The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Smuggling Bibles and What I Learned

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

In the 1980s, Jeff helped smuggle Bibles into the Soviet Union. In this episode, Jeff shares about that experience and the incredible people he met there who had such great faith and such great dependence on God that their witness still impacts his life today. Snippet from the Show “I encountered people who gave so much even though they had so little.” Email us with comments or questions at [e-mail]. Text “jeffcavins” to 33-777 to subscribe and get Jeff’s shownotes delivered straight to your email! Or visit ascensionpress.com/thejeffcavinsshow for full shownotes!

Welcome to the Jeff Kaven Show, where we talk about the Bible, discipleship, and evangelization, putting it all together and living as activated disciples. This is show 280, smuggling Bibles and what I learned. Well, thank you, my friend. Again, thank you for joining me this week. Boy, it got good feedback over the last couple. of weeks from you about how to give and how to receive criticism as well as the show called Wake Up. Got an awful lot of positive feedback and people felt like, yeah, you know, I'm challenged to take my faith to the next level and to live a life as a disciple that really, you know, goes back to the way the disciples followed the Lord, giving them everything, just selling out

and being completely committed to the gospel. I was thinking about today's show, and this is one of those shows where I have wanted to talk about this for several years now. I wanted to share a story with you that took place in my life back in the 1980s, and I just have never shared it before, and I've never done a program on it before.

I've never talked about it on the Internet before that I know of, but I wanted to talk to you today about smuggling Bibles and what I learned. And so I'm going to take you back to the 1980s, and I'm going to take you back to this one particular trip, which was my first trip to the Soviet Union, and talk about what we went through in the underground church that we met and what are a few things that I learned in my life as a result of going into the Soviet Union. So I'm going to go through that with you. After that initial trip to the Soviet Union, I did go back after the wall had come down, and life was very different. But I want to tell you about that first time.

By the way, if you do want show notes for any of my shows, all you got to do is type my name, one word, Jeff Kavins, and text it to 32777. The number again is 3377. seven. Okay. Well, you know, I know that things have been difficult for you over the last couple of years, maybe we're going on three years now with COVID and just so much happening politically over in the Ukraine and maybe your job has changed to your finances, relationships, and so forth. And I understand that. I think hearing what I have to share with you today about bringing Bibles or smuggling Bibles into the Soviet Union in the 80s. It might help in understanding a little bit more of some of the church around the world and what they are going through right now. I read not too long ago that somebody said

that right now there are more martyrs in the church than in the past completely. There's just people who are dying for the faith, imprisoned, killed, abused, because they're Christians. And while you might not have gone to prison, you maybe, maybe you didn't get arrested or anything like that, there is a persecution that still goes on. And just like we have physical suffering, we also have moral suffering. And that moral suffering can be persecution. So I want to introduce you to my brothers and sisters in the Soviet Union, who these people were in the underground church. They weren't a part of any denomination. They weren't Catholic. They were just Christians who were trying the best they could to live the faith. So something I wanted to share with you for

for quite a few years. I had this opportunity to be a part of an amazing group of men who were related to a ministry called Brother Andrew God Smuggler, who they had a long history of smuggling Bibles into Soviet nations and other places around the world. So I want to start by my invite in the preparation for the trip in the 1980s. I was invited to be a part of this trip, and our goal was to bring a number of things into the Soviet Union, which were not legal at that time. One was Bibles. We'll get to that in a moment. We also were going to bring in some medical supplies as well as some basic foods, or basic clothing, rather. I don't think we really had any food, but we did have some clothing. And I happened to get a hold of the gold. I mean the gold. About 20 leather-bound Bibles

in the Russian language. This was the jackpot. These were leather-bound Thompson-Chain reference Bibles that were very valuable. I mean, they were valuable just in English, but to have the Russian translation, these were set aside for the pastors of the underground church. Many of them I would be meeting when I went over. I brought also, because I heard in advance that they really loved Cassio watches, these cheap watches, you know, the digital ones. And so I bought several of those. And then I brought over, I believe it was a pair of jeans, Levi's, that I was wearing, and I brought over three more. And I went with a full suitcase, but knew that I would come back with basically nothing. And I would leave my suitcases there. So we ended up getting all packed up,

and I was leaving out of the United States and meeting up with a friend. And we were going to meet up with six more people on the flight over to Moscow. I got to be honest with you, I was a little bit nervous. I grew up in an era of the Cold War. We were afraid. You know, when I was growing up in grade school, we would go through these drills a couple times a year for a nuclear attack. And the way that if you want to keep yourself safe under a nuclear attack, then here's

what you do. It's very simple. you go and you put your head down between your knees and put your hands over the back of your head. And you do this while sitting on the ground. It's a sure thing that you will survive an atomic attack if you can get your head through you, you know, the bottom of your knees there. We actually did that. Can you believe that?

