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Ruth Deyneka Erdel. |
I stopped, turned around, and looked back again at the small, wooden house. My brother Peter and I had just found our Grandmother’s home in the village of Staramlynia, Belarus, where my father was born. I kicked the dirt on the road. “This is where my father ran and played as a child. I could have been born here too,” I thought. But God had other plans. My father was sent by his poverty-stricken parents to the USA to make money. There he found a job and helped his family as much as he could.
However, my father found something far greater in the USA then money. For the first time in his life, he heard about Jesus, God’s greatest gift to mankind. This was new to him. He began to attend Moody Church and read the Bible. On January 18, 1920, after a message by Paul Rader, he accepted the Lord as his personal Savior.
My father’s entire life changed that night. He became a man of prayer. Now his only desire was to tell others about Christ, especially his own Russian people. He attended a Bible Institute. Upon completion he returned to his homeland with a trunk full of Bibles and the message of the Gospel. People walked for miles to hear him speak, and many were saved. How he rejoiced!
His vision and ministry kept growing. On January 6, 1934, my father founded the Slavic Gospel Association with prayer. Scores of missionaries were sent out. Thousands of Russian radio programs were beamed over the air waves. Bible schools were founded. New seminaries continue to receive support. Thousands upon thousands of pieces of literature were printed and distributed. More are needed.
“Just as I looked back that day at the Deyneka family log house in Belarus with deep emotion, so now I look back at SGA’s 60 years of ministry within the UK with great joy.
I vividly recall the very first meeting my father held with a group of Godly men in a Hotel in London. (Since my father and I traveled together on the Queen Mary ship from New York to Southampton, I attended that memorable meeting also.) The purpose of that meeting was the establishment of the SGA UK organization. I was deeply impressed with the sincerity and vision of this significant group of men who accepted the challenge of taking the Gospel story to Slavic speaking people on the Continent. It was heart warming to feel their excitement and hear their prayers and plans for the varied future ministries.”
Now, we look ahead. My father’s vision continues to go forward. I sense this when I visit the churches in the former Soviet Union. As his daughter, my heart is full of gratitude to God that the ministry of SGA continues to reach Slavic people with the gospel. May it always be so!
