02/24/2018
Special personal Message from Pastor Mark Bazalev about Billy Graham
Dear Friends!
In the confusion between Olympic victories, and the American political struggle, the law on the reintegration of donbass and the upcoming Russian-speaking elections in Russia, it almost imperceptibly eludes our attention to an almost epic event - the departure of the legendary American Evangelist Billy Graham.
For me in 1982, Billy Graham arrived from Moscow to Leningrad, and performed at our church on poklonnoj mountain. It felt like we were practically visited by a man from another planet. It was the first gust of fresh air that suddenly engulfed our church and our hearts. I am sure that it is this Spiritual gust of the Spirit that opened the iron curtain, which for so many years divided the USSR from the west.
Later, on the stage of the " Olympic " Complex in Moscow, when our band " Christmas " together with Father Alexander Menem, took part in the first crusade, it became clear that the movement ahead was no longer unstoppable. Alexander mein then said that in white jealous of the energy that fills the protestants.
Later in 1992, during the American tour of our group, we came to the city of Wheaton, where there was a college where Dr. Graham and his museum were attended. I will not remember all the details of this visit, but I remember well that there was a feeling that we were moving towards a world-wide history of history, getting to the point where we want to take an example.
And that's exactly what I'd like to say today!
Over the years of his service, Billy Graham has shown the world a selfless dedication to the gospel of the gospel and almost no one has ever seen such modesty.
He met with monarchs and presidents, with the Catholic Pope and Orthodox Patriarch, with Prime Ministers and ministers, received medals, credentials and even knighthood rank - and everywhere he spoke of Jesus Christ.
He didn't like to tell who he was dating, and meeting he didn't show pictures from these meetings to impress someone - he had enough meeting with Jesus, and that's what he was telling the world about.
My Multi-Year-old friend and director of our charity, Frank Abernathy, told me during the conflict in Alabama, Billy Graham once made a cash bail for Martin Luther King who had been arrested. Even then as a young Baptist Preacher he was a champion for equality. But Billy Graham himself never showed off his other good deeds. They were told by others, and he was talking about Jesus Christ and what he did for everyone who believes in him!
Despite the enormous financial opportunities of his organizations, he lived and died at his ranch in North Carolina, where he lived for more than half a century and where thousands of people from all over the world came, people of all ranks and ranks! The house was average by American standards it is the house, on top of the mountain, with low ceilings and completely without luxury. This house would like to claim the principles that Billy Graham used to live on.
Dr. Billy Graham wasn't a perfect man, like any of us. He also had mistakes, failures, difficulties and difficult times. He had controversial statements, mixed decisions and what might have been done differently.
But no matter what, he was, there is, and will remain a Christian with a big letter, the one that can and should be taken by example!
It was he and those who in distant 1982 brought the spiritual wind of change and the beginning of a spiritual thaw, in then a closed Soviet Union!
RIP
