Love from Russia

I have always been a church goer. Since birth, my mother took me to a church every Sunday. Yet, I always questioned the authencity of what a Christian is. Why they live in that fashion, and why they move the way they do; I decided for my observational essay to inquire about Christianity. At my church, we have an assistant pastor, Rev. Huh. Every Sunday, he comes to church, leads the beginning portion of our service, and sits down and listens to the sermon like everyone else in the congregation. After service, he would drink coffee and eat with us, and afterwards, he would go home. Yet, within what I knew from him, he had a strange aura about him; he seemed different. Naturally I picked Rev. Huh; he made it easy for me to choose my subject. I found out first that he had experience as a missionary in Russia, and he told us a story about what made him who he is now. The story started off in the summer of ’96, in a small town near the capital Moscow. Reverend Huh has been the preacher of a small church and was doing what he had to do, when shocking news came to him. Four of his church members, all teenagers, had been killed. A single mother family, with four boys was a member of his church. The mother had met a man out of town, and fell in love. Believing in love, she gave the man one of the two keys to their house and invited him to come anytime. Two weeks later, this man came to her house when she had gone to work; not for love, but to rob their house. The man was a scam artist and used the name of love to make a way for crime. Coming to their house, he found the four boys passed out after they had drunk lots of alcohol. Not concerned, the man continued to steal items out of the house, when one of the boys had woken up. Still drunk and dazed, the boy did have enough common sense to realize what this man had been doing. Afraid that these boys would break his cover, the man killed each boy, one by one. Afterwards, he had taken the stuff out of the house (which officials later found being one TV, a necklace and a bit of cash), and had run away to the airport. Upon hearing of this disaster, my pastor had cried and cried and hated himself for not being able to talk to them more regarding God and salvation. During this interview, as I saw my pastor tell me this story and of how he felt, I saw in his eyes a passion and love for the work he does at church. Although I myself have a lot of questions and curiosity regarding God, seeing someone so pained over a group of boys that he barely knew, and seeing the passion for God, I started to ask myself what God was all about. What is God, that made Rev. Huh go out to Russia and live there as a missionary for six years? He spoke no Russian, he had no benefit from going, and yet, he went because “God told him to go". His years there had been rough. Each little thing he had to do, from going to the restroom or taking a shower, or sleeping in a warm room, each little thing was always uncomfortable to do and inconvenient to him. Yet, he was there for six years to live as a missionary. I wasn’t able to find the answer through the short time we had for the observational essay, but somewhere in his being, I saw a love for the love he does. It amazed me.

Following links for info on: Christian Mission Movements, Christianity in Russia, History of Christianity