the God who parts seas and opens skies
Sometimes my world gets right small. I look out my window, stare at the skies, and think only of my personal to-do list or the bills that need paid or the floors that need mopped.
And sometimes God just flings back the shutters and explodes my tiny little life with so much information that I am left reeling.
Konstantin (“Kostya”) is a Russian professor. He has a PhD in physics and teaches at a university. God began drawing him as a young teenage boy, in a land where it is thought as being “weak” to need religion. Russia is a land of Communists, self-made men who have survived at all odds. Especially in the freezing temperatures of the far north.
And here walks a young man who wants to know truth.
“I saw death and would fear, spending nights with no sleep.
In my heart I knew that there must be more.”
He wandered through Orthodox churches, mostly filled with women and children, stared at the icons and questioned the heavens.
“There is a verse that says,
you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.
(Jeremiah 29:13)
and it’s true.”
And he meets Christ, you know, way over there in north Russia. He stumbles upon these American missionaries and they speak the Word of God into his life. His testimony shudders with the glory of God and his heart beats for his family, his friends, his neighbors to know Christ.
“My city, it has 600,000 people, and only ten churches.
And there are more villages, up farther north, where no roads travel.”
So he prays and God turns his heart toward airplanes.
“I wonder, why airplanes, God? In Russia, the airspace is closed.
Seventy years have passed and no airplanes are allowed to travel.”
But he listens to the voice of God and he turns to Dwayne King, missionary pilot and instructor. Dwayne is the founder of Kingdom Air Corps. (A ranch in northern Alaska where missionary pilots are trained to fly small airplanes over rough terrain, land on short runways, and fix engines with very little supplies. Where these young pilots are discipled and taught and, in turn, learn to teach.)
Kostya is trained and a vision is formed. There will be a Russian “ranch” to train pilots to carry supplies and, most importantly, the gospel, to the far north. The skies were still closed but they began working in faith.
And the skies open.
Of course the skies open.
Don’t the skies always open?
And they were ready. Now there is an airstrip, an airplane, a trained pilot and instructor, and God is working. He is moving.
He is shaking the foundations and parting the seas and ripping open the skies.
{click here to listen to Kostya shares about that first flight into Russia }
Dwayne and Kostya visited our church last Sunday evening. They told their stories and their lives shimmer and tear the shutters off of my windows. I listen to them share and my heart beats wild with the glory of a God who is still working miracles.
“I am in Russia and these atheists, they come to me and say that they want to form relationship.
I will teach them about flying but I will not talk about religion.
They do not need a god. They do not want to hear.
They are big, tough Russian men. I say okay. I will teach them about airplanes but not about God.
And I keep my word. When they ask me questions I say,
I told you I would not talk to you about religion.”
Kostya pauses from speaking and his eyes twinkle a bit,
“They are all Believers now.”
At breakfast the next morning we talk more and talk deeper and I am stilled quiet.
I watch as Kostya sits right down on the floor with the littlest boy, they are playing with airplanes and swooping them through the air, gliding them across the floor. The almost-three-year-old is laughing and chattering and I think, This is true discipleship.
- Where you sit right down to whatever level the other is, and talk in the language that is comfortable.
- Where you teach men to fly and allow them to seek out who God is.
- Where you live in such a way that they have to admit that you’re not weak, not at all. You’re strong enough to stand right beside them and look them in the eye and live out your need for a Savior.
Oh, friends. God is moving. Now, today.
It can feel so dark and quiet but, in truth, light is bursting into some of the darkest places in the world and Jesus is still transforming lives.
Kostya is headed back to Russia later this year after he spends more time studying with Dwayne. A new plane has just cleared customs {a whole other story of the power of God!} and there are plans to keep moving forward with the gospel. Be in prayer for him?
To find out more about Kingdom Air Corps:
Read this article from AOPA magazine.
Visit their website.
Watch this 7 minute video.
God is really good at this whole story thing… I love hearing them. 🙂 Thanks for sharing this one!
This… was… beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing!
Natasha, my dear husband is becoming an enlistment coordinator for the overseas mission org that I went with back in 1994. If you want to go & if its His will for you to Go to Russia for two weeks to share Jesus I can hook a sister up. 😉 I’m sure there a few trips scheduled there this year.
How awesome! It sounds like we’re going to be taking a trip to Alaska this year… but I will keep this in mind! I’d love to visit there.
So good! I love Russia so much. Since going on an evangelical mission trip there in high school, my heart has never been the same…..it is still there with the people.
I’m ever so jealous that you went there! I was named after a Russian girl and after hearing her story for my whole life, I’ve always wanted to visit there. 🙂
Yes. I do know this place. And I have a similar story to share…soon! Can’t wait because somehow, someway, God has opened up the “air space” for me too!
looking forward to reading it, Lorretta!!