Soaring Behind the Iron Curtain

"Hi....I'm sick. I can still go if you want me to. I have a fever and chills...."
An hour before we were to leave for our helicopter testing in the soaring high ceilings of the giant church, Asherel's partner Ben called.
"No Ben, much as I would love to catch whatever nasty bug you have, it is perhaps best you stay home and rest. We'll test Asherel's helicopters today and yours at the church next week."

So Asherel, rather dispiritedly, and I headed to the church with her four helicopters to test. The five story ceilings, made of glass, showed the tornado-watch clouds racing overhead. The church was empty that Saturday afternoon. Just one lone security guard sat watch. He was expecting us, and watched as we set up and sent our first copters soaring to the pinnacle of those exquisite glass peaks.

"Did you buy these?" he asked, as he came to look at the copters more closely. He spoke with a heavy accent. He was an older man, maybe in his sixties.
"No," said Asherel, "I made them."
"By yourself!" he exclaimed, "Can I buy one?"
We explained how in two weeks these copters would be in the State Competition for Science Olympiad.
"May I touch one?" he asked.
"No," I said, "They are really fragile. We only pick them up to fly them."
He understood, but looked a little sad.
"Where are you from?" I asked.
"Siberia."
I glanced at Asherel and said, "We are studying about Siberia in our home school. During the USSR days."
"Yes, that is when I lived there."

In fact, the book we are currently reading is about the facade of freedom and prosperity that the Soviet Union would portray to visitors, but the reality was in sharp contrast to that front. The author was one of the first evangelists to step behind the Iron Curtain. He found a hunger for the Word there, but one that was trampled on by those in power. It was illegal and dangerous to proclaim Jesus behind the Iron Curtain. As we read the book, I wondered if Asherel or even I  could get a true sense of what it really meant to not have freedom- freedom in any sense, but especially freedom to worship God. The book was well written, but it is very hard to relate to something so totally outside our own world of experience.

Asherel was busily lubricating and stretching the rubber motor, so I asked the man, "What brought you to the United States?"
"I came after Perestroika," he answered, "It was hard life to be a believer in Russia."
I looked at Asherel. She was listening.
"It was illegal, wasn't it?" I asked.
"Oh yes. I was watched...followed, by the KGB. I started a radio station that told Christian stories. It was, how you say it, like theater. I wrote stories, and acted out Bible stories, then broadcast them."
"How did you do that?"
"Oh it was all underground."
"What would have happened if you were caught?" I asked.
He laughed mirthlessly and shook his head.
"Would you be shot?"
"Not outright, not most of time. Put in prison. My friend, who worked with me was put in prison. He died in prison. He was ripped apart limb by limb by large dogs."
"So how did you come to believe in Jesus in the first place?"
"It is long story," he said. He went to his guard counter and rolled out the chair so he could sit near. Even Asherel seemed to understand that listening to the long story right now was more important than flying her helicopter.
"My family did not believe," he said, "Especially my father. He said he never give up his vodka!"
I laughed.
"But my mother, she began to see God was real. She began to believe."
"How?" I asked.
"People came, told her about the Bible."
"What would have happened to them if they were caught?"
"Oh they always watching the door. They go to prison if they were caught. But they come, and tell my mother. She try to tell my father, but he say, no, it just nonsense. He not believe. Then one day, he grow suddenly very sick. He clutch his chest, and he pound it to try to make him breathe. His heart stop, his breathing stop. He lay on floor. And he tell us later that he suddenly felt an incredible love start at his head and go down his whole body. He know it is God. And his heart start, and he is fine. He become a Christian. But then, Satan always try to bring doubt. My father start saying it wasn't God. It was just a coincidence."
"Yes," I said, "I often hear that."
"So, it happen again! 3 times it happen. And each time, my father feel that love, his heart start again. And finally he become Christian, and he stay Christian."
He paused and watched as Asherel stood and hooked the motor rubber band onto her helicopter.
"Three miracles," he said.
We'd listened spellbound for half an hour, but now we had to get back to work.
He continued talking while we wound the motor. This is a big no-no since winding the motor is actually precise and difficult. If we don't do it right, we destroy helicopters. I just didn't have the heart to say shush. Not to a man like that.
And when Asherel released the helicopter, it flew straight down and smashed into  pieces. She had wound it the wrong way. It was my fault too. As "holder", I was supposed to check that she was winding properly. I'd been distracted.

The Russian, Asherel, and I looked down at the destroyed helicopter.
"Now you can hold it," I said to the man.

The other copters did supremely well. I can't give any more specifics til after the State contest. I don't want to unwittingly give any information out that might be a  disadvantage to our team. But it was a miraculous day....and I don't mean just the helicopter flights. We sat in the church glass portico, the three of us, watching copter after copter soar 5 stories high, against a shimmering backdrop of sun breaking through rain and clouds racing across the sky in a cosmic Kentucky Derby. Three people from three stages of life- one who had seen oppression, and tyranny, had struggled and overcome in the faith; one who longed that her daughter would understand the blessings of freedom won by others, the miracles of God, and the sacrifice so many faced in living for Him; and one who was still learning to test and trust Heaven.

The helicopter soared, it rotors spinning as it lifted to the sky.

Hebrews 11

 ¹ Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. ² This is what the ancients were commended for.  ³ By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

Hebrews 12:3-5

³ Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. ⁴ In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,    “My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
   and do not lose heart when he rebukes you