“Go to the town at the end of the line,” God seemed to be telling Jim. Exhausted from his several weeks of travel in the Soviet Union, Jim, a Christian from the West, slumped into a train seat and pressed his cheek against the steamy window.
“Go to the end of the line,” he thought. “Where I’d really like to go is home!”
But Jim didn’t go home. Instead he took the train to the little town at the end of the tracks. After a quick supper in an old brick hotel, he wandered through the streets looking for a place where Christians met.
Perhaps this is why God led him to this town. Perhaps he was to encourage the believers here. But after several hours he had found no such meeting place. Tired and baled, he returned to the hotel and went to bed.
The next morning, before he got up, the girl at the front desk rang his room. “Someone is here to see you.”
Jim dressed swiftly. He picked up a Russian New Testament from under the shirts in his suitcase and stuffed it into his briefcase. “It’s safer here,” he reasoned, hurrying out the door with the case.
In the lobby a middle-aged man grasped Jim’s hand enthusiastically and introduced himself by name. “Can we talk in this corner?” he asked, already leading Jim toward a chair.
They sat down. “You have something for me in your case,” the man said. Jim stiffened with fear, but tried to keep his face relaxed and emotionless.
Jim had been shadowed by the KGB during his trip. Twice, luggage left in his room had been searched. Besides, this Bible was his last copy. He had already given the others to grateful Christians.
“But,” he thought, “I might as well give him the Bible if he asks. If he’s from the secret police he’ll get it anyway.”
“I’ve only my personal belongings in my briefcase,” Jim hedged.
But the man persisted. “You have a Bible for me?” His gray eyes glistened as he looked anxiously at Jim. Resignedly Jim took out the Bible wrapped in tan paper and placed it in the man’s hands. The man ripped off the paper, pressed the Bible to his lips, kissed it, and fell to his knees praising and thanking God in a loud and jubilant voice. Jim was both shocked and relieved, but shaking the man by the shoulders, he said, “Be quiet. We’ll get in trouble. Let’s go outside.”
“How did you know who I was and that I had a Bible?” Jim asked.
Walking with him in the park still drizzly with sunlit streams and puddles after a morning rain, the man told Jim his story: “Three weeks ago on a Sunday our congregation—there are over 90 members—knelt in prayer asking God to provide us with a Bible. Not even the pastor had one. An elderly man in the group stood up in the middle of prayer and said, " ‘God has told me that a man named Jim will be in the town of—, three weeks from today. He will give us a Bible.’
“So they sent me as their messenger. That’s how I knew who you were. God led me to you.”
“What city did you come from?” asked Jim.
“From—-in Siberia.”
“That’s a long way,” Jim gasped.
“Yes, it is,” said the man. “Over 6,000 miles. And it took me exactly three weeks to get here.”
Slavic Gospel News
ML-09/10/1978