Eighty years ago, the Russian villagers were very simple people. Most of them were farmers. They got their milk from their cows and their eggs from their chickens. They made shirts from flax they grew in their fields. They repeated the same prayers over and over, in churches filled with paintings, crosses and incense. They had little education. Most of these farmers had never traveled more than fifty miles in their lives, only to the next village. They had barely heard of that faraway land, over twelve hundred miles away, a town which they called Kitai, in a country we call China.
In 1917, the Communists seized control over the land of Russia. The Communists wanted everything in Russia to belong to the state - the government. They wanted everybody to work for the state. They wanted to own all the farms, all the schools, all the newspapers, all the factories, all the churches. They said rich people had caused all of Russia's problems. In America, your father pays taxes. Some of the money he earns goes to the government to pay for roads, schools and policemen. But if anybody in Russia had a successful business, the Communists wanted to take all the money he earned, so the government could own everything and pay for everything. Today most people don't believe in Communism, but for 75 years, it completely ruled Russia. These new rulers were against God. They said, "We will build a happy society. We will build a new world without God. We don't need God. There is no God."
About 1923, the Lord sent a man from New York City to bring the light of the Gospel to Russia and the Ukraine. He had been born in Russia and came back with his family from the land of plenty, filled with the Holy Spirit, in obedience to God's prophetic word. This man preached the message of the apostles. He preached the message of salvation, holiness, and repentance. He told them that when God's people seek His face, they will experience the blessing of the Lord, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and the miracles of God's power. These simple farmers believed the message they heard. The word of God spread like a wildfire through many villages, many towns. By the time the secret police arrested this preacher in 1929 and sent him to a prison camp in Siberia, God had established more than 350 churches throughout the Ukraine and Russia.
At first, even though they were under Communist rule, there was not yet much persecution. It took sixteen years for the Communists to gain in strength, to seize the people's property, to crush the people's will. Until then, people still had some freedom to travel and preach the Gospel. The Lord used those peasants, traveling on foot, on horses and on carts, to spread His good news throughout Russia. The Lord would pick out His messengers by the Holy Spirit. He would tell them to fast and pray. He would tell them the name of a village, the name of a street, and the name of a person where they should go. When they came to a village, they would find people getting drunk on vodka. People would be praying in front of paintings and crosses. But the Lord knew who was prepared to receive the message in that village. The brothers would go to his house. They would start singing and preaching the message.
Before you knew it, the whole village had gathered by the prompting of the Holy Spirit. When they heard the truth, most of the villagers came to the Lord. As they were empowered by the Holy Spirit, God began to work miracles. These messengers were not people with mighty speech. They were simple, uneducated people of God carrying the message and the power of the Holy Spirit - simple farmers, like the simple fishermen in the days of Christ. Those who remember those days will tell you that all the miracles in the book of Acts and the Old Testament were repeated in Russia, including the resurrection of the dead.
At that time Russia did not have many Bibles. So the Lord taught them by the Holy Spirit, by direct revelation, by visions, by angels, and by the word of prophecy. God was preparing Russia for the great and dark hours of godless atheism and persecution. They did not build churches because they had no time. If they had time, they wouldn't have been able to build fast enough, because multitudes were coming to the Lord. So believers gathered in homes.
Every night the believers had mighty prayer meetings. It was nothing unusual to pray for two, three, or four hours. In these meetings, God spoke, rebuked, encouraged, and revealed the secret sins of their hearts. Even while people traveled on foot to those home meetings, they trembled in the fear of the Lord. They knew they had better walk very gently, very softly, and they had better walk holy. Otherwise, as they entered the room, the Lord might reveal their sin right on the spot. Yes, God was blessing His people. They knew the Lord is alive. But of course, at that time they were walking in the fear of the Lord - in simple obedience and trust - a humble people of God.
From 1917 to about 1933, the Communists left the people very untouched. People had their own houses. They had their own cattle. They still had their own farms. They were fairly well off. About 1928, the Lord started to speak to those home groups throughout Russia about the things to come. The Lord said by the Holy Spirit, "My children, great starvation will come to this land. And after that, this country will endure great bloodshed and much suffering. My children, if you will believe my voice and obey Me, I'll lead you out into another country. I want to save you from the great sufferings which are coming upon this land." Many people throughout Russia heard that same message about the days to come. The Lord said to them, "My children, pray and seek my face, and I'll direct you." But out of those many thousands of Christians who bore witness to the Gospel of the living God, just a few hundred believed His word.
