SPEAKER_02: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I believe that you have to know that you belong to God.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be sure that God gave you that job.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that God can make us wiser than our enemies.
SPEAKER_01: There are so many exemplars in the book that tells us that.
SPEAKER_02: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_02: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from pastor teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_03: As a young attorney under Nikolai Kosheshku's brutal communist regime, Virginia had spent her entire life searching for the truth.
SPEAKER_03: When she finally found it in the pages of the most forbidden book in all of Romania, Virginia accepted the divine call to defend fellow followers of Christ against unjust persecution in an otherwise ungodly land.
SPEAKER_03: For this act of treason, she was kidnapped, beaten, tortured, and placed under house arrest.
SPEAKER_03: She came within seconds of being executed under the orders of Kalsheshku himself.
SPEAKER_03: How Virginia not only managed to defeat her enemies time and time again, but also helped expose the appalling secret that would lead to the demise of Kalsheshku's evil empire is one of the most extraordinary stories ever told.
SPEAKER_03: So here is Virginia.
SPEAKER_03: Let's stand and give her a big road.
SPEAKER_03: Welcome.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, thank you.
SPEAKER_03: All right, thanks, you guys.
SPEAKER_03: Thanks.
SPEAKER_03: Well, Virginia.
SPEAKER_01: I have to say that thank you so much.
SPEAKER_01: But what you are applauding, I know for sure it's Christ in me that did all the job.
SPEAKER_03: I can't believe I get to be here with you.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it was God's calling.
SPEAKER_01: I know that we you organized this.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_01: I know that some of my friends influence you, came and talked with you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank them too, and I want to thank my extended family that is here, that adopted me when I came to the United States.
SPEAKER_01: They know me from the time that I didn't know one word in English.
SPEAKER_01: At that time, it was quiet.
SPEAKER_03: So I I have a lot to talk to her about, but I just want to I'm gonna camp on what she just said.
SPEAKER_03: So she was involved with defending Christians under Kalcheshku's regime, one of the most ruthless regimes in Eastern Europe.
SPEAKER_03: How many of you in the room would be uh let's say under 45?
SPEAKER_03: You're under 45, raise your hand.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: So you guys why are all the under 45s in the back of the church?
SPEAKER_03: Hey, I want to just say to you a little bit older, bless you! Glad you're up here fighting for the front seat.
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, we grew up, I'm old enough to remember the Iron Curtain.
SPEAKER_03: I'm old enough to remember the Cold War.
SPEAKER_03: And uh under Ronald Reagan, he had a passion um against communism.
SPEAKER_03: He had a passion for uh reaching out to Christians in other countries, especially the Eastern European countries, that were involved in uh helping those in the church and getting Bibles to them and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03: And so you came uh so close to dying several times, but there was a correlation there, a connection where the where the embassy became aware, Voice of America began to broadcast and stuff.
SPEAKER_03: And so she comes in 1989.
SPEAKER_03: 88.
SPEAKER_03: Huh?
SPEAKER_03: 1988.
SPEAKER_03: Okay, it was 88.
SPEAKER_03: I said 88.
SPEAKER_03: The regime fell in 89.
SPEAKER_03: That's the okay.
SPEAKER_03: So in 88, Virginia comes here, can't speak a word of English.
SPEAKER_03: She's been an attorney in Romania, has to go, has to take the LSAT, the law SAT, gets into SMU law school, she's got three kids, and she got into the law school, and two of your kids have graduated from one of one graduated from Harvard.
SPEAKER_01: One graduated from SMU, the second one from Harvard Law School, and my son graduated from United States Air Force Academy.
SPEAKER_01: That awesome.
SPEAKER_03: And so she had some sponsors there that were huge.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, Boone and Peggy, thank you for your uh impact and your influence in listening to the voice of God and taking her in and loving her.
SPEAKER_03: She needed, we were Peggy and I were just talking about the fact that, I mean, can you imagine going to another land you don't even know uh the language at all?
