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From Communist Russia to the Holy Land · Pastor Plek's Podcast

0:06
SPEAKER_01: And welcome back to Pastor Plex Podcast.
0:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, Pastor Plek, and joining me is a good friend uh who is visiting us from uh the nation state of Israel and just want to say hey to Sergei.
0:17
SPEAKER_01: How are we doing?
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, sir.
0:18
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Pastor.
0:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm as well.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Shalom.
0:20
SPEAKER_01: Shalom.
0:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and so you are actually an Israeli citizen.
0:24
SPEAKER_01: Yes, correct.
0:25
SPEAKER_01: It didn't always start out that way.
0:26
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
0:27
SPEAKER_01: So tell me about your journey.
0:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think you were telling me it was from Belarus, like like Russian like person over here.
0:36
SPEAKER_01: Not really speaking, yes, Russian.
0:38
SPEAKER_01: Russian speaking.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
0:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: And you have to explain this for Americans.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: We know nothing.
0:42
SPEAKER_01: Like Poland, Belarus, Russia, it's all the same.
0:46
SPEAKER_01: It's confusing.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: We need some help.
0:48
SPEAKER_01: I might have to give us some World War II history.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: Uh what tell us about what it was like growing up in Belarus, because it was originally a part of the USSR at the time.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
0:57
SPEAKER_02: I was born and raised in 1970.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: I was born in 1974, raised under USSR, which was an experience in itself.
1:04
SPEAKER_01: So Mikhail Gorbachev, like that, like I remember being in the 80s and like all of that.
1:10
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
1:11
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:12
SPEAKER_02: He he's the person that uh was uh instrumental.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: He was used of God to bless millions and millions and millions of people with freedom.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
1:21
SPEAKER_02: In the beginning of the 90s, end of 80s.
1:24
SPEAKER_01: So how did that like when I when I just thinking back to Gorbachev, like because at the time, you know, I was a kid, I just remember, you know, Gorbachev represented all of um the USSR and Russia, and and then somehow either Ronald Reagan cracked him, or you know, it was we don't we don't have the right.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: So what's the the Russian history version of Mikhail Gorbachev?
1:49
SPEAKER_01: He was a great leader then, or someone who brought in freedom?
1:53
SPEAKER_02: Yes, he he was a leader, you know.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's interesting that uh the Bible says that God uh raises up kings and he uh takes care of the people's hearts, he's able to touch people's hearts.
2:06
SPEAKER_02: And uh Mikhail Gorbachev, you know, his heart somehow was touched to bring some uh adjustments, so to speak, to the former Soviet Union or to make life or to make the progress for people better.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: What was the life like though?
2:20
SPEAKER_01: What was it like I because I can't even conceive of it as being a freedom person here in America where you can do whatever you want to do, there is no rules other than like, you know, don't murder people and stay on your side of the lane for traffic.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: What what what what was so bad about it?
2:37
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, so bad was that uh basically the price that the population of the former USSR had to pay to get where they were.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: You know, World War II, as you mentioned before, yeah, you know, uh it claimed the lives of tens and tens of millions of uh Soviet citizens at the same time, the leadership uh of former USSR, uh uh Lenin, Stalin, and all of the leaders, they killed and murdered millions and millions of their citizens in the name of building a better society.
3:12
SPEAKER_01: Wow, okay.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: So growing up with that, that's in your background, and when I think about it, like I think 1974, let's just take it to 1980 as a little kid.
3:22
SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're only 35 years removed from World War II, correct, and which is crazy.
3:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and so your parents clearly were they uh or at least grandparents for sure, but like you had a oh like it was a recent history.
3:39
SPEAKER_01: Stalin was fairly recent history, yes, uh, and was it Khrushchev after him?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh and so you had and what was like all of these uh different economic attempts that just came at failure after failure after failure until Gorbachev was there, and that you're you know, Russia's nuclear power at that time, right?
4:00
SPEAKER_01: Yes, definitely.
4:01
SPEAKER_01: And so uh what was and and kind of like the USA and Russia were always sort of going at it with an arms race.
4:09
SPEAKER_01: So tell me about what it was like as a kid.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Like, did you have food on the table?
4:14
SPEAKER_01: Was and then maybe before and after, like before freedom, after freedom.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: Uh there's a little story.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: Uh you mentioned World War II.
4:23
SPEAKER_02: Uh, my mom, she was born in 1940.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
4:26
SPEAKER_02: And she was about four years old, right before the liberation of the uh Belarusian Soviet Republic.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh she recalls that she was at home with uh my grandma, and she remembers that the German soldiers came into the village, they entered the uh house and they were going house from house, and they you know they didn't speak uh Russian, so in broken Russian and just German language, they would say Mutter Mutter, which means mother, mother, uh take the kinder, take the children.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: SS is coming.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: SS, SS is the zonder command, and the extermination units, and they and and they said, Forest, forest, go.
5:04
SPEAKER_02: So uh my grandma, she understood that she needs to take my mom and her brothers and sisters.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: Uh she had she was a uh she has a family of five siblings, some of them were not born yet, but and she remembers them running to the forest and staying in the forest for several days and several nights, then coming back to the village.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: And she says the cow was gone, there were no chickens, uh, the barn and the house they were burnt down.
5:30
SPEAKER_02: They lived uh for the next several months in a little hut made out of dirt and uh wooden planks.
5:38
SPEAKER_01: So when the Germans came through, it was like scorched earth.
5:40
SPEAKER_01: We were just gonna destroy everything in our path on our way to essentially they were trying to get to Moscow.
5:46
SPEAKER_02: It was 1944, so actually it was the uh you know Soviet army pushing them back, but where they lived, my mom, where she lived, at that time there was a lot of guerrilla fighting and war uh against the Germans, against the Nazis.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: So the German army, it was like a retaliation unit.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: The guerrilla fighters were doing something against them, and then they would send the troops and just say, make sure you know there's nobody and nothing is left, so no German soldier is harmed.
6:16
SPEAKER_01: Wow, wild, yeah, wild stuff.
6:21
SPEAKER_01: Okay, all right.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: So you grew up with that.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: So tell me about though all I remember as a kid about uh Russia was like empty food shelves at the stores, or just very limited supply of food.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: Um the the working class, which was just about everybody, was just a big struggle.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: Was that was that a realistic portrayal of Russia, or did I get propaganda?
6:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh that's a good question.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: Uh, because you know, when USSR began to fall apart, indeed there were uh food shortages, but you said about propaganda on our side of the world, we were hearing also propaganda.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: I remember uh watching news and they would show people on the New York streets sleeping in cardboards from refrigerators, and they they were saying, Look, we are building communism, the West is being rotten, the people cannot afford their housing, they sleep in the streets.
7:18
SPEAKER_02: So, me and us little kids watching news back in the day in the uh beginning of the 80s, you know, we thought all of the world is like this, all of America is like this.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: There's just hope in one place.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: USSR.
7:32
SPEAKER_02: Wow, wow, okay.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: So that's wild.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Which takes us to the fact that the internet, which is building the communism, we have built and achieved socialism.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: Next step is communism, it's about to happen soon.
7:48
SPEAKER_02: Nobody knew how soon this is going to be, and soon it fell apart.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: But at that time, it was part of propaganda.
7:56
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that is fascinating to me.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it is it's just wild to see it on a different realm of the world, like our life was great.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: You know, we lived on just the amount of freedom we had was just glorious in in comparison.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: Um, so when you you know you graduate high school, I mean is it high high school like normal go to school till you're 18-ish?