Around 1931, the call of God came, "My people, get ready to move out." "Lord, when do you want us to move out?" they asked. "Lord, where do you want us to go?" They were praying and fasting, because when the Lord warns you, there is time to seek the Lord's face. To these farmers who were praying and fasting, the Lord said, "I will move you out into another country." Now, these people had no cars or trucks, only horses and buggies. And yet God was going to lead them to an unknown country far away! The Lord spoke to a large group of families from central Ukraine, near the city of Kiev. He told them to move to the next city south, and they obeyed. When they came to that city, the Lord told them to move on to another city, and they obeyed. He was moving them from city to city, giving them names and addresses as in the book of Acts.
They had no maps, because nobody in Russia could buy maps in those days. They never had anyone to guide them because they could not reveal their intent. The Communists were already gaining strict control over all the people. Nobody could move freely in and out. Even in the villages, everybody was being watched by the state police. Nobody was allowed to travel without permission. Each villager was told to spy on his neighbor and report to the secret police. As the believers moved from town to town, eventually they came to the border of Russia and China. And there on the border, the people faced a test, just as the children of Israel faced. The Lord brought them to a stop. At this stopping place, the people were praying constantly. Every day they asked, "Lord, what's next? Lord, what do we have to do now?" And the Lord said, "My children, just wait and be patient. I'll tell you when to move."
In the meantime they had to feed their children, and these families had many children. So they went into the orchards and dug irrigation ditches, doing anything and everything possible, trying to get a piece of bread. And they had to live someplace. So they went outside the town to the mountains. That was their dwelling place. The whole group lived there in the mountains for a long time, seeking the face of the Lord, asking, "Lord, what is next?" They were not starving. No, they had bread, but it wasn't very comfortable to live in the mountains. It wasn't very comfortable to depend on the Lord from day to day for their food, since they had no secure jobs. Their only security was in the Lord. Early in the morning, a brother would come out to sing a song, a psalm, with his big voice. Then everybody woke up, washed their faces and came out worshiping the Lord on the grass in front of their dwellings. They praised God and raised their prayers to the Lord, seeking His guidance, His direction and His protection.
But before long, the murmuring started in the camp. Following the Lord is not all carpets and roses. They said, "We left our cattle, and we left our milk cows. There's no milk for our children here. Lord, what do we do?" Wives started to complain to their husbands. "Now what? What is this? We are stuck here. There is no going ahead. We don't hear any more instructions from God. He told us He would deliver us into a new country. But here we are, still in Russia, and in such poverty." Yet back home, everything was still peaceful and abundant. So many of them began talking about going back to their cattle, to their farms, to their milk cows, and to their warm houses. They said, "This must not have been of the Lord." They said this even though they were led supernaturally from city to city, for more than a thousand miles, to the border of another country!
During one of those prayer times on the border, the Lord said to them, "My children, just be patient. Humble yourselves and pray. I'm going to lead you to another country." "I'm going to save you from great trouble and great suffering. Just trust me. For if anybody returns, their children will be taken away from them, and their husbands will go into exile in Siberia." In spite of that warning, most of them returned home. In the end, only about forty faithful families were left by the border of China.
Less than two years later, a ruthless time of persecution and trouble came upon Russia. 1933 was the year the state took away all private property, seizing all houses, land, horse-carts, horses. Everything went to the state. They even took away the farmers' food to force them to join the collective state farms. Those who did not want to go, died of starvation along with their families. In 1933, six million Ukrainians alone starved to death, including many Christians. So the word of the Lord came to pass, down to the last detail. Most of the Christian brothers who had turned back at the border - plus thousands more - were sent to prison camps in Siberia as enemies of the people. Their children were taken away from them, just as God said, and taught there is no God. Beginning in 1933, Russia knew great, crushing trouble. Meanwhile, the simple farmers were a thousand miles away.
Back at the border, a couple of months after the other group had turned back to Russia, the little remnant heard the voice of the Lord say, "My children, get ready to move into another country." As they were fasting and praying, the Lord divided those forty families into four groups. He named the heads of the families in each group. He said to each one, "My son, you will be leaving on such and such day at such and such a time. I'll lead you into another country." The believers said, "But Lord, the secret police is watching us. How can we go anywhere?" And God said, "My children, don't worry. I'll lead you out."