SPEAKER_03: And then the hoops and the mountains that you have to pass through in the particular occupation that you have.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is just not an easy occupation to go and get into law school in the United States in your second language.
SPEAKER_03: And so, but let's go back.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I I also want to say one thing.
SPEAKER_01: When you read the book, you will understand how God organizes not organized not only my life, but I hope you see how God organizes your own life.
SPEAKER_01: If you let God organize your life, and if you look back on on uh uh on your life, I want to share a few things, and I'm so thankful that the the things that you said about um how God organized uh my friends and my family here in the United States.
SPEAKER_01: But imagine that I was behind the Berlin Wall, that it was the wall who separated the capitalists from socialists.
SPEAKER_01: I was so isolated, fighting there for human rights and religious rights that um it's hard to believe.
SPEAKER_01: And you have to admit that it was God's hands, not human desire.
SPEAKER_01: But it was God who moved and organized everything.
SPEAKER_01: So, in that atmosphere, you will find in the book how God put heroes in my life that each one in their own position helped me to do the job.
SPEAKER_01: Not only that, but God helped me to find the laws to have the power to defend Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Later on, when I came to the United States, I heard from uh Congressman Frank Wolfe a story, and I want to share it with you because it's illustrative of how God organizes everything in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And you do not have to know, you know, what God is doing, just trust God.
SPEAKER_01: Frank Wolf uh explained to me one, explained uh to a group one time something, and when I went to lunch, I said, I need to know the details of that because I didn't know.
SPEAKER_01: He explained that he was a congressman in in um uh United States Congress, and he was um doing uh the um roads and other sections of the Congress.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he believed.
SPEAKER_01: And one day he was driving home and he was uh listening to a broadcast um from Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Dobson.
SPEAKER_01: And Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Dobson was talking about Christians under Berlin Wall, and he was talking about what he heard from Voice of America about me.
SPEAKER_01: Congressman Frank Wool started to pray and felt that the Lord said, Go tomorrow and change your position from uh roads to human rights.
SPEAKER_01: And he became, with Christopher Smith, one of the most active and powerful fighters for the human rights.
SPEAKER_01: And he came to Romania and he talked with me.
SPEAKER_01: So the book explains in detail that I can explain it to you this, but you will be encouraged because sometimes you might say to yourself, Am I doing anything, any, I don't have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: You you have to have faith in God and trust Him, and He will organize.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes He allows us to know things that He organized, and sometimes He doesn't know.
SPEAKER_01: So before I said everything, I when you read the book or when you hear me, I want you to remember this.
SPEAKER_01: I am not a hero.
SPEAKER_01: I defended a lot of heroes.
SPEAKER_01: I am a tool in God's hands, and I'm here to encourage you that God wants to use you as a tool in His hands and change a country like He changed Romania through me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, today is a democratic country.
SPEAKER_01: You can be a tool in God's hands, and you can be in your area the one that God can do the changes to you.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: How about that?
SPEAKER_03: All right, let's just all pray and go home.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's awesome.
SPEAKER_03: So, so Virginia, tell us, because many of us wouldn't understand this, and and I only understand it a little bit because I got to go into Hungary and smuggle Bibles in 1980, but um what was it like under Kosheshku, and I'm not even sure I'm pronouncing it right, but his uh regime in um in Romania, you become a believer, you're an attorney.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, what was that like daily?
SPEAKER_01: Um I called the land where I was born, and I believe that I was born for a very good reason.
SPEAKER_01: As you are born here, you're born for a good reason, and I can't tell you the reason, but God can tell you.
SPEAKER_01: So I was born in Romania, and all I remember is maybe from age six or something like this.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember my parents being politically correct outside as much as possible, but I heard them inside of the house expressing their uh disapproval to the government and how the socialist government will take more and more rights no matter how obedient they were.
SPEAKER_01: So you can imagine as a young person, I was terrified.
SPEAKER_01: I was thinking my parents will not take care of me and my government will not take care of me.
SPEAKER_01: So somehow God put on my heart that I will not grow up and living under lies and under fear.
