We shall call him “Brian.” He was an American that came to live in the UK after the Second World War, flying Allied planes over occupied Nazi Europe and even won some medals for his bravery.

Standing at around five feet and now well into his 80s, he was a colourful character and was always happy to talk about his favourite person, Joseph Stalin.

“Brian’s” main beef, however, was his anger at the war in Iraq. He would arrive in town every Saturday morning and proudly hold his sign high up in the air for all to see, for around 2 hours, calling on the troops to be brought home.

Sometimes he would manage to get a small crowd around him, offering their support, so this allowed us the chance to move in and distribute Bible tracts and share the gospel with them and of course “Brian.”

“Brian” for the most part seemed to thrive on all the attention he got and even confrontation (only occasionally did our conversations with him turn a tad argumentative), but we always left things on good terms with him and he happily greeted us the following Saturday.

As the months and years went by, we got to meet his wife (a practising German Catholic) and her best friend, a former member of the Hitler Youth in Austria, who was now an atheist.

(One of our old ministry associates believed “Brian’s” wife was open to the gospel and perhaps one day might get saved).

But “Brian” wasn’t really interested in the things of God and probably to be polite, and knowing that if he took one of our tracts, we would take his socialist newspaper, The Morning Star, which he always gave out free each Saturday.

What was sad, however, was how an elderly man, who had travelled throughout Russia at the height of the Cold War, totally failed to accept some of the harrowing truths about her bloody communist past.

The notorious and sadistic gulags were laughed off as “propaganda” and even when an elderly man from the Ukraine, who one day happened to walk past our two small groups, came over and shared with “Brian” his personal account of being a survivor of a particular gulag (there were 200 across Russia at the end of the Second World War), “Brian” still and very stubbornly, refused to accept this.

James once offered to take him to the local library and show him some of the scores of excellent history books, proving Stalin’s atheistic regime had murdered around 30 million people. He just couldn’t be swayed to examine the evidence.

(In some European countries, it’s illegal to deny the brutal and demonic inspired holocaust, but no laws exist to honour the millions of men, women and children that were slaughtered in Stalin’s Darwinist death camps).

He was also very anti-Israeli and that earned him much respect from some local Muslims.

Towards the end of “Brian’s” life, he still managed to get to town each week, all year round, and promote his message of universal peace and how the world would be better without nuclear weapons.

But my main memory of this elderly eccentric man was his constant mocking of Hell and how he would be in the lowest parts of the pit, happily stocking the flames with Stalin.

I occasionally think of this man, someone we regularly witnessed to for just under a decade. But for him, he died as he lived and now in Hell, awaits the Great White Throne Judgment!

For all the many weekends he stood at the same spot, talked to hundreds of people, promoted his atheistic socialist message and yet I must sincerely ask, who remembers him today?

“Brian” died a year ago this month.

To the best of my knowledge, he died an unsaved man.

Our heartfelt and repeated warnings to him, along with other local Christians, fell on deaf ears.

Terrible, simply terrible!

Potential Freemason Changes His Mind

We received a brief but very welcomed e-mail from a gentleman, that was about to join the Freemasons, but when he came across our expose video on them he quickly and very happily abandoned this concept. Amen, we say!

Salvation at the station (well, not just yet)

Our weekly trip to a local train station soon saw us confronted by four angry and very rowdy drunks, trying to intimidate us and drive us away from our usual evening spot. One took our postcard tract, read it through his slurred words and then abruptly returned it to James. By now they had teamed up with a local homeless man, who only last week, had been warned by a policeman that to beg was illegal and he would be arrested if caught doing so.

One of the drunken men spoke in a loud voice and said repeatedly that we should help the homeless man. James told him that there were many local churches and charities that do just that, but hardly any evangelize the lost.

This, of course, didn’t make any difference with the drunk, who became more and more vocal about the Good Samaritan and his impromptu Bible lesson got some cheap laughs from his cohorts.

(Experience has shown that after first attempting to interact with drunk people if they become argumentative or aggressive, it’s best to just ignore them and concentrate on others who may be more interested in receiving the gospel).

By now our friend from a previous edition (the station master) casually walked over (after hearing all the commotion) took a quick look at this small posy by the entrance and then discreetly and rather conveniently walked away.

Our drunken friends said their goodbyes to the homeless man and then thankfully vanished into the night.

What must be said however, is that for well over a hour, not only had we successfully distributed scores of postcard and paper tracts, with one lady asking for three different tracts and many Muslims happily accepting them, when the station manager finally decided (now that the drunks had gone) to walk over to where we were standing and firmly tell us to move away.

The previous time we were told to stand behind a designated line, now we were told to stand even further away. (Next, he’ll tell us to stand in the road).

At first, we sought clarification as to what is railway property and what is public property. He was in no mood to engage us and angrily told us to move well away. James asked about the homeless man, who only last week was given a police warning not to beg, and yet he was allowed to remain on “railway line property” (allegedly) begging and yet we were told to stand in the cold.

To avoid any further and unwanted tension, we stood well away from the entrance.

By the end of the night, and even with this minor irritant, we saw about three hundreds tracts distributed.

 

 

JGB

November 2011

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