He told one group to leave at midnight. They prayed all evening right up to midnight. When midnight came, they were still seeking the Lord in prayer, saying, "If you told us, help us and lead us out." Then at midnight, the Lord raised a great storm. The wind was so strong and loud, even the dogs on the streets didn't bark. Everybody in town went into hiding. No secret police were watching the streets. The streets were empty. Then, in the midst of the storm, the Lord said, "My children, it's time to move out." They went quietly from the mountains on the outskirts of that town into the darkness of the night. The Lord led them in the darkness through the wild paths in the bush. He kept telling them to turn right, turn left. They would have never known where to go otherwise. And so, turning them left and turning them right, group by group, the Lord led them all across the border to China.
One group left when the moon was shining, but it was still dark. The path the Lord was leading them on was wide and worn. Suddenly the Lord said to them, "Turn to the right, my children." The way to the right was only a little path going into the bush, so they stopped there. Two of the brothers, the ones who were to lead, started reasoning and said, "Well, why should we go to the right? This is a very big path here, and it's very easy for our children to walk on it. We have our children to think about. We have our kettles of water to carry." They said if they went through the bush, they might scratch themselves, and they might have to do this and they might have to do that. And so they said, "No, let's go straight." After that, of course, they heard no more words from the Lord. Do you think they disobeyed? All they did was to walk straight!
Not very long after this, the people came to a swamp. And those two brothers, who had rejected the divine leadership of the Lord, happened to fall into the water. As they started sinking in the mud, they cried, "Lord, help us." The other men had to take off their shirts, quickly make a rope and throw it to them, to save them from certain death. When they came to the shore, they were all soaking wet. The people started to weep bitterly, "Lord, forgive us. We disobeyed Your voice, Lord. We wanted to go on the easier path. Lord, forgive us, Lord." They repented and prayed for hours, but they still could not hear the voice of God.
Eventually, as they were finally broken down, truly crying before the Lord, He spoke to them again. He sternly rebuked them saying, "Never, never disobey the commandments of the Lord when He wants to lead you to safety." So the Lord told them to go back to the point where they had turned aside. When they turned onto that little, wild path, it led them completely around the swamp. It took them in a circle, but they were all on a dry ground. On the other side of that swamp, their animals stopped to drink. And once again the people were on a wide road. The Lord knew how to lead them around the swamp, but the people wanted to go straight.
God led each group on a different path and in different ways. One group, as it crossed into China, came into a desolate wilderness, with sand and nothing else, where no plants grew. The Lord said, "Just walk through. Go straight." So they began walking through on foot. The children were crying. The heat of the sun was burning them, and the water in their kettles ran out. They kept walking for hours. They began crying, "Lord, we are exhausted. We are thirsty, Lord. Our children are crying. Lord, what we are to do?" The brothers called the group to prayer. They bowed down before the Lord and started to cry, "Lord, what do we do, Lord? We'll die in this wilderness, Lord, if You do not help us."
Then the Lord told them, through the Holy Spirit, "My children, go so many steps to the right and dig." So the brothers obeyed the Lord. They went to the right as the Lord directed, so many steps, and they started digging. They had hardly dug more than a foot when water came gushing out. The people began praising the Lord. They drank, then they laid back on the sand, and they drank again. Everybody quenched his thirst and they filled their teapots. They were glorifying the Lord's name, that He is able to supply water even in the wilderness where there was no water.
When all those groups had come safely into China in 1932, the Lord led them into the same little town, in an isolated, mountain area of western China. Few people were living there, mostly Turks, but it had very rich soil. They gathered in fellowship again, and started to farm, and the Lord blessed them mightily. Other groups of believers later made their way to China. One brother from the eastern Ukraine had been ministering to the people in his village. His name was Ivan, a man of prayer. The Lord was with him and was teaching him. This brother was fairly well-off, because he had eight cows and two purebred horses. If you had eight cows in Russia in those days, you had a very good farming operation. By this time, Ivan knew that great trouble was coming on the believers in Russia. All the people had heard those rumors. So this brother was praying to the Lord, "You know what these people are saying. There are rumors that we'll be persecuted and killed in Russia or sent to Siberia. So Lord, help us, and protect us. Lord, save us."
One night while he was praying, the Lord said to him, "My son Ivan, I'll lead you into another country. Get ready for the journey to Kitai." In those days, nobody was allowed to leave his town or village without permission from the Communist authorities. And China was almost thousand miles away! But the Lord told Ivan what night he would leave. "On that night, at dusk, in the darkness, you are going to leave this village." "Leave your house. Leave your cattle. Leave your purebred horses," the Lord said. "Leave everything." "Harness your milk cow onto the horse cart. Take a couple of bags of millet grain and some other food and leave this village." The Lord even told him which cow to take, by name. The Lord told Ivan to leave the village by a certain side road, and the Lord gave him the name of the next village where he should go.
