Missionary’s Heart for Soviet Jewry Comes Full Circle

In the eighties, the former Soviet Union persecuted Jews and refused to let them practice their faith or leave for Israel. Growing up in his synagogue in the U.S., our worker, Mike C., often heard passionate discussion about freeing Russian Jews. Eventually over a million Jewish people left Russia and Ukraine for Israel and the United States when the Soviet Union fell. When Mike came to faith in Jesus in 1993, thousands of his Russian-Jewish brothers and sisters were also coming to faith! It was a revival! The very next year, he went on a summer mission trip to share the Gospel with Russian Jews. So Mike was overjoyed when Igor,*a Ukrainian Jewish man, prayed with him to receive the Lord and was later baptized. Igor grew up in an atheistic home, but with a strong Jewish identity. Igor had always struggled with faith in Jesus because of the atheism he was taught in school. However, through the witnesses of his wife, son and their friends, Messianic prophecies from the Word, and God tugging at his heart, Igor came to faith in the Messiah!