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Uh 10 grades, yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: 10 grades, so like 15 17-ish, yeah.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
8:24
SPEAKER_02: So then you graduate, what do you do?
8:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh usually uh you go, for example, uh Soviet educational system was made up of 10 years, but once you graduate from the eighth class, you have an opportunity to take exams and continue on to be on the eighth uh grade or go to a trade union school.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh to be a plumber, electrician, builder.
8:44
SPEAKER_02: So many kids chose that path.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: I chose to be in the grade number nine and ten, and then I enrolled into a university.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is where I I I want to give credit to that system because if we had a trade union school, that would bless, I think, our nation a ton.
9:00
SPEAKER_01: Because what happens is guys learn those skills um by messing up or you know, doing stuff around the house.
9:08
SPEAKER_01: And for and plumbers and carpenters now are like killing it.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: Like they're making a ton of money because nobody nobody has skills.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: No way I'm able to right.
9:18
SPEAKER_01: Nobody can replace a plumber.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: Um or or a carpenter, or you know, like if someone's gonna go panic.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, anyway.
9:24
SPEAKER_01: So it's it's kind of it's fascinating to kind of see that reality, and it's like, ooh, there were probably some perks uh to the system that you grew up in.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: All right, so you graduate from high school and you go to university.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Where do you go to university at?
9:37
SPEAKER_02: If you don't go to university, all of the boys they go to army.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
9:43
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's uh it's army or university, your choice.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: So I chose university.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: I went to study uh uh Academy of Physical Education and Sports, sports management, and I graduated from it.
9:56
SPEAKER_02: And uh while I was studying, uh shortly right before I uh was enrolled into the school, I trusted the Lord.
10:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow! Now, how did that happen?
10:06
SPEAKER_02: So uh I'm a living testimony of a uh mass mailing of tracts.
10:12
SPEAKER_02: Somebody sent me a gospel of uh Luke from uh a mission society, Licht im Osten, Light in the East.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: It was from West Germany, and uh I read it, trusted the Lord, and uh uh started.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: Wait, so you came to faith by somebody randomly putting in the mail like a like a 10-page tract or something?
10:35
SPEAKER_01: Correct, correct.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing for me how many of them were mailed, and you know, it's uh another story of being faithful in what you do for the Lord.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: Because imagine yourself, you're a German believer, you mass mail tracts, you assemble packages, you pray over them, you send them over, and you have no idea what will happen.
10:54
SPEAKER_02: Will they be trashed, intercepted, thrown away, or there will be a teenager like me who comes across it and takes it and uh you know.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: So tell me at the time the the legal, I guess, legality.
11:06
SPEAKER_01: It was uh was it legal to share the gospel in the USSR or it was USSR still then, right?
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
11:12
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
11:13
SPEAKER_02: Back then in the day it was not, but uh when uh Mr.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Gorbachev he began to make all of the changes to Soviet Union, he instituted what's it's called, he started perestroika, which means the rebuilding over, and then he gave some freedom, and of course, that's when uh I be uh I received the tract.
11:33
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: So wow, so you get a tract from a German of all things who's and they was the was their Russian okay.
11:42
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it was perfect, of course, of course.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: But it was from uh it was just the the the booklet itself, the little uh pamphlet.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: It was so colorful, so bright that back in the day, you know, when it was kind of everybody wore the same clothing, we lived in the same apartments, everybody had the same furniture, same refrigerators, and everything, and then boom, I get something really bright and colorful that made a made a difference.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: When you when you talk about like how everything was like I guess it seems like gray or like just blah.
12:14
SPEAKER_01: It's life.
12:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that was that I mean that is so sad and wild.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: And then just just thinking about America and the colors and just the experience we have here.
12:25
SPEAKER_01: What a what a joy and privilege is to be an American.
12:29
SPEAKER_01: So God bless America, yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_01: It's wild to look at that, and I'm just grateful for your perspective.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you become a Christian in your apartment.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
12:38
SPEAKER_01: How big was your apartment?
12:39
SPEAKER_01: I'm just curious.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was uh two bedrooms and uh a kitchen and uh separate restroom and uh uh uh shower, shower room.
12:51
SPEAKER_01: All right, so it's a simple apartment.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: It's simple.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: But but was it I when I think of Russian apartments, I think of just stacked really high sky.
12:58
SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: And uh there wasn't, you know, there's nowhere to really run around.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: I will uh ours was nine-story building.
13:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: All right, so I am that had like 18 uh entrances.
13:08
SPEAKER_02: It was a long, long, long, like wavy building with lots of people and kids living in it.
13:13
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly what I thought.
13:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm nailing it.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
13:18
SPEAKER_01: I was like, man, that sounds really depressing in many ways.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh like you could hear like probably a family screaming at each other, you know, one door over.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: You look outside and you just go, oh man.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, okay.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: All right.
13:31
SPEAKER_01: So you you get the tract, you accept Christ, but is there a church?
13:35
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what do you do after you come to Christ in in a culture like that?
13:38
SPEAKER_02: Yes, there were some uh churches that were all already planted and uh but they weren't legal.
13:44
SPEAKER_01: Were they were they legal?
13:45
SPEAKER_02: Uh some were registered with the government and some were not.
13:49
SPEAKER_01: And uh I started going uh Can you tell the difference about what it meant to be registered with the government versus not registered with the government?
13:55
SPEAKER_02: Uh I think it started in the 1960 uh sixties and uh 50s when uh the USSR just when the uh government began to say, okay, the Christianity is growing, you know.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh uh wait, so Christianity was growing.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: Was growing in USSR, yes, yes, yes.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: Right after the war.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: And so they were like, this is a problem.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
14:17
SPEAKER_02: And even uh Khrushchev, Mr.
14:19
SPEAKER_02: Khrushchev, or Comrade Khrushchev himself, he said, you know, soon in uh five years, we are going to show the last uh Christian on the TV and we'll do away with the religion.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: So the communists they were very conscious that you know we have we we don't want to have any uh uh people competing with us, any other ideology but the state-owned ideology is not okay.
14:46
SPEAKER_02: And uh they were suppressing it.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: They were suppressing and they were making sure that if you are registered, they were making sure that uh they register and number all of the Christians, they were trying to limit their influence, uh, especially they would say, okay, you have to report to the government how many kids you have, how many uh donations you're collecting each Sunday, how many baptisms per year are you doing?
15:09
SPEAKER_02: Uh tell us everything and anything about all of your members so they can trouble them afterwards.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: And those churches that complied, they had less problems for the government.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: Those that decided to go their way and say, no, uh, we worship God, nobody should know uh the church and state are separate, so we are not supposed to tell you, and we will never tell you how many people we have, how many kids go to our Sunday school.
15:34
SPEAKER_02: So there was a constant uh cracking down on those churches, so to speak, from the government.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
15:40
SPEAKER_02: So when you say cracking down, what does that mean?
15:44
SPEAKER_02: They would uh send police to disrupt services.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: Like the police would just walk in and be like, hey, you guys can't have services.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: It you know, it was easy back in the day to track people, you know.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: And uh the government already knew who is a believer, and they were just making sure that uh they disrupt the services.
16:04
SPEAKER_02: If they uh arrest people, they would make and pay fines, uh, huge fines.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: Like you would have to pay probably 20, 30, 40 percent of your monthly income just if you get caught one once on a Sunday.
