Providing a great gift to the people
of the former Soviet Union

Based on a story told by a regional co-ordinator at Hosanna Ministries

. . . it wasn’t until she heard the Uzbek New Testament, the Word of God in her own language, that she was really struck by the personal relationship that she could have with God.

FORMER SOVIET UNION — “In my role as regional co-ordinator at Hosanna, one of the privileges of my job is to interact very closely with our recording teams in the field. I get to hear the stories of the recordings and of the people whose lives are transformed just in the process of doing the recording of the New Testament.

“We have a team based in Ukraine that travels to different countries of the former Soviet Union. They have done recordings in Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan, where for so many years under Soviet rule, everything was in Russian. People had to study Russian in school even though they would speak a different language at home.

Power

“During the Uzbek recording, the proofreader, by the name of Leziza, was really struck by the power of the spoken Word of God in her own language. This is an educated woman, she knew Russian, she had read the Russian Bible, but it wasn’t until she heard the Uzbek New Testament, the Word of God in her own language, that she was really struck by the personal relationship that she could have with God. She realised that God was her own father and that she could really have a close and personal relationship with him.

“This same team also went to Moscow to record a Gypsy language. This was really a challenging undertaking for them because, for 60 years under Soviet rule, not a single literary work was published in the Roma language, the language of the Gypsies.

Learn to read

“The challenge for our team was to find Roma who could actually read their language, particularly the Roma New Testament, which was published in 2002. They spoke it every day in their homes and in the marketplace, yet they couldn’t read it. The recording team had to educate the actors on how to read their own language. The actors’ comment was, ‘My goodness, it would be easier to unload a wagon of firewood than to continue with this work.’ But, by the power of the Holy Spirit, they have become so dedicated.

At first it was a business transaction – they were hired to do this work and they were happy to have the work. But they have become sincerely dedicated in their hearts, such that, at the end of every recording day, they argue among themselves over who gets to be the first one to come the next day, even though they have to go home that night and rehearse and rehearse so that they can read their own language. Yet they are so anxious to give this recording to their people that they are willing to put in the long hours of rehearsal.

Radio show

“Some years ago, the team recorded the Russian New Testament. With any recording, the two most important readers are Jesus and Paul. In this case, they had recorded all of the Jesus parts, but they were having trouble finding the right person to read the role of Paul. Somebody had suggested that they approach a man who had a radio show. He’d had this show for 30 years, from back in the Communist times. The name of the show was ‘Science and Religion.’ This man was a devout atheist. He knew the Scriptures inside out, but for the sole purpose of disproving them. That was his life’s work – to disprove the existence of God. So when our recording team approached him, he at first refused. He said, ‘In good conscience, I cannot read the New Testament because I don’t believe it.’ But they persuaded him and he said, ‘Well, OK, I’ll come and give it a try.’

“Well, he read the entire works of Saint Paul, and by the end of it he had had a conversion experience which he compared to the conversion experience of Saul himself. When our recording team was getting ready to leave, this man ran up to them at the train station and he gave them a poem that he had written especially for them. I’ll read a portion of it for you here:

‘I’ve lived for 50 years not knowing Christ.
What are we struggling against
and what can we do?
We lie beneath tanks, but for no reason.
You armed us, brothers, with the Word of God.
In it are shield and sword,
In it is our protection from evil.

So that’s it, it’s all over.
The recorder has fallen silent,
the headphones are laid to rest.
Sheets of paper whirling in a waltz
on an October evening.
The station, the platform;
It’s all a bit sad,
Both for you and me.

But sadness turned to light,
Purifying our souls.
We laboured together, doing what we could.
With the last word,
We appeal to the world: Listen!
People from all the earth will abide with us’