Bringing Hidden Things to Light

The Bible was leather bound and had metal locks and very beautiful pictures, each covered with a thin transparent paper leaf. We grew up with this Bible without understanding its value, or our good fortune in having it, only feeling some trepidation when we watched Granddad perform the same solemn ceremony each time he opened it. He carefully spread a newspaper on the table, then, washed his hands thoroughly before taking the Bible out of the metal box. Only after he had prayed for a long time did he begin reading. Children were strictly forbidden even to touch this secret place. But as soon as Granddad left the house, we immediately dragged out the heavy box from under the bed, to look at and read the Bible, which attracted us because of its inaccessibility and mystery. I think now that Granddad did it on purpose. He was a wise man: "Forbidden fruit is sweet!" Lydia Istomina's account of the revival of the Methodist Church in Russia is filled with images we have to come to expect (food lines, passport hassles travel nightmares) and observations that might surprise us (the whisper of schoolchildren about their cherished Easter traditions, the use of Christian names in generation after generation of Soviet people. When Lydia Istomina became the first woman pastor in Russia, she brought with her the past she was only beginning to understand. But very quickly the spark of her congregation began to glow, and the church was growing.