16:17
SPEAKER_02: So in worship.
16:19
SPEAKER_01: Correct at the premises of the church.
16:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I think this is where Americans just don't realize how bad communism is and the lack of freedom is.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: We just live in a world where we just you know, we just like to complain.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: And wow.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so appreciate appreciate what you have and stand for it and pray for it, and yeah.
16:41
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's tall and strong and firm.
16:44
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Uh I mean, we uh uh I think Reagan uh said, you know, you're one only one generation away from your freedom being gone.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
16:54
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so uh you come to Christ, and so you you have your choice, I guess, registered cho church or non-registered church.
17:01
SPEAKER_02: Back in the day, I had no idea.
17:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay, just uh there was an address for the congregation and the booklet, and I went.
17:07
SPEAKER_02: Oh.
17:08
SPEAKER_01: And uh I was going there, and then my So tell me when you came to Christ, you were just like, you read it, and you're like, I believe.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: Now what?
17:15
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, that's incredible.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: No other person's around you at all.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Correct, correct.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you you you you come to Christ, I'm assuming like weeping, crying the whole normal thing of like I'm a sinner.
17:24
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus saved me.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: It happened, yes, yes.
17:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you it's so wild.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: And I know, and I think we've been I think as Christians, sometimes in America, we people become so um uh I guess inoculated.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: They they they don't see the exciting thing about Jesus came, died on the cross, rose to the dead.
17:45
SPEAKER_01: They've heard it so many times, and people, when people don't respond, they're like, Well, of course they didn't respond.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: But you read these words that Jesus died on the cross for you, Sergei, and then all of a sudden you're like, I am born again.
17:59
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
18:00
SPEAKER_01: It you just knew.
18:01
SPEAKER_02: I had hunger for God.
18:02
SPEAKER_02: I had hunger to read his word and to know God more and better.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: And I started going at this address, and then my dad, he also invited me and said, You know, Sergei, what are you doing on the next Saturday?
18:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and I said, Oh, I'm free, Sunday is church.
18:18
SPEAKER_02: And then he said, Let's go to messianic Jews.
18:20
SPEAKER_02: And I said, What are messianic?
18:22
SPEAKER_02: I know Jews.
18:23
SPEAKER_02: He said, Uh, messianic is people that believe Jewish people that believe in uh Yeshua, and I go, like, who is Yeshua?
18:31
SPEAKER_02: I don't remember if I said who or what, but uh, he said, Yeshua is Jesus.
18:35
SPEAKER_02: Ah, so it's the Jewish people that believe in Yeshua, in Jesus.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I went there and that's where I stayed for another uh many years.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so now the messianic, so this is still in Russia or Belarus, and it was the beginning of 90s.
18:52
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you're in the 90s, you're attending church on, I guess now Saturday with the messianic congregation.
19:00
SPEAKER_01: What is it, and this is for just a lot of people don't know, what's the difference between a messianic congregation and just your basic Christian church?
19:09
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh, of course, in the definition itself, uh messianic congregation is the congregation of messianic believers of people that believe in the Messiah of Israel.
19:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they happen to be Jewish by birth, and also there are non-Jewish people that come to join them, while the uh Christians were called Christians first in the city of Antioch in the Bible that talks about the non-Jewish followers of Jesus in the first century.
19:36
SPEAKER_02: Okay, got it.
19:37
SPEAKER_01: So so are you Jewish by birth then?
19:39
SPEAKER_01: No, so but they still allowed you to be a part of it.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: Yes, definitely.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they're like they're hey, we'll take anybody, but we're gonna is is it they follow um like Shabbat and and kind of do uh a Saturday worship experience?
19:52
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: So explain to me that kind of thing.
19:54
SPEAKER_02: I was so hungry for God, and uh I just was ready to come and do whatever needed to be done.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: And uh the leader of the congregation he said, Oh, okay, are you willing to do this?
20:04
SPEAKER_02: Yes, are you willing to do that?
20:06
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
20:06
SPEAKER_02: So wow, I I stayed.
20:09
SPEAKER_02: That's incredible.
20:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so and yes, they do meet on Shabbat.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: So and so explain Shabbat for for a lot of us don't know.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: Uh when does it start?
20:18
SPEAKER_02: Shabbat.
20:19
SPEAKER_02: For for example, it comes from the Hebrew verb lishbot, which means to stop or to arrest or constrain yourself.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: So it's based on the Bible, which says that it was in the book of Genesis, it was morning and evening the first day.
20:33
SPEAKER_02: Evening and morning, actually.
20:34
SPEAKER_01: So evening and body.
20:37
SPEAKER_01: When you said that, and then you told me about how Shabbat works, in the Bible says evening and morning, and then that was the first day.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: So meaning evening comes before the morning.
20:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, actually, Shabbat starts on the evening with the sunset, right?
20:53
SPEAKER_02: The sun goes on Friday afternoon.
20:57
SPEAKER_02: Actually, uh uh things get quiet, begin to wind down in Israel, and people start getting ready for the Sabbath for Shabbat.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: And uh Shabbat ends on the next Saturday evening with the sunset.
21:11
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's incredible.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so but you know, you do normal, I don't know how to say American church things, like you have somebody reading scriptures, somebody you know singing songs, all the all the things that we would think of a service, you do that on Friday nights?
21:29
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
21:30
SPEAKER_02: Uh yes, we do read and expand and preach from the uh ashavua, which means the Torah portion of the week.
21:39
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh afterwards we have we uh sing Psalms, songs, and psalms in Hebrew, English, uh a little bit of Russian, but mainly we sing in Hebrew because uh our congregation is a Hebrew speaking congregation, and uh so did you have to learn Hebrew?
21:58
unknown: Yeah, yeah.
22:00
SPEAKER_02: Started doing it.
22:01
SPEAKER_02: I started learning Hebrew when I was still uh back in the Messianic congregation.
22:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh, blessings, benedictions, prayers, uh, songs, so little little passage passages of the Bible.
22:14
SPEAKER_02: It just opens up the whole different dimension.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so when you were when you come to faith in the apartment, you start going to the messianic congregation, was there any pushback culturally or like in your job, in your work?
22:30
SPEAKER_01: Like, what what was that like?
22:33
SPEAKER_02: Not in the big sense, but people oftentimes they would say, like, uh, in my uh uh uh uh university, what are you doing on Saturday or Friday evening?
22:43
SPEAKER_02: I say, I go to congregation.
22:44
SPEAKER_02: Oh, why are you not free?
22:46
SPEAKER_02: What are you doing?
22:46
SPEAKER_02: Let's go do something, let's go party.
22:48
SPEAKER_02: I would say, you know, oh I'm busy, so where do you go?
22:52
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
22:53
SPEAKER_02: I go to a messianic congregation, and they just had no idea.
22:56
SPEAKER_02: There is like okay, what is this?
22:58
SPEAKER_02: I would say, uh, it's uh Jewish people that believe in Yeshua, Jesus, and they're like, Oh, interesting.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: Why why do you have to do with the Jewish people?
23:06
SPEAKER_02: I said, I I sense a calling, I want to be there, I want to serve the Lord.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: This is how I uh find the fulfillment in life.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: And uh, for many of the people, it was like some of them didn't care, but some of them they would say, Oh, this guy is trying to be Jewish, and uh, this guy is trying to do that or this.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: So, of course, I learned afterwards, you know, to kind of uh uh not be offended or upset, but uh keep doing what the Lord called me to do.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: So, how long did you live in Belarus at that messianic church before you because the next was the next stop Israel?