Ivan was puzzled about why God wanted him to harness his cow to the horse-cart, since he had two good horses to carry him. But because he was a man of prayer and obedience, he obeyed the Lord. And so, when the night came, he harnessed his cow to the horse-cart. He lit the lights in the house. He fed his cattle and his horses. Then he put his children and wife on the horse-cart and began quietly leaving the village. As they were driving their cart down the road at dusk, the people of the village saw them. But seeing the cow in the dark, the villagers thought they were just a band of gypsies. Gypsies were traveling foreigners in Russia - horse-traders, musicians or fortune-tellers. They often had cows pulling their wagons. If this brother had taken his purebred horses, the people would have immediately recognized that he was leaving the village. But nobody stopped Ivan.
Then, a few hours later, that same night, right after midnight, the secret police came to Ivan's house to arrest him as an enemy of the people. They said he was a rich man, since he had eight cows. They came to seize his property, and to take him away to Siberia or to be shot. But when the police came for Ivan, he had just disappeared! They didn't know what to do. His horses were still there. His possessions were still there. The lights were on in his house, but the man and his family were gone. The police were amazed! So they waited for morning. Then they saw tracks leaving the gate. They harnessed Ivan's horses and rode off in pursuit along that main road. Of course they pursued him a long time for nothing, because the Lord had sent him on a different road. Meanwhile, Ivan was traveling to the village where the Lord had sent him. God promised Ivan that He would take him to Kitai. But of course Ivan didn't know how to get to Kitai. He had no beautiful road maps like people in America have. He had no signs saying how many miles it was to the next town.
So Ivan had to totally depend upon the Lord. All he knew was the name of the next village. He was praying all the time, especially at night, since it was summertime. As they traveled, the cow pulled the wagon. Sometimes they pastured her and milked her. They used her milk to make porridge from the millet, to feed the children. They praised God. If they traveled on horses, they couldn't have milked their horses. But they milked their cow. So the Lord uses the simple, the uneducated, the most unwise of this world to confound the wise and the prudent. The Lord put the secret police to shame by leading this man to safety behind a cow. When Ivan came to that next village, which wasn't very far, he prayed with his family. "Lord, Lord, is this Kitai?" He didn't know how far away China was. The Lord said, "My son Ivan, this is not Kitai yet. I'll take you to Kitai." The Lord told him the name of the next village, and he just moved on. The next day, the Lord told him the next address and so on.
Ivan had to ask people, "How do I get to this village? Where is the road?" And they'd point him in the right direction. He happened to be moving south, toward China, without knowing where he went. Ivan just kept on traveling, and before he knew it, it was the end of summer. It took him all summer to travel from the middle of Russia to the border of Kitai, by the direction of the Lord. But as Ivan came close to the border, he found that German sheep dogs and guards on horses were constantly patrolling it, because the Communists did not want the people to leave Russia.
And when the guards saw a man with a family traveling in the direction of China, naturally they became very suspicious. So they stopped him. They took his cow. They took away his cart and made him a prisoner. They caught some other people who also looked suspicious to them. The men were made to work with scythes, cutting the dry hay for the guards' horses. The guards put the families into tents as a temporary dwelling place. Now Ivan couldn't leave. He was forced to work all day for the guards. At night, he wept in prayer, "Lord what is this? You told me you would lead me to safety. You said you'd lead me to Kitai, but now here I am. I lost my house, Lord. I lost everything back home. I left as you told me, Lord. Now I've lost my cow, Lord. I've lost my horse-cart. I have nothing left, Lord! What is going on?" The Lord comforted him, saying, "My son, cheer up and don't worry. Just trust me. I'll take you to Kitai yet."
Then one day, a large grass fire suddenly broke out. The wind began to blow. The dry hay burned very quickly, moving towards the tents. Though it was still a distance away, the border guards started to panic. They gave some orders, then ran for their lives. The men dropped their scythes and they ran to their tents to get their families to safety. As the wind increased in force, the fire came at them faster and faster. Everybody started to run. Ivan grabbed his wife and children and they ran away from the fire too. They were crying, "Lord, what is this?" They ran for a long time, until they were exhausted.
When they had reached safety, Ivan's family fell down on the grass, unable to move any farther, and started to weep. On his knees, Ivan cried, "Lord, here is my family. We are running and we are in such desperate need, Lord. What is this that is happening to me? Lord, where am I?" And the Lord said to him, "My son, this is Kitai."