SPEAKER_01: That little girl in me is asking you a question today.
SPEAKER_01: What and how do you act?
SPEAKER_01: Are your children terrified by your actions?
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to say words, you just have to express fear of what's going on and not trusting God.
SPEAKER_01: What are your grandchildren seeing in you?
SPEAKER_01: Either you trust the God of the universe, or you say, I'm a child of God, but you leave like an orphan.
SPEAKER_01: Because I know what that feeling is, and my heart cries for young people and even older people here in the United States.
SPEAKER_01: So I advise you to watch what they what how you act, because it was so petrified to me as a young kid to see my parents and my relatives.
SPEAKER_01: But God put uh in my heart uh a desire to search things, so I I started to look around and see, because I I thought why people are so fearful.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to be fearful.
SPEAKER_01: What is the truth?
SPEAKER_01: What people don't speak the truth, they know the truth, but they don't speak the truth.
SPEAKER_01: What is freedom?
SPEAKER_01: And how can I find freedom?
SPEAKER_01: And I noticed just looking around.
SPEAKER_01: We had like one uh once a year a family reunion.
SPEAKER_01: We were a small family, but we got together, and I noticed one thing that are those uh family reunions, relatives will group around three people, and I started to search who up these people are, and all of them were lawyers.
SPEAKER_01: So as a six six years old kid, I said, I found the answer.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna go to law school, learn about the truth, and find and speak up for the truth.
SPEAKER_01: You will find out God had a better plan than that, much bigger plan.
SPEAKER_03: That's the thing, you know, there's a there's several themes that run through this book.
SPEAKER_03: But the first one is you are a seeker of truth.
SPEAKER_03: Now explain that because there's a lot of us that don't seek the truth.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we don't seek it out, we're not critical thinkers, we just kind of take what we hear at school as gospel truth, and that was different for you because you were in an atheistic, communistic environment, but something God had placed in you was to go after truth, and that motivated you to go into the legal field, didn't it?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: See, I grew up in a land that I call a land of lies and a prison land.
SPEAKER_01: That's socialism.
SPEAKER_01: And the dictator were not allowed us to ask questions, I mean honest questions, about why the government is doing this or that.
SPEAKER_01: They consider those questions as an anti-government approach or or speaking against government.
SPEAKER_01: So people were fearful, nobody was talking about it.
SPEAKER_01: The government will control our lives with, you know, um everything that we said, people or kids asked to report the parents if the parents said something.
SPEAKER_01: The dictator declared himself God and required each one of us to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: It was dangerous to go to church.
SPEAKER_01: We had spies even in our church.
SPEAKER_01: We had no idea who was our brother or who was a spy.
SPEAKER_01: He starved us to death in uh wanted and in many situations um demolished churches and confiscated the land in order to build for himself a palace because he was God.
SPEAKER_01: Again, he rationalized rationalized.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we had a uh a small portion, like three eggs a month, half a pound of uh sugar for the entire family and so forth.
SPEAKER_01: And in the newspaper, he will say, by the way, the newspaper was controlled by him, in the newspaper he will say that we should be very grateful to the leader because he brought us in Romania to us, Romanian, the golden era.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was his big word, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_03: The golden era.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody who will say no will go to jail.
SPEAKER_01: So in this situation, and in this, there God put a desire in my heart to find to find the truth.
SPEAKER_01: But this I his desire was not only to go to law school and defend Christians later on, but to find him and to find the law.
SPEAKER_01: Because as a a human being, my thought was that I will find the law in the law books.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: But so you had no idea this journey that you were on, it was just something within you that longed to know what the truth was.
SPEAKER_03: No.
SPEAKER_03: And then God was moving you.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: Let me let me explain to you how big the lack of knowledge of God was for me, because I didn't hear.
SPEAKER_01: One of my clients um that was so different, so different than anyone else, um, invited me to his church.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason is because I spent with him together for more than a year for his case, and he was so different than anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: And that day that he came to look over his his case and everything, that case that day I came to my uh law office, I put the um briefcase on my uh secretary's desk, and I said, I don't want to be a lawyer anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I can't find uh the truth, and I don't want to be a lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: She looked at me like, where have you been?
