My parents were saved in the Siberian coalmines through a Christian who gave them one page out of the book of St. John. I recall walking long miles to underground meetings where I experienced a deep and personal relationship with God. I will never forget how we former Soviet Union Christians were fined for having meetings in our own homes.  Every one of my pastors were imprisoned for preaching Christ, and those who continued to gather were beaten, laughed at, ridiculed, imprisoned, and sometimes even killed. Many people in the free world have a hard time understanding how the secret police could come into your home and take relatives and members of your

• family away simply because of their faith in God.  This happened to my family!

One night while everyone was asleep, the police broke into our house, turning over furniture and forcing everyone out of bed. As the family stood against the wall they searched through the house. Not finding anything of importance, they took our grandfather. With a gun in his back he was lead outside and pushed into their car. Two months later he was dead, killed in prison for simply believing in God.

These and other stories are not uncommon. Many of the Christians in the former Soviet Union have similar stories to tell. But what happened next is providential and God ordained. In 1985, after a concert in Odessa TX, our traveling concert band "Ruscha" visited a local church during a morning service. I sat in the back pew enjoying the message when the itinerate evangelist suddenly asked me to stand. Never having met each other, I was stunned when he leveled at me and spoke, "Young man, you will go back to your country, you will meet a young woman who will become your wife and you will minister to your people once again". Surprised and confused, I later lamented to my friends, "This isn't possible! Russia is a communist land and nobody can get in or out of that country!" Little did I know that God was at work on the other side of the world.

In 1989 the iron curtain collapsed and Russia went bankrupt. With the collapse of communism the makeup of the world began to change, the balance of power starting to shift as events around the globe caught many countries off guard, throwing them into a whirlpool of uncertainty, drastic economic reforms, radicalism and often fanaticism. With the unexpected breakaway of the USSR republics I was asked to join a special committee and suddenly found myself sitting across the table from influential and powerful people: heads of states, ambassadors, ministers and other political figures of the world. In some instances I had the honor of becoming the first westerner to be invited by a president of a country before ever going to the United States. I welcomed and accepted these changes as a sign from heaven and saw them as immense opportunities for this time and moment of my life. I discovered God's plan for me to be a part of history in helping to shape the political arena of the world and that was exciting! It was excited to see government officials, formerly antagonistic to my convictions and beliefs, now open to the Gospel of Christ! I was amazed to see how God could take a simple, naive young man out of Russia whose only goal in life was to play rock and roll, educate him, give him a pastoral degree, and then send him right back to the same people that persecuted and killed members of his family!

Later, in Moscow while setting up President Alexander Lukashenko’s trip to the U.S. I met a young lady, Nina, a singer and an actress. She had acted in several motion pictures and sang in festivals and theaters all over Russia and Europe. After a brief engagement, we were married, and today, when I am not traveling overseas, she is with me, sharing God’s love with the people of America.