things happen. Last year we visited the Dzaleka refugee camp in Malawi, where there are a number of Christadelphians, and baptized several more. It’s home to over 10,000 refugees from ethnic cleansing in Congo and Central Africa. We’ve been sending Bible Basics out there for some time. Last September, an unusually lovely family managed to get out of Dzaleka camp and were accepted for resettlement in Norway- after being in that awful camp for eight years, after having suffered awful things as a result of the Tutsi-Hutsi conflict in Rwanda. Arriving in Norway, CLAUDE contacted us online and after some discussion was eager to be baptized. We therefore had the pleasure of visiting him in Norway, in the breathtakingly beautiful coastal town of Kristiansund to where he and his family have been assigned. After traditionally generous hospitality, we were able to baptize him in the bathtub of the public housing they have been given, with his brother, sister and mother looking on. These are an unusually lovely family, and they too expressed a desire for baptism. We’re hoping that we’ll be able to make another trip there to enable this. Meanwhile we are encouraging them in the translation of literature into their local Rwandan language. They were amazed we knew Dzaleka and had also baptized people in Rwanda. Once we understand the world is truly in God’s hands, it becomes a very small world. They are so grateful to be in Norway. Beautiful Kristiansund , located in true fjord land, is the ultimate contrast from dusty, hungry Dzaleka refugee camp. We too are grateful to God that they got out of that awful place. So it was with joy that we baptized Claude. He was quite overcome after the baptism, it meant so much to him.

Brother Claude being baptized with his family watching

BROTHER VLADIMIR: PERSONAL TESTIMONY

The day of my baptism was so wonderful for me. Brother Viktor accompanied me to the meeting room; I was so nervous, even entering the hall, which I know so well, was as if I were entering it for the first time. I am glad only Viktor, Duncan and Cindy were there as I was so nervous. Now this evening I sit here and am thinking about it all, trying to put together my various thoughts, to look back and see how God has worked with me all my life long. I thank Him for keeping hold of me all my 66 years. I thank Viktor for giving me Bible Basics and telling me about the ecclesia. I thank Duncan for teaching me, and now for baptizing me. I thank Cindy for feeding me and making special food for my baptism. I thank God who worked through all of them. I am sitting here feeling so thankful.

So, who am I, how did it happen, that today I was baptized? I was born in Moscow, I was a faithful member of the Komsomol, and so I entered the civilian flying college in Moscow. I graduated and worked as a flight engineer on Aeroflot. I never thought about God and just accepted the standard teaching of atheism which we received. I was then suddenly moved into the military air force. I have no idea why this was done. I was commissioned as an officer, and served as a flight engineer on AN-12 military transport planes. I had no qualification to work on these aircraft, I knew very little about them and received no training. It was so strange. In 1973, the USSR was sending support to Syria in their war with Israel. I made countless trips to Syria at that time. There were Soviet resupply bases in Syria and we were continually flying backwards and forwards from there to various depots in the USSR. Throughtout October 1973 when the actual conflict was going on I was on the ground in Syria managing the depot and supposedly training Syrians and other Arabs. I was close to the front and several times was in bombardments. Remember, I was a civilian flight engineer, I was not qualified to do anything I did, and both the Arabs and myself hardly knew English to converse with each other. I didn’t know Arabic and they didn’t know Russian. Only in the Red Army could there by such madness. So why was I there? I asked myself this question many, many times. It was to think about Israel, the Jews, who I now know are God’s witnesses, witnesses to an atheist like me.

I then worked in other areas. There was a time in the late ‘70s when we couldn’t put the wheels down as we came in to land. The warning light and buzzer were going, warning that our wheels weren’t down and yet we were coming down to land. I was the flight engineer but I had no idea what to do on that particular aircraft. We circled around the depot landing strip until our fuel was almost gone. The other men baled out one by one.  I was desperately trying to figure how to get the wheels down, so I stayed till last. And then I found there was no parachute for me. I prayed desperately to God. I took over the controls of the plane but I thought I had no fuel to pull up again and then swing down to land, and the airstrip was in the midst of forest. I prayed and prayed. I promised God about everything if I survived. I thought to jump out without a parachute but it would have meant death. To stay in the plane meant death if I brought it down onto the tree tops or onto the strip without wheels. Then suddenly there was radio contact from the depot. “What are you doing? Get on and land!”. “My wheels won’t come down”, I replied. “They’re down” came the reply. “No they’re not”. “Yes they are, I can see them” the controller said. “Tell me before God they are down” I said, and remember we were atheist Red Army men. “Yes I promise you they are” the man said. So I landed it. The warning light had come on as a false alarm. The wheels had been down all the time. It was the only time I ever landed a plane alone in my life.

Photo: AN-12 Soviet military transport

I then desperately started to search for God. But it was so hard. No information. I was fearful to ask anyone to help me. My wife however had been a secret believer earlier, although she had lost her faith, and she started to explain some things to me, and got me a Bible from an old friend. She was tragically killed in a road accident in East Germany, so I lost that source of teaching. But I read that Bible she got me. I learnt about baptism. Then I was posted to Afghanistan in the 1980s. We were hit by Taliban SAM missiles near to Kabul and baled out over a lake. As we were waiting to jump I said to God “He who believes and is baptized will be saved. I believe. Now I will be baptized when I hit the water. Please, save me”.

Well I survived. And I survived many other things. I ended up here in Riga where my wife was from and where my children live. I met old army friends, many now alcoholics. But I couldn’t find anyone who could tell me about the Bible. Until I met Viktor. He told me about the ecclesia, gave me Bible Basics and Duncan’s phone number. And so I started attending. After some time I heard the weekend of talks by Brother Colin Green about “Faith”. I took each word to heart, although I think I knew all he said. But it became ordered in my mind. I knew all these years I must be baptized. So after the breaking of bread on the Sunday I asked for baptism, agreed to meet for discussion later in the week, and now, shy as I am for my sins, I have been baptized, been forgiven, and can’t wait till Christ returns.