SPEAKER_01: What kind of dreams do you have?
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to reality, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Wake up.
SPEAKER_01: And she gave me three files and said, three people are coming to see you, and one is inside.
SPEAKER_01: So I went inside and it was the client that I um um I I have been working for a year.
SPEAKER_01: So in my mind was what is the truth?
SPEAKER_01: I feel so so bad and so sad for myself because that was my dream to go to law school and find the law.
SPEAKER_01: And today was the day when I will say, I quit, I can.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a sad day for me.
SPEAKER_01: So here he was putting documents on my my desk and everything, and I didn't hear a word that he said.
SPEAKER_01: That's not good for a lawyer.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so as he put the the things in my mind, is what is the truth?
SPEAKER_01: And all of a sudden I look at him and I said, I wish I had in my life what you have.
SPEAKER_01: And he said, Do you go to church?
SPEAKER_01: And I look at him like, Oh, I'm so sorry, I ask.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what in the world going to church has to do with what you have and everything?
SPEAKER_01: But I was so desperate, I um I said yes.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he wrote the address and everything.
SPEAKER_01: And the next day I was uh at his church.
SPEAKER_01: You have to imagine that.
SPEAKER_01: I said yes to my client not knowing where I am going.
SPEAKER_01: I I thought they can take my license away, they can put me to jail because everything had to be according to dictator.
SPEAKER_01: But I was so, so determined to go to church.
SPEAKER_01: So I met him and his family at the church the next Sunday, and I followed them.
SPEAKER_01: When I walk inside of the church, I realized it was totally different.
SPEAKER_01: I used to go to Orthodox church or Catholic church, and I never heard the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody was speaking in Latin, so I didn't know Latin until later on in law school.
SPEAKER_01: So as I walked in uh behind them, I heard a song that I will never forget: Sinner come home.
SPEAKER_01: And you cannot imagine that I felt so comfortable.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Oh, this is a safe place.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that I will be arrested.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I believe there is a man uh coming today, and his name is Sinner, and they have a celebration for him.
SPEAKER_01: That was my notion of sin.
SPEAKER_01: That was my notion for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01: And he told us where to sit and everything, and the pastor came, opened the Bible, and said, Jesus Christ said, I am the truth, the way, and the life.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody comes to the Father except through me.
SPEAKER_01: John 16, 4.
SPEAKER_01: And then I realized the law, the truth that I was looking.
SPEAKER_01: I was looking in the wrong places in a law book.
SPEAKER_01: The truth is God Himself.
SPEAKER_01: And that day my life was changed forever.
SPEAKER_01: I became a child of God.
SPEAKER_01: I accepted the divine call.
SPEAKER_01: I understood correctly from God why he brought me to law school and what he wants me to do, but also my life later on changed in a way that I Have never imagined because I became not only that I defended Christian, but I became a target myself.
SPEAKER_03: You guys, I couldn't put this book down.
SPEAKER_03: You guys know I love to read, and um, but I'll tell you, most books I have no trouble putting down.
SPEAKER_03: Um, this book is fascinating.
SPEAKER_03: I'd encourage you to get it and get by two or three copies for others because of the riveting nature in which it's written.
SPEAKER_03: It's just written so well, it's more like a novel, and uh, and so what you're what you're gonna experience is this world of fear, intimidation, torture, and control of an entire population of a nation by one dictator and his uh secret police, and a woman who will not back down because of her faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_03: Now I want to just ask you a question about this.
SPEAKER_01: I want to say one thing.
SPEAKER_03: You you just keep interrupting me because you you have so many things to say, so go for it.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not gonna I'm not gonna stop you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to I want to say continuing what he said is I want you to know that God thought about you when he took me through all the things in Romania.
SPEAKER_01: He knew that one day you will hear me, you will read the book, and your soul will be in fire for Christ in a time that is so necessary in America.