23:40
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Okay, how long did you live there?
23:42
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was we moved uh in the we started making documents when it was COVID, so we moved in 2021.
23:51
SPEAKER_01: Oh, so from Belarus to Israel in 2021?
23:55
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow, okay.
23:57
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
23:58
SPEAKER_01: That's that's pretty cool.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: And then so the idea was uh because I the calling with being within the messianic congregation was like maybe I'm called to be a messianic congregation in actual Israel.
24:10
SPEAKER_01: Was that kind of how that that kind of your soul was sort of fed by that?
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, correct.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes, yes.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And then um, so then you get to tell me the difference between Belarus and Israel, just from a I don't know, economic perspective, freedom perspective, all all the different things.
24:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh they're uh similar and uh different at the same time.
24:35
SPEAKER_02: For example, the population of Belarus is a little bit over nine million people.
24:39
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, and the population of Israel it's 10 million people.
24:43
SPEAKER_02: Israel crossed the 10 million line last summer.
24:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: Uh for example, uh Belarus under the uh how how large of a state or is is Belarus?
24:56
SPEAKER_01: How long how large of a country is it?
24:58
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's about six hundred kilometers wide, so that makes it 400 miles wild wide.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Uh and about probably six or seven hundred kilometers uh north to south.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
25:11
SPEAKER_01: So yeah, so uh roughly about like it's the size of uh a smaller state.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: So yeah, correct.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
25:18
SPEAKER_02: Let me see if I can so for example, the uh Belarus used to be a part of the what's it called, the Pale of Settlement.
25:26
SPEAKER_02: That was the area where the Jewish people were not allowed to live as close to Moscow as uh so many kilometers and under uh Zarist Russia, because the Russian Empire was pretty much anti-Semitic.
25:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh many people, many Jewish people settled in uh Belarus and Ukraine.
25:47
SPEAKER_02: And for example, uh sadly, but uh after the World War II, many many Jewish people were just killed in Belarus.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
25:56
SPEAKER_02: Uh they were transported out of Belarus to Nazi death camps.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh so was there a little bit of a stigma for you not being so there's two ways.
26:06
SPEAKER_01: One, not being Jewish, but joining a messianic congregation from uh your basic Belarus Belarusian person, and then but what about from a Jewish perspective?
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Was there any like, what are you doing here?
26:20
SPEAKER_01: You're not a real Jew, and and maybe and maybe within the church or within the congregation, they were fine.
26:26
SPEAKER_01: But how about just in with Israeli or Jews in general?
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Is that like sort of like what is your problem?
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Why are you not really?
26:33
SPEAKER_02: I would say Israelis are cool, they are welcoming.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: And for example, when I uh moved to when we moved to Israel, the first thing that just uh you know, you come, you have your worries, expectations, excitement.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:46
SPEAKER_02: So I was coming at the airport uh of Tel Aviv, Ben Gurion, and uh there was a lady and she gave me the package of documents and she said in English uh two words, welcome home.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: Oh nice at that time I sensed like a few gigabytes of information were dropped down into my soul from heaven, and I felt peace, I felt joy, that's kind of acceptance, and you know, uh Israel accepted me, and I accepted Israel, so we are in so to speak in love with one another.
27:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I like that.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so then so talk to me about what it's like to be now living in Israel.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: You it it's I mean, because you've been there through the war.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: So October 7th of was it 20th?
27:28
SPEAKER_01: 20, 28th, yeah.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Three years ago.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Gosh, that's wild.
27:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so October 7th happens.
27:35
SPEAKER_01: You're in it's a national tragedy, yeah.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: You're in Tel Aviv.
27:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh well actually, you know, uh I work as a tour guide.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: So I had uh I had a group of uh tourists that left on October 6th, and October 8th is my birthday.
27:51
SPEAKER_02: So basically, October 6th, I get in the car with a whole bunch of other friends, and we go to Lake of Galilee, Kinerit, in the north.
28:02
SPEAKER_02: We get uh camping gear, we get the tents, and we want to celebrate and hang out and celebrate my birthday the next day.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: And then, you know, it's six o'clock, six thirty-ish something, 7th of October.
28:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh, we began to, you know, our phones began to just go wild because we have little um abs that uh tell you, you know, there's an attack, there's bombing, there is shelling, rockets are flying, take shelter.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: And that's when it happened, and uh it was we we were in shock that something happened, you know.
28:36
SPEAKER_02: At first we thought, well, it's bombing, it's going to uh finish soon.
28:42
SPEAKER_02: But no, it just were wave and after wave and after wave of bombing alarms, and we decided to check the news, and we about seven o'clock or so in the morning, we began to realize it's a full-scale invasion.
28:56
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
28:57
SPEAKER_02: My daughter was in the Israeli army at that time, and uh there was another soldier with us.
29:02
SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh it's another girl, and they began to get phone calls from their military bases saying, Where are you?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Are you safe?
29:10
SPEAKER_02: Are you okay?
29:11
SPEAKER_02: Uh as soon as they said yes, we are safe, we are here with our parents at the Lake of Galilee celebrating, and then they said it's an invasion of the full scale.
29:19
SPEAKER_02: Uh you have to get back to your base as soon as possible.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: So we had to tear down the camp.
29:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, was it what was the feeling like as you're tearing down, taking your tent down?
29:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh shock and unbelief that it's really happening.
29:35
SPEAKER_02: Because, you know, uh in Israel, we kind of we we got used to, in a bad sense, so to speak, to being bombed, you know.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: Can you explain that?
29:45
SPEAKER_01: Because when you just say like we get bombed all the time, that I don't think your average American can wrap their head around that.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: So, what do you mean by that?
29:52
SPEAKER_01: You mean before October 7th?
29:55
SPEAKER_02: Hamas was uh from the Gaza Strip was sending their rockets every once in a while.
30:01
SPEAKER_01: So it was just like, hey, send one off, and it would just show up somewhere over Tel Aviv or wherever.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
30:06
SPEAKER_02: Then, you know, uh it's about one minute and 30 seconds that we have of the approaching time of the missile being fired by Hamas from uh Gaza Strip.
30:16
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, you stop doing what you're doing, and you realize you have one minute and 30 seconds to go down to the shelter.
30:23
SPEAKER_02: We have a community shelter dome.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, are you in an apartment now?
30:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:27
SPEAKER_01: So how far how many floors are you that you have to get?
30:29
SPEAKER_02: We are two floors.
30:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we have only four floors in our house.
30:33
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so it's doable.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: So one minute 30 seconds, it's doable, but back on October 7th, it was just wave after wave after wave.
30:42
SPEAKER_02: Of course, we were in the north, we were getting uh only the alarms on our phones because our phones are set up in our area, which was being heavily bombed and shelled.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
30:53
SPEAKER_02: But the north north, uh, you know, we had to really tear down and just uh I remember driving down to uh to the southern part of the country, and the roads were packed with cars.
31:07
SPEAKER_02: People were just coming back, and uh everybody was like, Wow, I we can't believe what's happening.
31:13
SPEAKER_02: There were roadblocks on the uh roads because uh security personnel, we were beginning to hear the news that the uh terrorists were infiltrating Israel and they were beginning to travel to Ashkelon.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Some ran as far as Ashdod, and uh there were some uh uh suspicions and fears and expectations on the Israeli side that they will try to go as far as possible.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
31:41
SPEAKER_01: So October 7th happens, you're kind of in shock.
