ComfortZone

It was the last week of the year in 1979. It was cold, gray and dreary in Eastern Europe. My two buddies and I were delivering a load of Bibles from West Germany to central Romania.

On that trip, the border crossing between what is now Serbia, and Romania was a difficult one. We were very close to getting caught! The Romanian border police right away suspected that we had a modified vehicle. One thing they easily saw (when they measured up from the ground with a tape measure) was that our van’s floor was thicker than normal. There seemed to be no way to access it though. They inspected it inside and out, but all the welds and panels looked original. When they asked us about it, we told them it was full of sound-deadening insulation. (a true statement—it did cut down the road noise!)

They asked us if we had any of the standard forbidden items; guns, pornography, radios, or drugs, but curiously never asked specifically if we had Bibles or religious materials. Romania in those days was very strict about keeping out religious materials. (Incidentally, we were prepared to tell the truth, if asked specifically, but thankfully we weren’t ever put in that position!)

More guards got in on the search, as they became more suspicious. They climbed in, under and around our van, measured it again, and even brought out the drug-sniffing dog. Finally deciding to take a closer look, they ordered us to pull into a separate building. It had very bright lights, and lots of tools.

The actual border crossing location (from Google Earth).

My two buddies and I prayed silently that their eyes would be blinded from seeing what we had. This was another one of those times in my life when I remember feeling surprisingly calm, in spite of what was happening! One of the guards brought out a power drill with a very large bit. He climbed inside, and in no time at all had drilled a one-inch hole all the way through the floor behind the front seats! I watched the look on his face as he gathered up some of the finely shredded pages, and studied it carefully in his palm. I looked at the little pile of shavings too, and I could clearly see the pieces of black alphabet letters on the tiny bits of white paper.

The scene is still very clear in my mind. When he looked over at me (sweat running off his forehead), I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and said, “insulation?” He was satisfied with that, I guess… because he gathered up his tools and told us we could proceed. I still can’t believe he didn’t see the printing on the paper shreds. I will always remember that special miracle.

God had answered our prayers and caused that man to not see what was right in front of his face!

I have been officially detained and questioned four times in my life… twice in Poland, once in Romania, and once in what used to be Czechoslovakia. When I was in Germany attending a Torchbearer’s Bible School in 1979 and 1980, I joined a group that enabled me to travel for a few action-packed weeks through several communist Eastern European countries: Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Poland.

We went during Christmas break and spring break posing as tourists, however our main purpose was to deliver Bibles and other Christian literature (all strictly forbidden in those countries in those days) to Christian pastors behind the “Iron Curtain”. Those communist governments fell in 1989, and no longer exist, so I suppose it’s OK to talk about it now.

Here is an article from Time Magazine’s March, 1979 issue that describes more about the work.

This particular incident took place on Christmas Day in 1979, in Bielsko-Biala, Poland. We were on our way back out of Poland, and heading for Vienna, Austria. My two companions and I were in the parking lot of the train station having our very special Christmas Dinner… pork and beans. One of us had the great idea of taking a picture of the special occasion, since it was Christmas!

(Some of you will recognize Greg Buchan on the left. He’s a friend from Newberg High School and the Newberg Friends Church youth group. That’s me in the middle, and Sam on the right.)

Not too long after climbing back in to the “Porcelain Pony” (we affectionately called our Fiat van this since it was sort of a dull white color), we heard some unintelligible yelling and tapping on the window. It was a uniformed officer, and a machine gun-toting guard, motioning us to accompany them into the train station.

The communist authorities were suspicious of lots of things, and they especially did not like anyone taking pictures near their government buildings. After questioning us thoroughly (through an interpreter), they finally believed us (that we were weren’t spies!), and they let us go. We told them that it was a common American tradition to photograph the Christmas meal. (Which is true, of course!)

Another main point that we made to the officer was that the train station is not even in the picture, since the camera was aimed down the street in the opposite direction. They didn’t pull the film out of my camera that day, so I got to keep the prized picture!

Here is a drawing I made soon after I got home, to record the exact moment they interrupted our jolly laughter. It was a memorable and Merry Christmas!

Later that week we delivered a large load Bibles to a pastor in Romania—five of which had a one-inch hole drilled straight through them! That is a story I will save for another post.