SPEAKER_03: Love it.
SPEAKER_03: Sorry for the is this appropriate for what's happening in America right now?
SPEAKER_03: So the question I have is I thought it was fascinating that you did the research.
SPEAKER_03: You really went back in the law books.
SPEAKER_03: You went back in time and you found that law 217.
SPEAKER_03: Tell them what law 217 was.
SPEAKER_01: Law 217 was a law that um was adopted many years ago during the capitalist era.
SPEAKER_01: And dictator and the socialist and capitalist um communist uh system decided, by the way, socialist and communist works on lie, and this is another example.
SPEAKER_01: They kept that law and did not uh destroy the law or said we are not gonna use this law or so forth, but I kept it in the law books for what reason do you think?
SPEAKER_01: So they could lie to the Western civilization and say, we respect human rights, we have a law.
SPEAKER_01: Just lawyers, they don't use it.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, before Congressman Smith and Frank Wolfe came to talk with me, they used to go directly and talk with dictator, and dictator will say, we don't have any problems.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: After they spoke with me, they used to say, dictator will say, we don't have any problems.
SPEAKER_01: And Congressman Christopher Smith and Frank Wolf would say, Well, let us tell you about the problems.
SPEAKER_01: You can't imagine that the dictator was not very happy.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: So, so you guys give you a little insight of what happened is that as Virginia began to use Law 217 in situations where churches and Christians were being persecuted or their uh uh buildings being confiscated, she kept winning these cases because the judge didn't have any response.
SPEAKER_03: It's right there on the books.
SPEAKER_03: And so as that became known, Voice of America at that time, which was a really huge broadcast that went out even into the Eastern European and Russian nation, um, to to it really actually was there to encourage those that wanted liberty and wanted freedom in those nations.
SPEAKER_03: So, do you feel like, Virginia, that that was a key part of why you went along as far as you did without being killed?
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
SPEAKER_03: Because you should have been dead.
SPEAKER_01: I I should be dead by all the kinds.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine that I was surrounded by the Berlin Wall, that I didn't have any access to the free world, and I I fought against what was right.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine now your problem.
SPEAKER_01: You have a problem and you feel isolated, you feel that nobody knows, and maybe you think, and because many times I'll give you an example that I thought that even God forgot about my problems.
SPEAKER_01: And listen to that.
SPEAKER_01: Unknown to me, unknown to me, God organized the entire Western civilization to know and come and help.
SPEAKER_01: Congressman Frank Wolf and Smith, like I explained, Voice of America.
SPEAKER_01: I never met these people in Romania.
SPEAKER_01: They will tell reports about how I was dressed, what kind of arguments I use, and everything.
SPEAKER_01: And for that reason, my cases became part of United Nations Reports on Human Rights and United States Department reports on human rights.
SPEAKER_01: And that was essential to what is and how God worked for my life.
SPEAKER_01: I want to tell you, you you are the only one knowing where you feel surrounded by the iron curtain or isolated where you feel that even God forgot about you.
SPEAKER_01: Be encouraged that He's working and you do not need to know.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be discouraged when you cry or even when you criticize Him.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain it to you.
SPEAKER_01: I was under house arrest and it was very hard.
SPEAKER_01: I told my girls that we are not allowed to go outside, we are not allowed to buy food and everything.
SPEAKER_01: Um I will tell you that many times when I wake up in the morning, I found the furniture um moved, so uh I have to move it back so my kids cannot see this because I was worried about the emotional.
SPEAKER_01: So they would come in at night.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_03: So while you guys are asleep, yes, they not only surround your house, they would actually come in and mess around in this.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, so they will do everything that was possible to make me afraid.
SPEAKER_01: And and uh and one day I was at the end of my robe.
SPEAKER_01: I I did everything that was possible, telling my kids that I don't need to eat and I am not hungry, and giving them food.
SPEAKER_01: And I was on the sofa one one evening, and I was at the end of my robe, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: And um I remember taking a pillow and putting on my face because I didn't want uh the Sigurd police to hear me crying.