I don't know who came up with those guidelines. But I'm just glad we didn't get attacked. But we were afraid of bombs, but also the gulag. I read the Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and it didn't look good. If things went very poorly, you could find yourself in the Gulag. And the Gulag Archipelago, the three-volume set, is the set that I think really, really got into the mind of Jordan Peterson. And so much of what he has to say about communism and so forth comes from this trilogy. So it was in the winter when we arrived, and I hadn't packed well, leaving all the room for

Bibles and supplies. So as a part of this group, about eight of us, and if I remember correctly, upon arrival, I got to be honest, I was nervous. Part of it was, you know, the way I grew up, but it was a foreign country. Everything looked different, and I had in my suitcases things that were not considered kosher to bring into the Soviet Union. So upon arrival, I was nervous, and after getting our bags, we were just ready to leave the airport when two men touched my shoulders and motioned for me to come with them and bring my bags. I couldn't believe this was happening.

My worst nightmare is about to unravel, and the other guys in the group continued to go out because we have this pact that if one of us gets caught, the others will proceed, go forth. and they will carry out their mission, and the one that's left is going to have to be alone with the Lord and figure it out. So they brought me into an empty room, and I'm not kidding, the only light in the room was a hanging light bulb above a table. It was right out of a movie, and they put my suitcases on the table, and they started to open them up, laid them flat, and my heart was pounding as I tried to, you know, look composed, and I had that look on my face like I was an innocent little lamb. I didn't know why they would be checking my bags or anything. And as one layer after another of the supplies were taken out, they came to the gold, the Bibles.

And my heart was pounding so hard. And there they lay in the suitcase just waiting to enter the hearts of the Russians. They lifted them up and they looked at me as a, if to say, we have you. You knew this was wrong. You knew you weren't supposed to do this. And I looked at them with sort of a confused look as to, I'm not sure what the problem is here, you know, officer, for traveling all the way over. I'm alone now. I'm in this room. And there's three or four men in there who are beginning to interrogate me and ask me questions. And there was, they brought one guy in who could speak some fairly good English and he was asking me

questions. They stacked the Bibles on the table, leaving a few in the suitcase. I don't know if they saw those for sure, but there were, I think, two or three of them that were in the bottom, slightly covered up, but there were, I think it was 15 of them or something like that, that they took out. And then more police came into the room and started fumbling around in my suitcase, and they were talking among themselves, but I didn't have a clue really what they were saying. A man who knew English started asking me questions, and I told, him that I was a teacher and was going to contribute literature to people who were interested in reading, you know, some literature. I tried to keep it at that level. And they let me sit in the

room alone for over an hour. They all left with my suitcases there. If I remember, I think the Bibles were still in the room. And all I could think of was the gulag, and Alexander Solzhenitson. That's really about all I could think about at that point. After about a half an hour went by, came back into the room, and they took most of the Bibles. I think there were three left in the suitcase. And honestly, to this day, I don't know if that was intentional or if they just missed them or they just overlooked them or they looked different or something. But they left a few of them in the bottom of the suitcase.

And then they let me go. They let me go. And I'm like, it's over with, we're done. I can go. And I was so relieved. I had information as to where I was supposed to meet the team and so. I made arrangements and I met up. We met at this place in Moscow. So we lay low for a couple of days in Moscow and we had all the goods in our room and we would go out during the day and kind of

walk around a little bit, you know, sort of look like I guess tourists or something. But the day came was a couple days after we arrived that I had my instructions and the instructions were very specific and it was to take the Bibles and the supplies and to go to Red Square. with them. I was with another guy, and then there were other sets of teams that were meeting in Red Square, and so I was with a guy from Texas, and we brought our suitcases, and we stood at a certain place in Red Square, a place that we were told prior to going, and some of the other guys had medical supplies, and I was to stand at this particular place in Red Square and simply wait. And the instructions that I received were that someone would approach me and ask me a question.