31:45
SPEAKER_01: You're you're bombings are a normal thing, but you have the iron dome.
31:50
SPEAKER_01: And can you explain the iron dome real quick?
31:52
SPEAKER_02: Iron Dome is a uh Israeli invention uh because uh it was uh put to use in the 2000s because uh you know Hamas was uh sending rockets to Israel, and at one at one point Israel said enough is enough, and uh it's uh made up of several units, uh radar, computer, just to make it simple for us here to understand.
32:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, radar, computer, and the launch pad.
32:20
SPEAKER_02: So basically the radar is scanning the neighborhoods, and when it uh suspicious when it gets suspicious that there is a launch, the it sends the signal to the computer and the computer calculates the trajectory trajectory.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, trajectory.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: Trajectory.
32:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and if the trajectory is going to hit a residential area, then the iron dome gets activated and sends the rocket to intercept it.
32:42
SPEAKER_02: If uh computer system sees that uh it's going to fall somewhere where it's going to cause no damage, then we save uh a few launches, so to speak.
32:51
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: Because each launch is uh tens and tens and tens of thousands of US dollars.
32:56
SPEAKER_02: So and so you guys were getting attacked on a regular basis, correct.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: Just every day.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: Not every day, but uh uh uh every once in a while, you know once a week, once a month?
33:08
SPEAKER_02: Probably it depended.
33:09
SPEAKER_02: Independent depended on the month, it depended on uh state of negotiations.
33:13
SPEAKER_02: Uh okay.
33:15
SPEAKER_01: So you've got and so talk to me about like you you would go down to the um to the basement or the bomb shelter.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: Bomb shelter.
33:24
SPEAKER_01: It's in at the first underground.
33:26
SPEAKER_02: On the first floor, it's uh specifically built uh room which is reinforced with concrete and steel and special uh metal doors.
33:34
SPEAKER_01: So you go in every and these are all over the place over Israel, correct?
33:38
SPEAKER_02: And uh there is also a law in Israel uh in place now.
33:43
SPEAKER_02: If there's a house, apartment building being built, you are supposed to have a safe room in your own apartment.
33:51
SPEAKER_02: So all of the other newer apartments in Israel, they do have a so on shelf.
33:56
SPEAKER_01: Like on the fourth floor or whatever, you have a safe room that would that wouldn't get they even if the whole bomb or the whole um unit blew up, it would probably be okay.
34:05
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
34:06
SPEAKER_02: That would be that would left stinting.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: So many people they would just those that do have those kind of uh uh bomb shelters in their apartments, they would uh uh overnight and stay and sleep there.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so do you get a lot of I know this sounds bizarre, but like is there community that's formed because you do a lot of bomb shelters together?
34:24
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
34:25
SPEAKER_01: Oh that's how we become friends or whatever.
34:27
SPEAKER_02: That's how we met all of our neighbors, you know.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: That's I mean like, hey, it's good to see you again.
34:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they're bombing us.
34:33
SPEAKER_01: That that's happening.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, because they saw uh uh our neighbors, they said we heard that there's a new family that moved in, but we just never met you.
34:41
SPEAKER_02: Nice to meet you guys.
34:42
SPEAKER_02: Welcome.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: All in the bomb shelter.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh that is so crazy.
34:47
SPEAKER_01: All right, so you've got the bomb shelter going, uh, and you've got ministries happening.
34:53
SPEAKER_01: Do you use your um tour guide to share Jesus at all?
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Like your tour guiding.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Does that ever happen where you get to share Christ?
34:59
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yes, yes.
35:00
SPEAKER_02: Of course, you know, I work with the groups which are coming in into Israel, and also I work with groups which are local.
35:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
35:07
SPEAKER_02: So whenever we go somewhere, we talk about geography, we talk about history, we talk about religion, we talk about who was here.
35:14
SPEAKER_02: Was it Jesus, his disciples, or there was a uh certain prophet from the Bible active here?
35:20
SPEAKER_02: And we connect it uh for the people to help them see the picture why they are here.
35:25
SPEAKER_02: They're here because God said the times are coming when he's going to gather his people from all of the lands of the dispersion and bring the people of Israel back.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
35:34
SPEAKER_02: So you are here.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: What does it mean for you now?
35:38
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
35:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what's your favorite place to I don't know, tour?
35:42
SPEAKER_01: I guess when you when you're it's easy, it's Jerusalem, of course.
35:46
SPEAKER_01: What's the but is there like a certain spot of Jerusalem?
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh there are many, I would say, Western wall is special tonars under the Western Wall, uh, Jewish quarter, uh, the Jaffa Gate, the Armenian quarter.
36:00
SPEAKER_02: There are many places of interest, uh, Christian quarters.
36:04
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's what's what's special about the Jaffa Gate?
36:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's the central uh gate that used uh that was used for thousands and thousands of years as the main entrance uh that connected the biblical city of Jerusalem to Mediterranean, to the biblical city of Japa, yeah, Ethiopia in uh the New Testament, it's mentioned.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: That's where uh Peter had the vision being on the roof.
36:31
SPEAKER_02: That's where Carnelius from Caesarea came to visit him, and that's from where the gospel basically began to spread out to the non-Jewish world.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so tell me then, like, um, what kind of what does ministry look like?
36:44
SPEAKER_01: Like when you're um like when you're ministering there, in a sense of giving a tour or you're just sharing Christ or praying for somebody at a meal, whatever.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: How does that what what impact are people hungry for Jesus uh in Israel?
37:03
SPEAKER_02: It's interesting statistics we can talk about, and uh the statistics, you know, somebody says yeah, numbers speak louder than words.
37:11
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
37:12
SPEAKER_02: When you uh when um uh the state of Israel was declared sovereign and independent independent in 1948, correct, May 1948, there were 23 messianic believers.
37:24
SPEAKER_02: 23?
37:25
SPEAKER_02: 23, 23, 20 plus three, 23.
37:28
SPEAKER_02: The population of Israel at that time was 600,000 Jews.
37:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so math can be done here.
37:35
SPEAKER_02: What kind of what kind of uh percentage population-wise, yeah, and then fast forward to 2026, there's around still not many, but people say between 30 and uh 50,000, the max of uh messianic believers for 10 million uh population of Israel.
37:54
SPEAKER_02: So basically, somebody said that uh for the past 20 years, the numbers of messianic believers tripled in Israel.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: So that means yes, there's hunger, yes, God works in Israel, God is drawing people to himself through through the Messiah Yeshua, and he is uh uh establishing his uh body and growing his body in Israel.
38:16
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any story like a particular person that you got to share Christ with and they received Christ?
38:21
SPEAKER_02: It happens, definitely.
38:23
SPEAKER_02: It happens on the personal level.
38:24
SPEAKER_02: Evangelism in Israel takes place uh on the level of becoming friends with someone or uh meeting somebody on the tour and then afterwards connecting them with the local messianic congregation.
38:38
SPEAKER_02: That's how it works.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
38:40
SPEAKER_01: Uh are there any frustrations that you have about just life in Israel right now, other than getting bombed?
38:47
SPEAKER_02: Uh getting bombed, you know, we yeah, we got to learn how to live with it because when war happens in Israel, you can't put the whole nation on the pause.
38:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, you can't say we do nothing else but do war.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: You know, yes, they do uh bomb, yes, the sirens go off, but at the same time, you still have to take your kids to school or drop them off at the kindergarten, you have to go to work or you know pay your bills and stuff like that.
39:15
SPEAKER_02: So it it it it cannot be like this.
39:17
SPEAKER_02: So people of Israel, uh, you know, the pressure, I think uh this is how the diamonds are uh created, you know, the more pressure there is, the more precious and clearer is the diamond.
39:30
SPEAKER_02: So outside pressure, you know, it just uh makes or made sure that Israel is you know united.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying uh I'm not saying there's disagreement, there's no disagreements in Israel, believe me, there's plenty.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: But when it talks about survival and uh fighting together or supporting the army or standing against the enemy, everybody is on the same page.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah, that that's that's an incredible reality.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: Um because I'm just like listening to this, and you guys just got there, really.
40:05
SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, you're you're still you're considered to be new in Israel up to 10 years, right?
40:10
SPEAKER_01: So you're still new, correct.
40:12
SPEAKER_01: And but your daughter served in the army, uh-huh.
40:16
SPEAKER_01: Which is sort of like did she just show up and be like, all right, I'm joining the I mean, how old was she when she went?
40:21
SPEAKER_02: She was almost 19.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
40:24
SPEAKER_02: And she wanted to serve.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:26
SPEAKER_02: And she did.
40:27
SPEAKER_02: She served in the diplomatic corps.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: Oh, fun.
40:30
SPEAKER_02: In the um in nearby Tel Aviv, okay, so to speak.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: And uh she it was a blessing for her.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: That's where you know, in Israel, army is the uh uh cohesive, or better to say, is the instrument or the tool that makes and uh blends and makes all of the uh uh population cohesive and just one.
40:57
SPEAKER_02: For example, it doesn't matter who your parents are, right?
40:59
SPEAKER_02: Right, it can be uh the you know the general or the admiral in the army or in the navy or air force or your dad is the biggest businessman in Israel.
41:09
SPEAKER_02: Still, you get to the army, you get to clean the floor as everybody else.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: You go if you go to the Kravi units, which means the battle units, it doesn't matter who your parents are, rich or poor, uh whoever they are, you do what needs to be done with the rest of the boys.
41:26
SPEAKER_02: And how long do you serve for?
41:27
SPEAKER_02: Uh, guys, they go for three years.
41:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, ladies, they go for two.
41:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: Now they're talking about extending it.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh, but otherwise, that's the general rule of the thumb.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: And what's the difference between uh fighting Hamas or Hezbollah and fighting Iran?
41:48
SPEAKER_02: Well, uh basically, uh, for example, uh uh Hezbollah was started in 1982 by Iran with support, so it's Iranian proxy.
41:59
SPEAKER_02: Uh Hamas was started in 1987 by Sheikh Yassin in the Gaza Strip, and they are both Muslim terrorist groups, but little bit different.
42:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, I shouldn't even say little, but big big difference between them.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: Hamas is, for example, is a Sunni group Sunni Muslims.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and Saudi Arabia.
42:21
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: Qatar, um majority of the Muslim world is Sunni, right?
42:27
SPEAKER_02: And uh Iran is Shia Muslims.
42:31
SPEAKER_02: So they don't get along.
42:33
SPEAKER_02: Correct, correct.
42:34
SPEAKER_02: So you can see that uh, for example, the word Hamas itself, uh, of course, it's abbreviation in Heb in the um uh Arabic, Islamic resistant movement.
42:45
SPEAKER_02: But if we look in the book of Genesis, uh why the flood of Noah took place, it says the Lord God beheld the earth, he looked at the earth and he saw that the earth was filled with Hamas.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: No, Hamas in Hebrew is the word that stands for violence.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: So funny enough, humorously enough, said but true, you know, Hamas with the abbreviation in um Arabic and Hamas with a pure meaning in Hebrew, it just is not a peaceful thing.
43:14
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, okay, so they're a problem, and so Hamas is the Sunni.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and then the Hezbollah is the Shi.
43:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, correct.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: And Hamas comes from the south, Hezbollah comes really from the north.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: From the north, yeah.
43:26
SPEAKER_02: Okay, and they're destroying the nation of Lebanon, sadly, sad but true.
43:30
SPEAKER_02: Lebanon used to be the, so to speak, Switzerland of the Mediterranean, of the Levant.
43:36
SPEAKER_02: And for the past 14, 15, 20, 25 years, Lebanon has been really brought down to, so to speak, from the heights to the dirts.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: So what is going on with that?
43:50
SPEAKER_01: Is it just the Hezbollah?
43:53
SPEAKER_01: Because I knew Lebanon at some point had a lot of Christians.
43:56
SPEAKER_02: Yes, they're fleeing.
43:57
SPEAKER_02: You know, Israel is the only nation in the Middle E East in the Levant, where the Christian population is steady and is growing.
44:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: For example, Bethlehem used to be majority Christian.
44:08
SPEAKER_02: Now it's uh less than 20 20 or even less, 15% of the population.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Christians are just uh immigrating en masse.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: They're all leaving.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Correct.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: And is that because more Muslims are coming in?
44:23
SPEAKER_02: It's uh because of many uh reasons economical, uh religious, and uh of course Palestinian then administration is not making lives of local Arab Christians easier.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's sadly here's the thing that I don't understand.
44:39
SPEAKER_01: Just I hear a lot of people in the US, I mean, I hear like from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free or something like that.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a um sad slogan.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so what is that what it does that mean?
44:53
SPEAKER_01: Because I I hear that from a lot of people that are um that Israel just is committing genocide.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: I'll I hear all that kind of stuff.
45:01
SPEAKER_01: Tell me what the reality is of when it's there.
45:04
SPEAKER_02: We have to roll the tape uh back a little bit, Chris.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh let's go back to November 1947.
45:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay.
45:10
SPEAKER_02: United Nations votes for the partition of the British Mandate Palestine to divide to be divided into the Jewish state and Arab state.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: So there was a two-state solution in the very beginning.
45:22
SPEAKER_02: Right, right from the beginning.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow.
45:23
SPEAKER_02: No, even uh Joseph Stalin, he said to his deputies, to his uh diplomats to vote in favor to create Israel.
45:32
SPEAKER_02: You know, even USSR at the beginning supported this idea.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: And uh, as soon as the Arabs heard it, they said no.
45:39
SPEAKER_02: Instead of uh saying, okay, the Jews will have their own part of the land, uh, which the Jewish people were offered not the best part of the land at all.
45:49
SPEAKER_02: Uh and the Arabs they said no right away.
45:51
SPEAKER_02: So there were riots, and basically that's the beginnings of the war of independence uh for Israel that lasted from 1947 until 1949.
46:02
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so that's where the foundations or the beginnings of the uh development were.
46:10
SPEAKER_02: Because, for example, we were talking about Hezbollah.
46:14
SPEAKER_02: Hezbollah in uh uh in the meaning in the structure itself of the word, it means the party of the Allah.
46:21
SPEAKER_02: And they divide the world and their enemies very easily: big Satan and little Satan.
46:28
SPEAKER_02: Okay, big Satan is uh America, little Satan is Israel, you know.
46:34
SPEAKER_02: Uh so it shows right away how serious they are.
46:39
SPEAKER_02: Because uh, when the Ayatollahs came to power in Iran in 1979, one of the first things that they did was to seize the and storm and seize the US embassy.