Ivan and his wife started to praise the Lord. They rejoiced that through the fire, He had brought them to China. And then the Lord led them to the very same town where the other four groups had already settled. Ivan, who had lost his house, built a good house in China, and he had many more cows, and many more horses. So the Lord, for his obedience, returned much more than he lost in Russia. He would have lost even more that very night, except for his obedience to the Lord's voice.
So these simple people who trusted the Lord to bring them to Kitai never saw the starvation in the Ukraine. They never saw the persecution and the trials. They never saw their children being taken away. They never saw the prison camps in Siberia and all the terrible things which happened to Russia from 1933 on. Many millions of people died but they escaped. Everything the Lord promised them came to pass. He delivered them from their country, from starvation and from persecution. The Lord even saved them from the Second World War, which took the lives of twenty million people from Russia and the Ukraine. They never even heard there had been a war, until Russian letters and trucks started to come to China in 1948. For there was no radio, and no mail, in those very desolate areas in the mountains of China. Then they learned that many lives had been lost in Russia and in the Ukraine.
For the Lord protected them from calamity when he led them out to another land. They were living a very, very, blessed life in China. These simple people never even knew about the war and starvation in Russia, until after the war was over. Of course they weren't rich by American standards. No, they were still simple farmers, but they had their cattle and they had their milk. They built very simple houses - mud houses with dirt floors, earthen walls and some poles for the roof, covered with straw.
But in those very simple dwellings the people gathered for prayers daily, before work and in the evenings, all across town. They raised their voices with one accord, as the early disciples did in chapter 4 of Acts. In those mighty prayer meetings, the young people would gather in a room, in a simple hut, with older brothers, with grandmothers and grandfathers. Heaven came down. The Holy Spirit fell on them and talked to the young people, to rebuke them, comfort them, and reveal the secrets of their hearts.
Sometimes during a meeting the Holy Spirit revealed the secret things of an unbeliever's heart. They broke down and started weeping. Literally falling down on their faces, they said, "Truly God is with you. Nobody but God knew what I have done in my life, and God has revealed it to you. You people never met me before!" Many Slavic villages, who spoke their language, had sprung up in that part of China. Before the Communist revolution, while there was still freedom and the borders were not yet guarded, thousands of Russians and Ukrainians had fled Russia and came to China. The Lord started to send this simple group of forty families into those nearby villages, preaching the Gospel. Within a few short years, they had gathered the first harvest in China - about five hundred members. The main church met in the town where the Lord had brought them, even though little groups met in different villages.
Not long after they arrived, in the springtime, God warned that the people of God, the whole church, should move out of town, just to the outskirts, because war was coming, a slaughter in the city. And of course, the people of God were obedient. They took their time because God gave them time. So they gradually moved out of town, to a particular district where God had directed them. One brother was living right in the town's fortress, where the army was stationed. There, surrounded by high walls, he had bought a house. He was working for the army, with good pay and benefits. He lived farther away than most of the congregation - maybe five or six miles away - and often he couldn't make it to the prayer meetings because he was too busy working. But he was still a vessel of God, a prophet of God. God told him personally, "My son, get away from this place because there'll be destruction and killing." He told him to move to the same district as the others.
This brother, this prophet, heard the voice of God, but he hesitated. He did not want to move because he had a good job and he was sorry to leave his house behind. So he dickered with God. Yes he did! He said, "God, if you'll send me someone to buy my house for such and such a price, I'll move out." So the next day, God sent him a Turkish man who said, "I want to buy your house. How much do you want for it?" The brother hadn't spoken to anybody about it but God, so he didn't know what to say. "Well, do you want to sell it?" asked the Turkish man. The brother answered, "Yes," and gave him the price he had in mind. "OK, I'll buy it right now," the Turkish man replied. But the brother hesitated. "No, let me talk to my wife and we 'll think about it. Come back later." So the brother didn't sell the house, even though there was no dickering, and the Turkish man was willing to pay the full price he was asking - quite a good price.
The same night, the Lord told him again, "My son, move out of the city because the righteous will suffer greatly. There'll be great bloodshed here. Move to such and such a place." But the brother was still dickering with God. "God, if You will send a man who will give me a bigger price, I'll sell." Sure enough, God sent another good Turkish man. "Are you willing to sell your house?" he asked. "Yes," said the brother. "How much you want for it?" He gave him a bigger price now. And that Turkish man said, "OK, I'll buy it." And yet, once again the brother changed his mind and he didn't sell the house. So what happened to this brother? God said to him, "You are going to suffer consequences because you disobeyed me."
