Random Coincidences

I do not believe in coincidence ... they do not exist, because I believe life is by design.  When you encounter a cause, you know there will be an effect - conversely, when you slam into an effect, you can know the cause.  I have only once slammed into an exception!

So our story begins in 1973 ...

I was rather abruptly tossed out of my house for a series of lies told by my father's girlfriend, oh make no mistake, what was told was not true - which is not to say that I was an innocent.  Add a problem with the US Army and an intolerable mother, I moved to Seattle to help my uncle build a house.  There I met many kids my age in his neighborhood and at his church - eventually staying to go to school and in the process become a Christian.  From salvation, I fell into a group of Hutterites whom discipled me in this new faith.

So, little German boy, adopts an unknown faith and is schooled in it by a group of Swiss-German believers, whose past matched with his background ....  Naw, no coincidence there.

One Sunday at church, we had a special speaker.  He was a Dutchman, close enough to German to hold my interest.  His push was to raise funds for the smuggling of Bibles into countries where the Bible is outlawed or at least severely restricted ...  Afterwards, I stayed to talk with him because I was interested in knowing how someone with a Germanic background could willingly break the law.  No I am not naive, in this instance, because as a German you are raised with a set of obedience ... he was professing something against his very upbringing and I was confused.

We went to lunch together and my eyes were opened to an entirely new way of understanding life, a God perspective - not man's.  Nope, no coincidences there.

In 1983, I suddenly was overwhelm with the knowledge that I needed to do something to help believers in Bohemia.  Never been there, never could even travel there due to US laws governing my life.  Yet, I knew, I had to go ...

Shortly after this, a guy I had known for years - but not well, came up and said, "Kris, I have this overpowering feeling that I have to tell you something ..."  I had no idea what it could be but he was so stressed and so serious, I went to lunch with him.  I figured he was getting a divorce, everyone I knew was that year!  As it turned out, he confessed to me his entire life as a member of the Eastern European underworld ..... a part of which was how to smuggle heroin into there from Turkey.  ACK!  I understood that I was learning something I would need one day - but it was only a coincidence after all!  Right?

As my first trip approached,  I needed to find a European base for supplying me with Bibles in the chosen languages ... I called the American Bible Society.  They told me about Open Doors, a group already doing this.  So, I began researching Open Doors - and it was run by - that Dutch speaker I had met a decade earlier.  Now that really was a coincidence!

But, the last thing I was going to do was to compromise myself to an unknown group.  So, the slow dance began between us.  It was to be a decade before I could come to the conclusion that they were "safe" - mostly.  Eastern Europe is a delicate place and loose lips sink ships.  The last thing I desired was to get caught with a load of banned Bibles ...  It would easily translate into a lifetime sentence in prison.  Sigh.  But, they turned out to be about 99% in my book.  You have to remember every organization, especially Christian, has its challenges with Satan trying to compromise them ...

Make a really long story short, I were able to coordinate my Bohemia trip.  I fully expected to be busted so everything was set up for a very long absence on my part.  And then the problems began ...

Of course, my first trip was described last week.  It was a nightmare, the only way to put it simply.  People I thought I could count on, I could not.  Things that should have gone right, did not.  The daily detaining, by increasingly higher levels of security, made my faith stronger but wreaked havoc with my co-conspirator.  The change in destination outstripped my money and food supply - as well as, language skills!  The load of Bibles shifted and I was stuck with trying to figure out how to remove them - while a group of Bulgarians were trying to steal my truck!

On the other hand, I saw miracle after miracle on that trip.  I met many wonderful Christian believers on the other side of the Iron Curtain, their faith put mine to shame.  That lecture on smuggling?  Turned out to be the most valuable lesson before hand.  Quite literally, without it, the trip would have failed!

I left and returned to my office in Ireland.  Meeting after meeting with a staff whom was becoming increasingly resistant to the idea of working for their salaries.  I was being confronted by my Eastern European experience ... confronted by a post-Christian culture in Ireland and the net result to be seen in their lives.  It was a long, very long learning experience of God opening my eyes - but it was just all a huge string coincidences.  Right?

And I really, really, really wanted to just take a break from life and find peace ... acceptance would have been nice as well.

And I returned home a very, very, very changed man ...  Never to find that acceptance nor peace, in fact, the exact opposite was to follow and gain momentum.