46:50
SPEAKER_01: Right, and then took hostages.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: Took hostages, correct.
46:54
SPEAKER_02: And uh this is something you never do, you never touch diplomats in the state of peace or war.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: Right.
46:59
SPEAKER_02: And Iran was not in the state of war with USA.
47:02
SPEAKER_02: But it tells us, you know, how can you negotiate with the people that call you Satan and want you destroyed?
47:09
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
47:10
SPEAKER_02: You have to you have to be really smart and cautious and aware of their intentions.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah, okay, keep going.
47:17
SPEAKER_01: So this is fascinating.
47:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so from there, so the background, so there's the that Israel was constantly being bombarded.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: And so when when people say genocide is happening, of you know, Israel killing off all the Palestinians, what is what the reality is what is going on?
47:35
SPEAKER_01: What what is because there is people like fighting and stuff on the on like I guess Israel that is not true?
47:41
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, it's uh propaganda at its uh evil, evil most evil.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: Like I literally like, I guess that's true.
47:50
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: So it's really helpful for you to share like with us like what is actually happening in Israel.
47:56
SPEAKER_02: There was the genocide of Israelis that took place on October 7th, right?
48:01
SPEAKER_02: There was a genocide of uh Israeli Muslim Arabs that took place on October 7.
48:07
SPEAKER_02: What do you mean by that?
48:07
SPEAKER_02: Israeli Muslim Arabs?
48:09
SPEAKER_02: There was a genocide of uh Filipino anti workers working at the kibbutz and farms in Israel.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: So when Hamas stormed the the uh uh border of Israel and invaded Israel on October 7, they killed all and everyone that was found in their past.
48:28
SPEAKER_02: I only thought they've invaded or they attacked a uh music concert, but it was in a but then they they overwhelmed it, they uh killed each and everyone that they can lay hands on, and then they went went inland, kibbutzis.
48:43
SPEAKER_02: Uh they you know, there's a really uh sad and truthful um movie, October the 7th.
48:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
48:53
SPEAKER_02: Uh I attempted to watch it and uh I couldn't finish it.
48:58
SPEAKER_02: Why is that?
48:59
SPEAKER_02: It's the compile an edited compilation of uh just all the video footage from the body camps of the Hamas uh guys, oh terrorists.
49:10
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
49:11
SPEAKER_02: So I'm not encouraging uh our listeners to watch it, but uh if you want to see something that breaks the heart of God, this will break your heart as well.
49:22
SPEAKER_01: So the primary, and this is the primary, I'm still trying to understand it.
49:25
SPEAKER_01: The primary issue is probably this simple.
49:29
SPEAKER_01: The Palestinians say that's our land, Israel says no, that's our land.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: Is that the primary issue?
49:36
SPEAKER_02: The primary issue is uh unwillingness of Palestinians to acknowledge the right of the Jewish people to even exist.
49:44
SPEAKER_02: To even exist, to even exist, because in 1917, if we went go back a little bit further, there was another decree, uh, the Balfour Declaration, which the Office of Her Majesty Queen of England gave to the uh uh Mr.
50:03
SPEAKER_02: Rothschild, yeah, saying that we do pledge and we will try to do all in our power to ensure the establishment of the national home for the Jewish people in the British-controlled Eretz Israel, land of Israel, wow, Palestine at that time.
50:20
SPEAKER_02: So, but uh the issue was that uh you know, 30 years later, it was still in the progress, and when United Nations voted for the separation into two-state solution, one of the parties, Palestinian Arabs, they said we don't believe in the two they still got it, they they say they want to create the a Palestinian state, but you know, there is a Palestinian state, Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan.
50:52
SPEAKER_02: Okay, that's November 1947, they completely rejected the idea of peaceful coexistence with Israel.
51:00
SPEAKER_02: So does Jordan accept any It was not Israel doing something against the Arabs, it was vice versa.
51:06
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: Israelis had to protect themselves.
51:08
SPEAKER_01: So does Jordan receive any or they allow Muslim immigrants to come into their country?
51:14
SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: They are not willing to because they hold on, you're telling me that the they won't allow Muslim immigrants to come into their Muslim country and say, like, hey, you can get freedom from whatever oppression you have over there in Israel.
51:31
SPEAKER_01: Come home to Jordan, you are our people.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: Correct.
51:34
SPEAKER_02: There was a time when they received PLO, Palestinian Liberation Organization headed by Yasser Arafat.
51:40
SPEAKER_02: Yes, and uh he tried to make a revolution and uh kick out the uh king of Jordan, and Jordan had to fight back and uh kick him out.
51:50
SPEAKER_02: So that's how that's how uh serious it gets, you know.
51:54
SPEAKER_01: That I think that's what it's it sends the message, what they're up to, and it's so complicated of like who is sort of leading these different organizations.
52:02
SPEAKER_01: Um, have you ever read the book Son of Hamas?
52:05
SPEAKER_02: Yes, yes.
52:05
SPEAKER_01: All right, so that's the one he uh the Hamas leader becomes a Christian, uh son of one of the leaders, right?
52:12
SPEAKER_01: Right.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: So tell me, I mean, that happened fairly recently, right?
52:16
SPEAKER_01: Can you talk to talk about that at all?
52:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's uh very interesting how God uses different people for different purposes and uh saves them from basically hell.
52:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because uh if you I mean he was like a killer, like he was out to kill Jews, every you know.
52:34
SPEAKER_02: If you, you know, if your major achievement in life is to become a uh suicide bomber or get shot or get killed, killing others only because they're Jewish or Israeli, or like October 7, you know, when they were killing the workers from Thailand and uh Philippines, they're not ethnic Jews, right?
52:57
SPEAKER_02: They're not, they don't have Israeli pass, they don't have hold Israeli passports like like us.
53:03
SPEAKER_02: They were caught in Israel.
53:05
SPEAKER_02: And you know, like we mentioned in the beginning, Hamas uh terrorists they also killed Israeli Muslim Arabs when they seized them uh upon the invasion.
53:17
SPEAKER_02: It didn't matter.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: They killed each and everyone, and those people they would say that they are Muslim, and nevertheless, they would kill and shoot and uh decapitate them.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: Okay, shifting a little bit.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes because now you're in an a new war, like it's with Iran.
53:36
SPEAKER_01: And can you tell me the difference with living within the Iron Dome uh between when Hamas would shoot rockets versus when Iran shoots intercontinental ballistic missiles?
53:47
SPEAKER_01: What's that like?
53:48
SPEAKER_02: Currently we have a ceasefire with uh Islamic uh Iranian Republic, and uh the the main difference is in the time and also the kind of uh the uh missiles that they are able to create and use and shoot.
54:07
SPEAKER_02: For example, uh Iran was using the state-supported military grade activities to make those ballistic uh missiles.
54:17
SPEAKER_02: Got it.
54:17
SPEAKER_02: So when they shoot one, uh Iron Dome intercepts the launch and it sends a signal to all of us in Israel and says in about several minutes, heavy sirens are going to be alarm sirens are going to be sounded.
54:31
SPEAKER_02: And uh we know that we have about uh five to six or maximum ten minutes that they are going to come and approach.
54:40
SPEAKER_02: And we go down to the shelter, and then we hear loud uh the sirens go off, then we hear loud booms over our heads, and then for the next 10 minutes, we are advised and we're obligated to stay inside because of the debris falling.
54:54
SPEAKER_02: Because when the uh missile gets intercepted in the air, ballistical missile from Iran, it it takes place several miles in the atmosphere.