This brother had a side business weaving baskets and chairs from willow branches. He was making good money selling them. He would go to the river just outside of town to gather branches. The river was divided in two, with an island in the middle. Around a grassy field in the center of the island grew many wonderful willow trees. He cut branches from them, brought them to shore in his boat, then took them home to make baskets and chairs. One day on that island, the Holy Spirit suddenly came upon him mightily and he fell to his knees in fear. He started praying in the power of the Holy Spirit, and crawling on his hands and knees across the grassy field. After this prophet had been crawling for a long time, the Holy Spirit raised him to his feet. And the Lord spoke to him. "My son, this is how you will run away - on your hands and knees - if you do not obey me and leave the city. If you don't, you will suffer greatly. And as a sign that the Lord has spoken to you, this island will burn - all of it. Only the path where you been crawling on your knees will be left."
So the brother became fearful. When he got home, he talked to his wife and began saying things like, "Well, maybe we should move out." But after a little while, he started making his baskets again and got busy with his other work. His business was going well. So he forgot all about what God had told him, and he did not move out.
That fall he went to the same island to cut some more willows, one last batch before winter. But when he came to the island, there were no willows to cut. The whole island was burned to the ground. Only the path where he had crawled was still covered with grass, about four or five yards wide and the length of his crawl. It hadn't burned. That rectangular patch was left as a sign for him. And even then, this prophet of God did not obey God and move out of town.
Late in the fall, while the brother was working for the army at his house, war came, just as the Lord had said. During the fighting, many people in the town were killed and their houses burned and destroyed. Both the Turkish people and Russian people suffered. But God protected His people who had moved out, and none of them suffered. They heard the shooting of the rifles from a distance. But they never felt any danger because they were under the hand of God.
Invading soldiers took over the city and captured the fortress where this brother was living. The air was filled with the sound of killing and burning. They arrested the brother, his family, and some others who were not believers. They kept his family captive in a house within the fortress. It was almost winter, with snow on the ground. It was very cold. The soldiers brought all the men to the inside wall of the fortress. As he stood in line, this brother saw that the soldiers, under their officer's command, were shooting the men in front of him, one by one, with rifles, against the wall. Now this brother was praying hard, of course. "Lord, have mercy upon me. Lord, have mercy upon me." Now he found time to pray. He was praying very hard now.
Suddenly, the power of the Holy Spirit came upon him strongly, and he was thrown against the wall. A little creek bed ran through the fortress grounds. Since it was winter, the creek was dry. But a small passage, a very narrow opening, remained underneath the wall. It was just big enough for the creek to go through, a very tight spot. The Holy Spirit threw that brother headlong into that opening. When the man saw what God wanted him to do, he started to crawl through that tight hole very fast. The soldiers tried to grab him and one of his boots came off in their hands. When he had passed through the fortress wall, he only had one boot. And then he started to crawl on his hands and knees over the cold snow, away from the army. Several soldiers, high on the fortress wall, began shooting down at him with their rifles, at close range. He kept crawling away, crawling and praying hard, "Lord, forgive me. Lord, help me. Lord, save me."
As he crawled over the snowy ground, the brother heard the bullets whistling by his left ear, his right ear, and above his head. Even his hat was punctured several times with bullets. All around him he could see the bullets raising the dirt and snow. But because God was merciful, never once was he hit by a bullet. His hands and knees were bleeding, torn by the rough ground he was crawling over. But he kept crawling across the field, through the small bushes, until he had reached the forest's edge. Then in the forest he was able to stand on his feet and run with all his might.
The man ran to that area outside the city where God had told all the other believers to go. The others had already moved out several weeks before. Some of them had moved out a couple of months before. He came to one of the brothers' houses in the darkness of the night, crying and bleeding, half-frozen, with one bare foot and one boot. A mighty prayer meeting was going on inside the house. God raised up a prophet to speak to this man, even though nobody at the meeting knew what had happened. The Lord rebuked him sternly for disobeying His voice, and called him to repentance, The man repented thoroughly. After the prayer meeting he told them what had happened to him. Crying bitterly, he told the others, even the young people. "Young people, always be obedient to the Lord. Never disobey the voice of God when God tells you to do something." And so the sign God gave him on the island was fulfilled to the letter. He saved his life only by crawling on his hands and knees.