SPEAKER_01: So I put a pillow on my face and I said, Lord, I know nobody comes to see us.
SPEAKER_01: I know we have bodyguards and we have policemen around with guns, nobody comes.
SPEAKER_01: But I feel like even you forgot us.
SPEAKER_01: And I knew the minute that I said that that he was not right.
SPEAKER_01: I knew that, but it was so much pain that I wanted to say to go out of my body, and the Lord in his kindness, he asked me to remember that day.
SPEAKER_01: Years later, I forgot, years later, from President Ronald Reagan, I heard that that day there was night in Romania, morning in America, God put on President Ronald Hart to make a deal with the dictator and to check on us every single day to make sure that he's not killing us.
SPEAKER_01: You are a child of God, and when he will put the most powerful person in the world to protect you.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't know at that time God never gives me a blueprint, no, just one day at a time, but his love is precious, you have no idea, no matter the pain, the power, the the isolation that you feel, you might feel in jail where you are.
SPEAKER_01: You have no idea what God is preparing for you, not only for you, but for generations to come, that you will influence others by what you will go through.
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
SPEAKER_03: I love that.
SPEAKER_03: So, Virginia, when I read this book, um there's actually two things that really resonate with me.
SPEAKER_03: But the first one is how did you overcome fear?
SPEAKER_03: Because um, we're talking about being beaten, we're talking about the intimidation.
SPEAKER_03: I to me, the way the securitate worked and the way in which they came in and how they were just kind of around every corner, really fearful.
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that was so I did so I watched a documentary last night on Romania under uh Koshescu, and it was saying that under the securitate, they they really fear was their main weapon.
SPEAKER_03: So, how did you deal?
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I already know because I read the book, but explain to us how you deal with fear in in a way where we all can understand that because we all have fears in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, yeah, and that that's true.
SPEAKER_01: And I I am under five feet tall.
SPEAKER_01: I was 82 pounds in Romania.
SPEAKER_03: I'm not too much taller than you, I just want you to imagine.
SPEAKER_01: I I don't scare anyone, you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: Um, first of all, I believe that you have to know that you belong to God, you have to be sure that God gave you that jab.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible tells us that God can make us wiser than our enemies.
SPEAKER_01: There are so many examples in in the book that tells us that God also took me to grow my faith.
SPEAKER_01: When I was under interrogation, and and uh they were just like in the movies, one uh part of them were bad guys hitting and you know banging my my um head on on the table or pushing me in the walls and things like this, full of blood and everything.
SPEAKER_01: Others would say, Oh, he didn't mean to do that, and so forth.
SPEAKER_01: But knowing that God gave me this, it was uncomfortable, it was painful, believe me.
SPEAKER_01: But I knew that as they had a job, because I heard many times the voice of the dictator screaming at them and giving them over the phone uh directions.
SPEAKER_01: I knew that I had a job there, that they might see Christ in me.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and God helped me to do that I never imagined that I will be capable of doing.
SPEAKER_01: And I I will explain the reason why.
SPEAKER_01: You see, when when the Bible says Romans 8, 28, everything works for the good of the ones that believe in God.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you an example.
SPEAKER_01: When they push me, torture me, push me, and make me full of blood, I didn't have anyone to help me.
SPEAKER_01: When they pushed me hard into the the walls, they helped me.
SPEAKER_01: You know what they did?
SPEAKER_01: They pushed me in Christ's arms.
SPEAKER_01: In his arms, there, full of blood, and alone, I realized that I was never alone.
SPEAKER_01: I was there so he can do the work in me.
SPEAKER_01: From the bottom of my heart, I'm telling you, it's not, it's I'm not, it's not something that I said to be polite, but it's an honor to suffer for Christ's sake.
SPEAKER_01: It is an honor to see that he will whisper in your ear and say, tell them about my love.
SPEAKER_01: And I have to say to them, I don't like what you're doing, but God loves you, and I choose to love you.
