RUSSIAN FAIRGROUND DREAM!        DFO1106  10/6/81

         1. I SUPPOSE YOU COULD CALL THIS "THE RUSSIAN DISNEYLAND DREAM" because it was about a thing that was sort of like an amusement park run by the Russians on the banks of this broad peaceful lake or river. It wasn't exactly an amusement park, it was really strange, it was more like it was sort of a big huge shopping mall. There was this main gate where you had to pay admission sort of like Disneyland. And there were several Russian guards standing around like police officers, everybody very friendly & everybody seemed to be having a good time. It reminded me a lot of the New York World's Fair, like the officers were there to help you & direct you & give you information as well as guard & keep order, etc.
         2. YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO EXCHANGE YOUR CASH FOR THESE TICKETS, & then use these tickets to go inside & buy things. Then you'd get your shopping cart & go on down the street of the fairground or whatever it was, window-shopping in the various shops, buying, etc. And it seemed that one reason people came there was that groceries were unusually cheap & plentiful whereas outside things were kind of scarce for some reason.
         3. APPARENTLY MY BROTHER HAD BROUGHT US THERE IN HIS CAR, of all the funny things, & had parked it out in the parking lot by the water, & he was sort of like showing us this new great place. We also had a Russian guide who was in the lead. So we went through the gate, exchanged our money for tickets, got a shopping cart & were trotting on down this big walking street, & the place was just thronged with people.
         4. BEHIND US THERE WALKED A GUARD WHO SEEMED TO BE MORE LIKE A BODYGUARD OR A GUARD OF HONOUR than actually policing us or trying to restrict us or anything. But he was carrying a gun & in uniform, & I had the impression he was more there to protect us or to be sort of like an honour guard, like we were some important guests or something. Another strange person to be there besides my brother was my mother who was walking along in front of me talking to somebody as she was shopping. She looked a little bit like she did when she was younger, middle-aged, prime of life.
         5. EVERYBODY SEEMED QUITE HAPPY UNTIL SUDDENLY OUR GUIDE CAME BACK & SPOKE TO MY MOTHER & said, "Would you mind stepping into this office here just a moment please, someone wants to speak to you." He motioned her to an office on the right & then told me, "Would you mind stepping into this office here on the left? Someone wants to ask you a few questions." And it turned out to be the office of some kind of an official who was quizzing us about our former activities as evangelists & distributors of Gospel literature, etc. It seemed that they didn't particularly like this.
         6. THEY WERE LIKE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WHO WERE SIMPLY POLITELY TRYING TO EXPRESS THEIR DISPLEASURE that we had been passing out literature, holding meetings, preaching the Gospel, etc., that this was not approved of by the government. We hadn't been doing any preaching or witnessing there, but they had heard about it. So they cautioned us that they couldn't have any more of that as long as we were in their country & we mustn't do that sort of thing & they didn't approve of it.
         7. SO I BEGAN TO THINK, "WELL, NEXT TIME THEIR NEXT WARNING MAY NOT BE QUITE SO POLITE & I think I'd better get out of here! I don't think this is a very safe place for us. The rest of them can go ahead & try it if they want to, that's up to their conscience & their faith. But I don't exactly have the faith for staying in this place, I want to get out of here!" So I kind of plotted my exit! I thought, "Now I'm not too far from that gate, & although there're guards there at the gate, there's just a low iron railing. I could easily just vault over that railing & be lost in the crowd & go back to the parking lot."
         8. SO I DID, & I WENT OVER TO WHERE WE PARKED THE CAR, & TO MY HORROR IT WASN'T THERE! Somehow or another the brake had released & it had accidentally rolled off into the water. But right away the police came with a wrecker just as though they were accustomed to pulling cars out of the water there! They just came with their wrecker & pulled it up out of the water into this special parking lot. Finally my brother got in & it started!--And boy, was I relieved! I was really on edge hanging around that place with all those cops, having already been warned about litnessing, witnessing or preaching, & we piled in & off we went down the road!
         9. OH, I ALMOST FORGOT ABOUT THE PASSPORT! As you came in to do your shopping & to exchange your money for the tickets, you also had to leave them your passport. But I had leaped over the railing & run without my passport & I had figured, "Well, let'm have my passport! I'm not going to take any chances stopping there!" So since I had already skipped out unofficially & left my passport there, I was really anxious to get out of there & get away from there before I got caught.
         10. THE WHOLE THING MUST BE SYMBOLIC & NOT LITERAL, A SYMBOLIC WARNING. Maybe it's a lesson to our folks! They didn't seem to object to us, but they just didn't want our witnessing activities, Gospel-preaching & litnessing. They were being very kind & very polite to us personally, but they just didn't want our religion!
         11. BUT OTHERWISE EVERYTHING WAS FINE & EVERYBODY WAS HAPPY, HAVING A GREAT TIME SHOPPING & the authorities were being very polite & courteous & helpful & treating us royally like royal guests. (Maria: Russia seems to be that kind of country that is really good to its people & provides them with all kinds of benefits. But if you want to be at all different & you want to stand up for something that's against their ideology, then you really have it bad.) Yes. Although there's supposed to be religious freedom, actually they make it tough on religious people, because officially the government is anti-God & anti-religious. They simply definitely don't approve of religion & religious people, particularly trying to spread your religion is actually, I think, against the law.
         12. WELL, YOU CAN TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH OR WHATEVER YOU THINK IT MEANS! I think it was a kind of a warning about pushing things too far or the authorities too far in countries where they don't like us or our witnessing or litnessing & preaching the Gospel. I understand in Brazil right now they're really clamping down on missionaries, not just us but all kinds of missionaries & Gospel & so on, really anti-Christ, anti-God. And I think when a country starts getting down on us & giving us trouble or restricting or prohibiting or limiting us or warning us, it's a good time to get out & wait until the Lord changes things or the administration or judges them.
         13. SO WATCH YOUR STEP IN COUNTRIES THAT DON'T PARTICULARLY APPRECIATE YOUR RELIGION! The Lord says, "When they persecute you in one city, flee to another!" (Mt.10:23) When they make it difficult, if not impossible, for you to witness, it's time to go someplace else where there's greater freedom & liberty. And I've always said that, that there are too many ripe, open, free harvest fields to which we can go & freely witness rather than to have to suffer & endanger our life, limb, liberty & security in closed countries that don't want us or our message either one.
         14. TRY TO FIND THE OPEN COUNTRIES, & it's better, I think, to stay out of some of those closed countries. But if you feel especially called to'm, well, OK. The Lord definitely sent us to a closed country, Tenerife, to start the FFing Revolution, but it was the kind of a ministry that fitted that closed country. It's the one kind of witnessing that you can get away with & they like. So GBY all, but beware of the restrictive countries which don't allow you freedom to preach the Gospel. God bless & keep you & continue to make you a blessing somewhere where there's greater freedom. PTL!