55:04
SPEAKER_02: Has anyone ever just like I don't want to wait for it?
55:06
SPEAKER_02: Uh sadly, it happened, and the people people got killed.
55:10
SPEAKER_01: So people are like, uh, it's probably not gonna hit me.
55:13
SPEAKER_01: What are the odds of that?
55:14
SPEAKER_01: I'm just gonna go about my day, and then I got struck by like de falling debris.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: Sadly.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
55:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the adrenaline rush, I think, like how constant are how often are the alarms going off where you go to the shelter?
55:31
SPEAKER_02: For example, during the active uh active phase of war and shelling uh from Iran and uh Israel intercepting them in last March, I think they would the maximum times that they would bomb us was about seven or eight times per a night.
55:48
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
55:49
SPEAKER_02: So it's several times per day, and uh, you know, their their idea was just to disrupt the normal uh life in Israeli society.
55:58
SPEAKER_02: Plus, they were trying to strike uh you know uh civilian population.
56:06
SPEAKER_02: Israel was uh in retaliation striking, you know, military bases, launch pads, and uh uh raiders and all of the army related to Iran while Iranians were sending uh rockets into densely populated civilian areas.
56:24
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:26
SPEAKER_01: So tell me about the ministry that you get to do just being there.
56:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's our joy to support our Messianic congregation and uh do what needs to be done.
56:38
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we try to say uh to never say no to the demands of our uh of our congregation, whatever is needed.
56:47
SPEAKER_02: So we run a we run a um uh Bible study group for our people.
56:53
SPEAKER_02: Also, we volunteer with uh food parcel uh things that we pass out, and uh whatever our pastor tells us or asks us to do, we're just glad to do it.
57:02
SPEAKER_01: Do you ever get to go do uh like evangelism like on the beach or anything like that?
57:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, people people in our congregation, of course, the the I'm not musically inclined.
57:12
SPEAKER_02: I envy people that uh can play guitars.
57:15
SPEAKER_02: I like to sing, but my singing happens to be like joyful noise unto the Lord.
57:20
SPEAKER_02: But we do have people who are able to grab a guitar, go out uh in the street, and just start singing psalms in Hebrew, and uh people start coming and asking questions and strike conversations, and yeah, it's and they're like, So who's your rabbi kind of a thing, or what?
57:35
SPEAKER_02: Uh well this uh some people come and they say, Oh, this is nice.
57:38
SPEAKER_02: Uh, can I make a donation for you?
57:40
SPEAKER_02: Where's your little hat?
57:42
SPEAKER_02: And they say, No, no, no, we are not raising donations.
57:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, we're here praising God, and then they will say, Oh, somebody would come and say, Hey, which rabbi, who's who's your rabbi, from which synagogue are you?
57:52
SPEAKER_02: So it also provides an opportunity to strike a conversation.
57:55
SPEAKER_02: So, what do you say to that?
57:57
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it depends, and just uh it depends on the who is in front of you.
58:00
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you jokingly say, Hey, our rabbi is Yeshua.
58:03
SPEAKER_02: What's his last name?
58:04
SPEAKER_02: You know, Yeshua who?
58:06
SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's fun.
58:07
SPEAKER_01: All right, and so now um are your do you have any kids still at home or are they all out of the house?
58:12
SPEAKER_02: Uh our eldest is married, he's out of the house.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh, our middle daughter is getting married soon, Lord willing.
58:19
SPEAKER_01: And our youngest is still with us.
58:20
SPEAKER_01: So okay.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: And what and and how old is he and what's that like with him at school?
58:25
SPEAKER_02: He's 18.
58:26
SPEAKER_02: He's in the 12th grade, and he wants to go to the army.
58:29
SPEAKER_02: Of course, we as parents, uh, first we want him to get the education.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: Right.
58:33
SPEAKER_02: If possible, we tell him, hey, go to the university and then go to the army.
58:37
SPEAKER_02: And he says, No, um, it looks like I might be getting tired of studying.
58:40
SPEAKER_02: I need to get a break in the army.
58:42
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
58:43
SPEAKER_02: I need to get a break to go to war.
58:45
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's nice.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so yeah, what is that?
58:49
SPEAKER_01: Uh is there a fear factor for you that you're uh how do you trust the Lord in with your children going into adult children going into the military?
58:57
SPEAKER_02: I think there's a difference uh between being fearful and being cautious, because you know, we understand that uh, you know, is we need to protect ourselves.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:09
SPEAKER_02: If we don't protect ourselves, nobody is.
59:12
SPEAKER_02: Somebody said somebody has to do it.
59:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, correct.
59:15
SPEAKER_02: Uh somebody said uh the first war the is that Israel will lose will be the last war for Israel.
59:23
SPEAKER_02: Right.
59:23
SPEAKER_02: So we understand that uh somebody has to take care of it, and uh, of course, it's a mixture of feeling that you're proud of your kids, you rejoice that they are doing a fighting for the war cause, but at the same time, you know, you pray and you just say, God, we did our best with growing up these kids, we put them in your hands, please take care and protect.
59:48
SPEAKER_02: That's what we do for all of the soldiers in Israel because I'm a dad and I understand these could be my kids.
59:54
SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm 51 and these kids are 18, 19, 20.
59:58
SPEAKER_02: These are all my potential little children.
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:00:03
SPEAKER_01: Um, what would you say to uh Americans just sort of watching the news?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: You know, how what's the best way we can pray for you and for Israel?
1:00:14
SPEAKER_02: The best way is to pray from the Bible.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_02: You know, the Bible clearly says that in the last days, uh, Prophet Isaiah, for example, I believe it's chapter 11.
1:00:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it says that I will raise up the standard, the flag for the nations, and I will gather all of my people in Israel.
1:00:29
SPEAKER_02: So back in the ancient days, well, one of the reasons that uh you would raise up a flag or standard means you go to war.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_02: Oh, yeah.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_02: So it means that there's going to wars, troubles, and tribulations, and amidst all of these, the Jewish people are going to be gathered to the land.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_02: So pray for God to uh safely bring the Jewish people more because you know, so far, uh even for example, uh, the pre-World War II population of the world Jewry was much bigger.
1:01:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh wow, it was over 16 million, and now in 2026, the global population of the Jewish people is over 15 million.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so there's a disbalance, you know.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_02: The Jewish people have not, so to speak, gotten restored to the previous pre-war nations, uh, numbers, I'm sorry.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_02: And uh also pray.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: The Bible says that uh when God gathers Israel in the last days, he's going to do wonderful things.
1:01:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, give them new heart, pour out his spirit upon the Jewish people.
1:01:32
SPEAKER_02: The dead bones will live, the prophet Ezekiel says, and he will give the new heart and the new covenant.
1:01:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, so pray for that.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: They would come know Jesus.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's yes, yes, yes.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_01: The recognized Messiah has come to them and is still offering, even today, salvation for them.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_02: That he that he is the Messiah of Israel, that he is wanting each and every every Israeli to come and get to know him.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's powerful.
1:01:57
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks so much, Sergey.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_01: Thanks so much for joining us.
1:02:01
SPEAKER_01: Yes, uh, I really appreciate it.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_01: If you have any questions about faith, culture, anything in between, you can text us at 737 231 0605.
1:02:08
SPEAKER_01: We'd love to hear from you.
1:02:09
SPEAKER_01: Hey, from our house to yours, have an awesome week of worship.