When everything was settled down again, God told the believers to move back to town. They went back to their own houses, their own work. Not even one soul perished. Only this man suffered greatly. And the man's wife and children were treated very badly in captivity in that fortress, because he had disobeyed. For several years, there was peace once more in China. But God warned the believers that hard times would return. "Great destruction is coming," the Lord said. "There will be shooting and killing and seizing of property." The Lord said His people should prepare to move out again. He would be faithful to deliver them into a free country, a land of milk and honey. Another Russian church in that city, who also called themselves Bible Christians, eventually heard what the prophets were saying. But most people in that church made fun of the word of the Lord. They laughed and they said, "This is all from the devil. This is not for us. We already have the Holy Spirit. And we don't have to pray for it, we don't have to call on God, we don't have to prophesy."
But a few ladies in that church began asking the sisters, "Now tell us what God is saying. What is going to happen to us? What is going to take place?" The sisters shared, "All those who will pray, all those who will believe the voice of the Holy Spirit, will be led out to a land of milk and honey. All those who do not believe, who do not want to pray, who do not want to seek God's face and God's help, they will be taken to Russia and many of them will die there." Several of the ladies believed the word of God and they talked to their husbands about it. Eventually quite a few of them - not many, but quite a few - started attending prayer meetings. Soon God baptized them with the Holy Spirit and they entered into the blessing of the Lord. God gave a spirit of prophecy to some of them.
The Lord had already been speaking to His people. "My children, Kitai is only a stopping station for you. I will lead you out into a free country where milk and honey is flowing. There you will meet many people who bear My name, but do not serve Me as they ought. And you will testify of My power and My commandments and of My will for them."
In 1947, in obedience to God's word, most of the 500 praying believers left China. They traveled from west China across to east China, then to the Philippines, and then to Paraguay and then to America, carrying the Gospel. About fifty families remained behind, as a testimony. When the hard times didn't come right away, when the rulers didn't change, when life remained free and good and plentiful, many people in the other Russian church, especially the pastors, became boastful. They mocked God's people, calling them names because of their mighty prayers, day and night.
Nevertheless, God's warning came to pass. In 1948, a year after the first group of believers left, Communist soldiers took over western China. By 1949, the red banner of Communism flew throughout the country. China became friends with Russia. Then the same things that had happened in Russia started happening in China. The Communist rulers began seizing property, killing and persecuting Christians, just as they had in Russia. Within four or five years the Chinese Communists had forced most of the people onto collective farms. If you had four cows, they said you were an enemy of the people. They would take you on a truck outside the village and you would never come back. As simple as that. Life was very cheap in China.
The Communists in China allowed each person one yard of cloth a year, less than two pounds of oil a month, and a very meager ration of rice. People couldn't survive on so little. But the Lord preserved His people. The brothers went into the mountains to hunt fowl and wild game. None of their families starved, in spite of the starvation and death of the Chinese and Turkish people around them. Meanwhile, the remaining believers were still praying, every morning and every night, all over town. "Help, Lord. You promised us," they would cry. "Lord, you'll deliver us, Lord, you'll help us." And the Lord was comforting them, revealing to them the things to come. Within a couple of years of preaching by those few families, the church was filled once again, with 500 people or more. Because of the great trials and troubles, many people were coming to the Lord.
When the Communists took over China, they wanted to take over the churches as well. But the brothers refused to compromise. Several were sent to prison. They endured severe persecutions. Most of the pastors were sent to prison camps; working day and night deep in the mines, with little food, harassed and beaten. The Communists sentenced some of them to prison for the rest of their lives. They said, "We will never let you go anywhere." But the believers continued to say, "God is going to lead us to a land of milk and honey. We will not stay here." Of course, the unbelievers were mocking them, and the Communists said, "You're in our hands. We'll do what we want with you. We'll never let you go. You'll rot in prison. We'll kill you all, but we'll never let you go." But the people said, "We will trust our living Lord and His promises. He'll lead us out."
But when the hard times finally came, the people in the other Russian church gave in, because they were not filled with the Spirit of God. Under persecution, pressure and fear, they compromised with the Communist state. In the church building, right above the pulpit where the pastors preached, they hung the red Communist banner and the portraits of the godless Communist leaders. The two pastors told the church, "These are our helpers, they're our leaders." Later every member of that church accepted red Communist passports and they were all taken to Russia, about one hundred people. They allowed their churches to be watched and controlled by the secret police. In some of these churches, the pastors were even chosen by the secret police! Many of these people from China later died in Russia.