SPEAKER_01: Those huge people with guns on them, on the table, everywhere, they had to turn their heads because they were crying.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know what to do with me.
SPEAKER_03: You guys can imagine that part of the theme of this is that something happens, and I'm not gonna tell you what it is.
SPEAKER_03: Um, there's actually two major twists in this book, and the last one will blow your mind near the end, but I'm not gonna tell you what it is.
SPEAKER_03: So um, something happens as this story unfolds into a crescendo where something's gotta give.
SPEAKER_03: Something's either gotta give with Kalcheshka's regime and what they're gonna do with her, or uh something's gonna have to give in her life and she's just gonna have to give up her faith.
SPEAKER_03: And so these two elements are about to collide together in the book.
SPEAKER_03: But I'm not gonna tell you what happens, so you've got to buy the book, and I want her to sell all these books today.
SPEAKER_03: But I wanted to read one last part here.
SPEAKER_03: Um, Virginia, I want you to comment on it.
SPEAKER_03: This is the very last part of the book.
SPEAKER_03: You say, I hope these lessons translate from my life today as an American and into yours, no matter where you live on this planet.
SPEAKER_03: My desire is that through reading my book and seeing how God used me to accomplish amazing things, you'll realize God has a grand plan to use you as well.
SPEAKER_03: And I pray you will not put off doing what God is calling you to do.
SPEAKER_03: God assigns, He provides, he protects, and he gives victory to those whom he calls.
SPEAKER_03: If this had not been true in my life, I would not be alive today to write this message.
SPEAKER_03: You are created to thrive and to do great things through God's power, no matter what your circumstances are.
SPEAKER_03: I hope to meet you one day on our journey together to victory.
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_03: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_03: So elaborate on that.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, I am a mother and I'm a lawyer, and I'm a woman, so it's a uh it's a dangerous combination.
SPEAKER_01: So um I have to tell you that I'm gonna send you home with an assignment.
SPEAKER_01: Um, first of all, I want to say it.
SPEAKER_01: Um I believe that God brought you here for a very specific reason.
SPEAKER_01: Um I want you, and this is this is the assignment.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to go in your closet and pray and ask the Lord to share share with you his dream for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Because his dream is beyond your imagination.
SPEAKER_01: Your wildest dream, that's right, it's rubbish compared with what God has for you.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yes, yes.
SPEAKER_03: Beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: He created you for an amazing thing.
SPEAKER_01: America brought Christ and freedom to people all over the world.
SPEAKER_01: It's time for us to bring Christ and freedom back to America.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: The second assignment that I have for you is this.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, I want to tell you, and it's true what your pastor said.
SPEAKER_01: I came here, I knew five foreign languages, I didn't know one word in English, and I wrote a book that everybody says I couldn't put it down.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't recognize God's hands in that, I don't know what.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Is I want you to encourage the book to encourage you and say, where do I say I can do it, I can have it, and so forth.
SPEAKER_01: So let God do it.
SPEAKER_01: The second part is this is a book that explains life in socialists and communists.
SPEAKER_01: All I did, I took the reader walking with me in this uh society.
SPEAKER_01: So in this God's economy, we all are together.
SPEAKER_01: Just because I share with you today, or I wrote a book, it doesn't mean that my role is higher than your role.
SPEAKER_01: We are brothers and sisters in Christ, and your role in reading the book, sharing with others, asking questions that you will learn from the book are very important.
SPEAKER_01: God has an amazing plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I have to say it, freedom is precious.
SPEAKER_01: I live in a country where, and that's the way I sign every book of mine, and I want to tell you, there is no freedom without Christ, not even in America.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
SPEAKER_01: We are the solution for America.
SPEAKER_01: We the Christians, Christ in us.
SPEAKER_01: So ask the Lord for your mission, read the book, and be in fire.
SPEAKER_01: I will I'm happy to hear from you and to hear about your journey because we all have a journey to glorify and magnify the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_02: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_02: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_02: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_02: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_02: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.