and the question was, do you have bread from the baker? Now, the bread was referring to the word of God, and I was to respond, yes, and it's fresh. That's what my response was supposed to be, yes, and it's fresh. And so a guy did come up to me, and he says, do you have bread for the baker? And I'm like, wow, this is happening. And I said, yes, it's, and it's fresh. And he signaled me to simply follow him. As he turned around, he started walking away, and I was bringing these superiors.

cases with me, and me and another guy, this guy from Texas, followed the man for what must have been a mile or so. He finally came to a fairly small car, and we put the supplies in the trunk, then sat in the back seat, kind of took a deep breath, like, and we looked at each other, still a little bit nervous, to be honest. And I was eager to talk to the guy that we were following back to the car. And so when the doors of the car closed, I said, hey, brother, and he immediately turned around very fast, and he made the motion over his mouth as if to say, no talking, no talking. And we complied. We kind of looked at each other, weren't even supposed to talk to each other, and we drove for over two hours into the countryside and finally arrived at what seemed

like a mile from nowhere. We were by a small train station, and it was in the wintertime, it was very, very cold, and we unloaded the bags, and he simply pointed to what looked like a big, abandoned building about a quarter mile away. No cars around it. And he drove off. There we were in the middle of nowhere at this abandoned train station. At least it looked abandoned. And so we walked over to the building and opened a door. No one around. And we walked inside. We began to hear what we thought was singing very faintly. And we began to walk down some steps. Actually, it wasn't, there weren't steps. It was like a ramp, a ramp that was zigzag. And we began walking down to the belly of this big building.

And the singing got louder and louder and louder the more we went down. And as we got down to the basement of this building, a big room in the basement, there were several hundred men and women and children in the basement. I was stunned. I looked at them. They were praising God. They had their hands raised. They were, some of them were just ecstatic about worshipping the Lord.

And they were really, really focused. And the person that came and met me, who was expecting us, brought me up on the stage. And there I was looking out at the people. I was so moved to see that these people had made their way from all over the Soviet Union to disabandoned building. I couldn't explain it. And so I sat up there and then the praise began to stop. And there were probably 15 men on the stage with me. And I was the last one in this row facing the people.

When they stopped praising and worshipping, which I understood at that point they had been doing this for three or four hours, then the man at the end, opposite of me on the row, he shared a little testimony. and they all introduced themselves and said, I am so-and-so, my father is in the gulag. My mother was taken away. My grandparents were killed on and on down the line. And I was so humbled to hear these stories of suffering and what they endured. And they finally got to me. And I literally, all I had to say basically was, I'm Jeff Kavens and I got a hang nail, you know.

It's like, you guys are something else. else. I felt so humbled by sitting there. And I just spoke for maybe 30 seconds. And then the leader got up and he said that he wanted me to preach. He wanted me to speak to the group. And I'm thinking, me? I'm here to learn. I have Bibles and things, but I'm here to learn. And they insisted that I addressed the crowd. And so I did. And in the middle of my talk, which I spoke for about 45 minutes or so there were people even on the front row with a child who was sick and threw up and the mother was cleaning up the vomit as she was looking at me and listening intently. And then another woman came up after I was done and she turned around and she faced the crowd. She proclaimed by memory

a couple of Psalms. And I found out that they didn't have Bibles. And so the Bibles they had were cut up into books and they would take turns sharing each book of the Bible. And so one person could have a Psalm, another person would have Isaiah. If you were really lucky, you'd have one of the gospels. Over the next week, I had the chance to go into the homes of these people and to go into more underground churches. In what I saw, in the way I was treated, absolutely changed my life. you're listening to the Jeff Kaven show. Hi, I'm Sonia Corbett, the Bible study of Angelista, and a Baptist turned Catholic. As a Baptist, I thought that Catholic beliefs were invented,

that they came out of nowhere and had no connection whatsoever to the Bible. I also happened to believe that the Old Testament was about rules, rituals, and sacrifices that the New Testament gave us permission to ignore for a personal relationship with Jesus. It's a long story, but at the Old Testament, as God began connecting the Old and New Testaments for me, I was stunned by the beautiful consistency of God in the Catholic Church. I can't tell you how exciting it was when God opened my eyes to the incredible ways the Old Testament foreshadows God's plan for the New Testament and for his Catholic Church. In my book fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism,

