FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH I CALLED YOU

Day 15 of God Keeps Covenant: FROM THE ENDS OF THE EARTH I CALLED YOU by Wendy Beckett

There are few places on Earth much farther from Jerusalem than Siberia and the Far East of Russia. It was to those isolated places that the Communist dictators sent the political prisoners – many of whom were Jewish. Tens of thousands died as they built railroads and highways and worked in mines. On the Russian Chinese border is a city called Birobidzhan, which Stalin cruelly named the  “New Jerusalem” for the Jews.

In a town many time zones east of Moscow, Ian, a volunteer in his late sixties from New Zealand, plodded through deep snow and biting cold to visit the Jewish people. His mission was to share Scriptures with them to show them that the time had come to “go home.” 

As hundreds of volunteers, young and old, from many nations have served throughout the former Soviet Union, they have witnessed amazing changes in the attitudes of the Jewish people. Many are unreceptive at first, but often as the volunteers read Scriptures to them from their ancient prophets, God’s Word melts their hearts, and they decide to make preparation for their long journey to their new home.

Tears of joy welled up in my eyes in May 2004, as I stood in the Operation Exodus head office for the Far East of Russia. There before me was a large wall covered with photos of all the families, the young and the old, who had made Aliyah in the last 12 years. What a moving sight – those dear faces!

These remote regions have also been the focus for Aliyah-related work for the International Christian Embassy, Jerusalem.  One of the areas where they work is above the Arctic Circle, where mines established during the Stalin era are now being closed and towns depopulated. From there, Christian volunteers help Jewish people on a route that takes them through Finland to Israel.

I have heard numerous stories from these remote regions of the Lord’s supernatural help for the valiant volunteers out in the Siberian winter. In one case, two of these young people arrived at the top of a mountain pass only to find the road completely blocked with mounds of drifting snow. At that very moment, on that deserted road, two large trucks passed and blasted through the snow piles. The volunteers’ car was then able to continue to another isolated village to search for and help more Jewish people.

“But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, You descendants of Abraham, my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. …I have chosen you and not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.”  (Isaiah 41:8-10)