Back in China, God was leading the remnant of His people into other countries, to lands of milk and honey. He slowly led them across China by groups, or by families, or one by one, on foot, on horses, and then later on, on trucks and trains. God moved them more than four thousand miles to the city of Shanghai, on China's east coast, a city with millions of people. This was the Lord's miraculous work, because traveling in China was not allowed. Before you could leave town, you had to have a travel permit, with four stamps from four different state offices, along with your reason for going, where you were going, and when you would come back. Everything had to be in writing and signed. If the Communist police caught you with no travel permit, they would send you back, harass you and threaten you with prison. But with the living God it was all possible.
Eventually all the people of faith, the people of prayer, all those who wanted to walk closer to the Lord - every one of these people escaped from China. Even the brothers who had been sent to prison for life! First they went to Hong Kong, where they were threatened by the authorities and then released. They went next to Australia, then to Canada and America. Then what happened to the believers? After they came to Australia and Canada, they were no longer hungry, persecuted or poor. "What a blessed country," they thought excitedly. "What abundance, what variety, what beauty. This is paradise on earth." Their eyes ran in all directions. They started to build houses, to get jobs, to get money.
The Lord had told them to be a living witness to those in the countries of freedom and plenty. But slowly, bit by bit, those everyday prayer meetings became less and less frequent. Now their new houses weren't big enough anymore. So they would build bigger houses with more bedrooms, more carpet, more beautiful ornaments. The brothers went from one house to two houses, and then to two jobs, to get more money. Before they knew it, people could hardly tell most of the believers from the world around them. In the land of plenty, most of these believers grieved the Holy Spirit. Back in Russia and China, God had worked miracles and gave spiritual gifts. Now the miracles and wonders departed; the presence of the Lord departed; the glory of the Lord departed. The church lost everything.
But even in Australia and in Canada, the Lord was calling the people to repentance. A few were still faithful to the Lord, as the older generation had been. One brother from China, named Boris, and his young wife had become busy up to their necks with church work in Australia. He was a minister. He was a youth director. He was leading the choir. He was busy. He had no time for prayer. He had no time for repentance. He had no time for the Word of God. Then, so slowly, their prayer life went away, and was replaced by meetings and conferences and church activities and various things.
Yet the Lord, by His mercy, sent His prophets to Boris in Australia, several times. The Lord rebuked him and told him, "Repent. Start searching the Scriptures and turn to the narrow way." But Boris had no time to search the Scriptures because he was busy doing church work. In 1969, Boris and his family moved to Canada. There, he bought a big farm and got into big debt. He worked eight hours a day on the farm and eight hours a day in construction as a carpenter. Now he had no time forhis church work, for printing and missions and radio. The Lord sent a prophet from another city, a person who was still walking close to the Lord. The Lord revealed the secrets of Boris's heart. God gave him a last, stern warning to go back to the narrow way. If not, God was going to judge him.
One night, in a vision, the Lord showed Boris that he was headed down a broad road to destruction, heading for a point of no return. In the vision, he saw himself throw his hands in the air, crying, "Have mercy upon me, Lord." Then he turned around and the vision ended. The next day, Boris was building a two-story A-frame house, putting shingles on the steep roof. His foot slipped on the snow, and he fell off the roof, face down. The last thing he remembered was crying, "Lord, have mercy upon me!" His hands were raised as they had been in the vision, then he remembered no more. His chest hit a tall stump.
By the laws of physics, Boris should have been dead. But when they x-rayed him at the hospital, no ribs were broken, and nothing was damaged inside. He was only bruised. Boris knew it was God's last warning. He and his family began to pray and search the Word of God for an hour or more every morning, and in the evening as well, trying to find the narrow way again. The Lord opened their eyes. As they studied the Word, the Lord told them to repent of many things. After they had repented, and only then, the Lord started to talk to them personally again, bringing them back to that narrow way and that narrow walk.
Nearly eighty years have passed since those simple Russian farmers began their journey to Kitai. Like the children of Israel, that journey led them through the desert and over the mountains. It led them through the fire and over the water, to alluring lands of milk and honey. It led them through many nations and cities and towns and villages. But even today, some of their children are still looking for one particular city, one not made by human hands. Their journey has not ended yet. Has yours?
Based on What Awaits Anabaptists in the Last Days? by Brother Boris Sorokovsky, P.O. Box 400, Lac La Hache, B.C., V0K 1T0 Canada. Adapted by Michael McGinnis, © 2002 .