Slava

Slava and the Hawaiian sunset


Slava was the first Russian I have met personally, and he broke my heart.

Slava is a pastor, a good one, as far as I can tell. He is also a story-teller. He can enchant you with his stories – stories of his life in Russia, the stories of brothers and sisters in Christ, and what they do there as believers during the Communist persecution, and even after. The way that he would tell his stories could charm you, and you would feel as you were really there in his stories. He would laugh at his own jokes, and he has a laugh that is contagious and innocent. We attended the four-week training here in Maui. I’ve spent some time with him, and I really enjoy his company. He is funny, brusque and yet also child-like.

He told me he was a painter, and he would paint icons when he was younger. He painted icons because he was searching for God – he wanted to know this God who is depicted in this ancient art form. One day, his aunt showed him a 19th century Bible, big and ornate, hidden under the floor of her house. It was a relic from the past, hidden because of the persecution. And from there Slava got to know the power of God’s Word. He encountered Jesus Christ, and all his questions about God was satisfied by reading the four Gospels in ancient Russian language. Long before the missionaries came in the post-USSR Russia, Slava has found God.

This is how he broke my heart:

Last Sunday, Slava witnessed something that shocked him – scandalized him even. He was deeply disturb – not just by what he saw, he was also alarmed that we who were supposed to be spiritual men did not even flinch or think there was anything wrong. You could sense his disturbance. Usually full of stories and always laughing, he was silent on our way home. His spirit was greatly troubled.

My heart went out to him. While many of us think nothing of what we have witnessed, Slava took offense. He knew God had certain standards, and this standard should never be broken. “God will judge this,” he intoned. While many of us would have dismissed what he said to be old-fashioned or terribly naïve, something inside me – sacred and ancient was awaken. I was confronted with his innocence and sense of holiness. There were still things that can not and should not be acceptable in Slava’s world. Contrast that with the seemingly world-weary view we have taken. I asked myself, “when was the last time I was outraged by sin?” Have I become so calloused that sin, no matter how barefaced, no matter how outrageous, no longer affects me?

His response to this scandal was a rude-awakening for me. My heart was broken, because it needed to be broken. Years of cleverness and cynicism have dulled my sense of righteousness, perhaps, and I needed a reminder quick. And so Slava, just at the right time, confronted me with his sense of holiness.

Slava’s righteous indignation was a rebuke to me. – me who should have known better, me who should have a strong sense of moral conviction. My prayer is that God will renew within me a sense of innocence and childlikeness in my faith, so that I too, just like Slava, will never learn to accept sin so easily, and so lightly.