BOR, Krasnoyarsk
Region — Vladimar Kolmakov had spent his whole life working
as a metallurgical scientist when a dramatic vision led him, at the age
of 62, to become a pastor.
“I became a Christian when I saw Christ in a vision, and I was
ready to serve him from that time,” Mr Kolmakov explains. “I
was raised in a non-Christian family, and although my older sister became
a believer about 12 years ago I didn’t take it seriously.”
As far as Mr Kolmakov was concerned, “those kinds of things were
for retired people”, not for someone like him with a busy life
and a demanding job. He continued with his life and his passionate pursuit
of science. But some things were out of his control.
“I remember being suddenly awakened one morning,” he says.
“It seemed as if someone grabbed my hair and made me stand up.
I remember resenting the fact that someone woke me up. I was sure it
wasn’t a dream, because I could remember it so clearly.
“I remember standing, yet I could still see myself lying on the
bed. It was as if I were in two forms. As I looked down, I could see
not only the outside of my body, but the inside, too – my lungs,
heart, and other organs. I was trying to understand this strange situation,
when the Holy Spirit told me that what I was experiencing was my body
and my soul.
“Suddenly, I saw hands working on my heart. Then I could hear
a voice. It said only one word: ‘Pain’.
“There seemed to be a question to which I had to give a very
exact answer, but I didn’t know what it was. Then I understood
it was the Lord working on my heart, and that the vision meant that
I was to serve Him.”
The vision came as a shock to Mr Kolmakov, because all that he knew
about God was what his sister had told him. He continued to struggle
with spirituality.
“I started to pray,” he says. “I talked to God, but
I couldn’t find time to repent and to turn to him. I was busy,
so I thought I’d do it some time later. Then I had the dream.
“In the dream there was a group of people on the railway station
in Krasnoyarsk, and they said that I had to identify the leader of their
group or they would leave and not take me with them. I woke up, and
cried aloud, ‘I am going to go and find the leader.’
Repent
“It was a Sunday so I went to my sister’s Baptist church.
I told God, ‘Here I am, please don’t lose me.’ At the
church I told one man that I was going to repent and turn to the Lord.
During the service the man stood up and told the congregation, ‘There
is a person here who would like to repent.’
“The preacher stopped preaching, and everyone stood up and looked
at me. I knew I had to go through with it. So I came out and kneeled
down. But I was not alone – there were also two young women who
repented and turned to Christ.”
That was also the day Mr Kolmakov received his first Bible, and it
made an immediate impact on him.
“When I started reading the Bible, the first verse I read was
John 11:35. It is the shortest verse in the Bible, but when I read it
I cried. It said, ‘Jesus wept.’ I was so touched by it.”
From that moment, Mr Kolmakov’s life was turned upside down.
He left Krasnoyarsk to become leader of one of the church’s missions
in another town and later joined the charismatic mission. He also decided
to leave his career in metallurgy to attend Bible College, and became
a pastor at the age of 62.
Ministry
He now leads a small congregation of Pentecostal Christians in the
remote town of Bor, where he uses Bible Society Scriptures extensively
in his ministry.
“The Bible Society is a great support,
and the Bibles we receive are not just given out at random, but placed
in the hands of those who really show an interest in the Scriptures,”
he says. (SR 28/4 - 2.02) [PHOTOS]
