In Leningrad, an official tour guide met us at the airport, brought us to our hotel and told us he was available to show us the beautiful sights. Realizing he was secret police, we said, "Thank you, but no, thank you."

The next afternoon, we took a taxi to the Baptist Church, the only one in a city of four million people. It's an "official" church, and we were treated graciously. They fed us and during the worship services, we sat in a place designated for foreign guests. The church was packed, the singing was magnificent, and the preaching quite good. The message was biblical.

However, I would estimate that 70 percent of the people were more than 60. Most of the others were quickly approaching that age. There was only a handful of young people. A frightening thought entered my mind as I looked over the congregation: It would take only the loss of one generation of Christians to lose the entire Christian movement.

Back in our hotel that evening, that thought kept haunting me. Fred and I walked down one of the main streets, and, as I looked into the eyes of the Soviet people, my heart broke. They were no different from us. They were born with a capacity to know God. We must reach them.

Fred and I spent much time in prayer and decided to find the university campus the next day and witness of Jesus to students.

We didn't realize that the different departments of the university were located in different parts of Leningrad, so when we asked directions to the university, we were sent to the Linguistics Department. Praise the Lord! That meant that many of the students spoke English. But we had no idea where to go or how to begin witnessing.

We wandered through a large building until we found a student sitting alone in a large hall. We were excited to find that he spoke English. We gave our testimonies, and he seemed very interested.

"All my life," he said, "I've been an atheist. My parents taught me there is no God. My school taught me there is no God. My government taught me there is no God. I assumed that to be the truth. However, a couple weeks ago, I began to doubt. I wondered if there might be a God. The universe seemed so orderly, I thought it couldn't have come into existence by an accident. I said, 'God, if there is a God, would You reveal Yourself to me?' And now, I'm talking to you. I believe God has answered my prayers."

He asked us if we had any more pamphlets. We gave him a handful, and he told us he'd be right back. Not only did he come back, but many of his friends also came with him. Before long, the entire hall was filled with young people wanting to know about Jesus.

It was fantastic! Fred told a group about Jesus, and I witnessed to another group. Soon six KGB agents came into the hall and arrested us.

For the next eight and a half hours, we were interrogated. Even that was exciting, because approximately every 30 minutes, the police sent in two different interrogators.

We knew that deep within the interrogators, there had to be a cry for the truth. We felt we were on a divine mission to make Christ known to them.

They never left anyone alone with us, but, in the middle of the interrogation, an official from the university came in. When two interrogators left and before the next two came in, he picked up one of our Russian gospel tracts. He looked around, folded it, and put it into his pocket. "I will read it later."

During our interrogation, we were threatened with imprisonment and told to write out confessions of our crime. I said, "I thought freedom of religion was guaranteed by your constitution."

They refused to back down and told us to write in detail our crimes.

I began, "When I was 18 years old, a man told me about Jesus …"

I continued my testimony of how Christ had saved me and changed my life. I concluded, "And Jesus Christ has given me a commission to bring His love to every person on the face of the earth. And, if the person reading this confession would like to know Jesus Christ, God's only Son, you can. Call upon Him now, and He will save you!" I wrote out a prayer that could be prayed if the reader was sincere.

It wasn't exactly what they were looking for. I pressed them again. "What is our crime? Do you have freedom of religion?"

They said, "We believe religion is the opiate of the people. You, therefore, have brought opium, a narcotic, into the Soviet Union, and you have spread it among the Soviet people. You have committed a crime against the state. A drug smuggler would be arrested in your country. You have done the same."

I responded quickly, "Then, you don't have freedom of religion!"

"Oh, yes," they said, "we have freedom. People are free to go to church, but no one has the right to spread that sickness among the masses."

We were placed under house arrest, threatened again, and finally put on a train. We weren't sure where we were going.

The Soviets had taken all our money and plane tickets. They had accused us of spying. We prayed and committed our future into the hands of God. The farther away from Leningrad we traveled that evening, the harder the snow fell. We seriously thought we might be headed for Siberia.

That night, I though more deeply than I ever had before. Life took on a new dimension for me as I thought of my family and of prison in Siberia. My thoughts raced back 2,000 years to when Jesus said, "Go!"

I asked myself, If you end up in Siberia, and perhaps never see your family again, was it worth it?

Out the window of the train, I saw soldiers with machine guns, standing in the snow. At that moment, I remembered the atheist who had been converted to Christ at the university, and I wept. It's worth it! It's worth it! For one soul to come to Jesus, it's worth it!

I didn't have to go to prison. Instead, we were deported to Helsinki, Finland. It was a great joy to awaken the next morning in freedom.

The Communists don't fear what the church does inside four walls, but they do fear what the church does when she leaves that building. But Satan doesn't need an atheistic government to hinder the church in the West from aggressive evangelism. He has rocked the church to sleep in the cradle of apathy.

The interrogators told us there would be no Christians in the Eastern bloc by the year 2000. But in the face of persecution and difficulty, the church in the East is growing.

My heart breaks for the church in the West. We could lose this generation if we continue to sleep. We must awaken. Our hearts must be set aflame!