I explain these amazing connections, and I share how those connections helped change my life. If you read this book, I promise that you will come away with tools to help you share your Catholic faith easily, answer questions about how your Catholic faith fits with what's in the Bible, and most importantly, grow deeper in your relationship with Christ. If you're interested in learning more or ordering a copy of fulfilled, uncovering the biblical roots of Catholicism, you can do so at ascensionpress.com or on Amazon. on thanks for coming back i'm sharing with you a story that took place in the 1980s in my life as i was part of a team to smuggled bibles into the soviet union i got caught of all of the people i got caught and uh had a lot taken away and i ended up going free very grateful for that i wasn't in the gulag i didn't want to write a book from the gulag so i left off a book from the gulag so i left off Before the break, we were in this underground church, and over the next week, I was brought from one

underground church to another, from one home to another the entire time. I never in my life have taught more in one week than in that week in the Soviet Union. I remember one home that I visited. They brought me in, and the small house, very small house, in fact, in fact, I can still remember the home. I can remember the color. I can remember the street. And when I went into that house, there were close to 50 people crammed into this big living room waiting. They were simply waiting for someone to come in, preach the gospel, and to share the scriptures. That's what they were waiting for. They were waiting for me and my friend from Texas. And so when we were all assembled there, the leader said that I could start and please teach us something from the Bible,

you know, tempted, you know, as an American, five steps to prosperity, whatever, baloney. I started to teach them about suffering. I started to teach them about the cross and realizing they had more to tell me than I did them, but nevertheless, I taught. And I taught for an hour, and then they asked if I could do this, please, for another hour. I said, sure, yeah. I mean, we don't get this back home. Yeah. And when I was done, they asked for another hour.

After that hour, they wanted me to eat. So they brought out a modest lunch for me, a very modest lunch. No one else was eating. They were just sitting in the very seats they were in when I was teaching. And I asked my translator, I said, why aren't they eating anything? and she said they don't have enough so they're honored to feed you and i'm thinking oh wow oh wow and so i ate the little bit that i had and and then when i was done the the father the husband at the home he brought me into the master bedroom and he signaled that he with his hands that he

wanted me to take a nap to lay down and take a nap and i and i could have used one by that time to be honest with you. But to my amazement, I must say, it made me a little uncomfortable because the man of the house sat at the end of the bed in a chair praying for me as I faked a nap. I couldn't believe it. Here I was taking a nap. They fed me and he was praying for me as I was napping. And after about an half hour, that's what it was, I went back out into the large room and everyone was sitting right where they were, and I taught for three more hours before leaving. By the time the week was over, I had given out all of the Casio watches, all three pair of Levi's. But the biggest privilege for me was to give those leather Bibles in Russian to, I think there were three, it left over, from what

was confiscated. I gave them to the leaders. And I said, you guys know what to do with these better than I do. Make sure they get into the hands of pastors. And so that week transformed my life. I fell in love with those people. I got back to the airport. I had my nothing but my carry on in my Bible. I had a little bag with my Bible and my bathroom bag. And I got back on the airplane to fly out of Moscow. And on the way back via Finland, I was stuck in meditation about my trip. absolutely stuck. And I couldn't sleep or anything. All I could do was think about all of the homes I was in and the people that I met. And I'll be honest with you, one thing that was a little bit uncomfortable for me, and nobody warned me, is that in that underground church,

city to city, home to home, when you meet the men, they kiss you on the lips. And I caught a couple of those, and I thought, okay, we're going to have to change this one. real quick so i figured out a way to avoid it and call me immature for the time being but i probably was but before i would meet another man i had a pen in my pocket and i would pull it out and accidentally drop it on the floor reach down and grab the pen and with my right hand reach up and shake hands and that was my way of avoiding that but it was something that was cultural so on the way back i was thinking about a few things number one i was changed man i was changed due to the love of these people They had so little, and they gave so much.

And that image of them having so little and giving so much really stuck with me. It wasn't unusual to be in a home and be the only one eating. I can think of an apartment I went into where the whole family didn't eat. And I and my friend from Texas and our translator, we ate. And, you know, it's humbling to be in that position. but they loved it. And number two, I was challenged as I had over 10 Bibles awaiting in my office when I came home. My own nice Bibles.

