Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ther compartments of vehicles are used and the larger missions rely on specially built vehicles, For a while some missions were able to bribe Soviet sailors to take in quantities of literature. Other techniques have primarily publicity value. For many years the Wurmbrand mission has been distributing small plastic bags containing a gospel tract, a stick of chewing gum as greetings from America, and a drinking straw to make the plastic bag buoyant on the water. In one publicity stunt, a single- engine airplane flew across the Bering Strait toward some of the outlying is- lands belonging to the Soviet Union and dropped these gospel bags into the water. It is obviously impossible to obtain an accurate assessment of how much literature has been introduced into the Soviet Union by non-legal means. Belov and Shilkin complained that customs officials were finding such contraband every day.?! On the basis of confidential information sup- plied to me and some well-informed estimates, I concluded that by 1974 ap- proximately 1.8 million pieces of Bibles, New Testaments, or Gospels have been imported into the Soviet Union by non-legal means.” Since then, that amount may well have doubled. Another program that involved fifteen to twenty percent of the budget was financial support for underground pastors and the families of prisoners. One mission, a spin-off of Underground Evangelism, called Frontline Fellowship, devotes its entire ministry to raising monthly financial support for pastors in Eastern Europe, Many missions contribute directly or indirectly to radio ministries, That is, their own staff members or associates prepare and present radio programs or their agency underwrites the radio costs. The best-known radio Stations broadcasting gospel programs on shortwave are Trans World Radio (TWR, Monte Carlo), Far Eastern Broadcasting Company (FEBC), and the Voice of the Andes (HCJB Ecuador). For the larger missions, radio broadcasting involves between five and ten percent of the budget. Others, 398 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il such as Russia for Christ, are devoted almost exclusively to radio work.™ These three activities (literature, financial support, and radio) constitute the programs of the larger East European missions. The remainder of their funds are devoted to administration, fund-raising, and other ministries in the West. An older mission such as Slavic Gospel Association has also de- voted considerable effort to providing resource personnel in children and youth camps but this type of activity is not possible in the Soviet Union. Both Underground Evangelism and the Wurmbrand mission devote extensive funds to the preparation and showing of films and the distribution of publicity. Both of them argue that this, too, is mission because they are trying to raise the consciousness of Western Christendom to support