Moscow Revisited

I am sitting in a Moscow Internet Cafe named Asia Cafe eating an omlette with Tiger Prawns an cheese although I thought I ordered ham and cheese. Such is the state of trying to communicate in English only with a young waitress who speaks only Japanese and Russian. Living and traveling in the largest city in Europe certainly proves that we are experiencing the global village in a whole new way. The trains, subways and streets are filled with people from every nationality, tribe and tongue. Cars from every imaginable country run rampant through the streets are breakneck speeds and a pedesrtian must always be alert or be killed. It is great fun to experience the excitement of international interaction.

I am staying in a flat (apartment) near Christ The Savior Cathedral and it is a very high class, busy section of this huge city. The Cathedral stands as a huge testimony of the failure of the Bolsheviks. It seems that the Communists hated this church more rabidly than most even though they hated all churches. In a fit of pique they blew it up in an attempt to erase its powerful message from the consciousness of the Russian people for all time. (It was originally built as a memorial to the defeat of Napolean's armies so the pride of Russia and Moscow was great.)

The Communists, in a typical stroke of genius, decided to build in its place a big office building dedicated to the rise of Communism. Here was the problem: God openly rebuked their efforts by making such a structure impossible. The prayers of the people and the church somehow softened the ground under the structure and the engineers and architects found themselves unable to get a foundation to stick. (Hmmm! A lack of foundation. Isn't that interesting.)

So, after several tries, the Party gave up and made it into a big swimming pool. It was as though God placed a large baptismal fount right in the middle of the city for all to see as a symbol of the atheistic attempts to destroy the church. Many of my friends swam in that pool and it kept the story of the Party's failure alive in the hearts and minds of the Muskovites.

Just after the fall of Communism, the Orthodox Church decided to rebuild the Cathedral. Despite warnings that the ground was too soft to sustain it, they went ahead. "How" they asked, "could the ground sustain the original Cathedral and not a new one?" Now Christ The Savior stands as an open rebuke to all attempts to destroy Christ and His message of victory and hope.

My spirits are uplifted each time I see the church and I am reminded of God's power and truth.

Pray for our ministry here. The efforts at helping Christians grow and prosper in a very difficult place are succeeding but it is slow and challenging. Pray for Galina and her team of intrepid and skilled workers. The culture and society has been severely damaged by seventy years of crushing oppression and trauma. Alcoholism and other addictions are rampant destroying many Christian families. Our friends are making headway but the enemy is strongly resisting.

Gary Sweeten

www.sweetenlife.com

www.liferoute.ru