And these people didn't have the luxury of a personal Bible, but what they had, they really made use of it. A Bible in this underground economy of these Christians in the Soviet Union, that Bible was greater than gold. And when they saw those leather Bibles, you could hear the, I looked at my Bibles differently after that. As I'm talking to you right now, I've got one, two, three, I've got over 15 Bibles in my office here. All of them are pretty nice Bibles too. We have, my friend, an embarrassment of riches in the Catholic Church in America today. I tried to convey a little bit of this two weeks ago when I, I spoke. spoke on this very show, a show called Awake.

You and I have an embarrassment of riches, of Bibles and catechisms and places to pray and freedom and the Eucharist and friendship with one another. We have so much. And yet we are so focused on ourselves and on making us better and having a vision for our own life and so forth while people around the world are suffering. number three they were optimistic and they were hopeful as they relied on and trusted each other their faith was amazing it was amazing they believed god for miracles everything that happened they tied it to god and their reliance on one another put me to shame back here in the united states they loved each other they trusted each other with their very life do you know what that does to you when you witness that and you're a part of a group who is

living that way here we are today wondering if someone is spreading gossip about us on Twitter two different worlds number four even though the social and political situation was so difficult they were happy people and they just didn't complain but they were optimistic they were happy they were joyful they had the joy of the Lord the joy that that goes beyond comprehension. I was watching the kingdom of God in action, even though they didn't have a building, they didn't have a priest,

they didn't have anywhere to go to. And number five, for these Russians, Christianity wasn't a Sunday thing. It was a daily experience. They only met as a group occasionally, and then in secret, and miles and miles away from home. While they were underground,

they created a web of communication and sharing that was so inspired. Well, there are people around the world today, and I'm sure that you are aware of this to some degree, people around the world today who are standing for the faith in the most difficult of situations. We can't forget the numbers of people who are martyred for the faith or in prison. Pray for our brothers and sisters in China right now. We're going through hell on earth, but they're strong and they're joyful and hopeful. and they know what it means to suffer with Christ, and they for sure will know what it means to share in the glory.

When I came back to the United States, I stopped at a fairly well-to-do food market on the way home. I needed to pick some things up before I went back home, and when I walked in, I was stunned by the abundance. Just 15 hours earlier, I was walking right next to breadlines in Moscow. scout. I went into homes where there was only enough food to feed me. And they relied on the Holy Spirit for everything. And there I come back to the United States. I walk in and there is everything you could possibly want to eat in abundance. Well, I've kept my brothers and sisters in my

heart for years now. Just about a couple of weeks ago, Emily and I were going through some pictures and I still have a few pictures from that, that trip, and I hold those people near and dear in my heart. When I run into a Russian speaking person today, I always say to them what I learned over in the Soviet Union on that smuggling trip, Slava Bogu, praise God, praise God. Then when I say goodbye, Dasfadanya, my drook.

We'll see you later, my friend. We'll see you later. So I would ask you now at the conclusion of this week's podcast, would you pray? Would you pray with me for the Christians in Russia? For the Christians in China? For our brothers and sisters in Ukraine, Belarus, all around the world, Poland. Let's lift them up in prayer right now. We've got it so good.

We pray from a place of an embarrassment of riches. Let's lift them up. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Jesus. Lord Jesus, we thank you for all you're doing in the world today and what you're doing in my friend's life. My friend and I both lift up our hearts to you right now.

And Lord, we lift up our brothers and sisters in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Poland. We lift up our brothers and sisters around the world in China. Iran other places around the world where the gospel is frowned on we ask you lord to give them strength and give them tenacity give them lord wisdom give them lord favor even in the underground to meet with one another and to be of good cheer lord jesus we thank you for them and we do pray for them and lift them up and pray that you would prosper them in every single way we thank you that the reward is great someday lord should we find ourselves in the position that they are in, may we be as faithful.

And so, Lord, as we go back to our regular schedule today, may we never ever lose track of just how big this body of Christ is, how big the kingdom is, and how we are so blessed to have such relatives in the body of Christ. Many of the saints suffered, oh God, for you. And I know that saints are being made even today. Slava Bogu. Praise God. Amen.