Ban the Bible

Last night my wife and I met Mark Fashevsky from Tiraspol, Transnistria. Transnistria is a small area between the countries of Moldova and Ukraine. And that probably helped about zero of the adults my age (yes, I had to look it up too). It's been an independent state, in its own eyes, since 1992. In its own eyes? They have their own currency, president, military, flag, coat of arms, postal system, banking, national anthem, police but no recognition from the international community. Igor Smirnov has been their president for 17 years.

Mark works with Summit Missions from Akron, OH and has set up a foster care program there called Help The Children (www.htc.tiraspol.info/). It seeks to get orphans out of depressed and underfunded state run programs and into a christian home. Mark was inspired by a recent trip to Texas where he learned about the concept of fostering for the first time.

Mark presented a slide show about his country and the foster care program. He spoke of government corruption and a country of very poor people. He said you could not set up and succeed at business in his town, Tiraspol, without paying a bribe to the mayor. When he finished I was struck by how similar the story is to where I take mission teams to Ecuador and Peru. Kids starting life with nothing. Parents with little opportunity for work. Families break up. Alcohol and drugs rule the day. Kids pay the price. The cycle repeats. Hope is neither spoken or dreamed. But Mark is helping to break the cycle.

Mark told us his testimony about coming to faith in Jesus at 17 living in Russia. The Bible was a banned book and he said this naturally made everyone want it. He had been taught that Christians were dangerous and sacrificed children to their god. But a friend invited him to a Baptist church and he went. Mark described feeling different when he walked into this church and said "he knew there was something to this." He went home and prayed for repentance. I loved hearing him describe his youth and how the Bible was banned and how that generated incredible interest in it.

That reminds me how the early Christians, even though their religion was illegal, continued to meet and worship and serve. Then everything got messed up when Constantine legalized it. Maybe we need to be subversive and illegal again to really storm the gates of hell.