[Westbrook]

They are not only Christians, but "Slavic Christians!"

Actually, they are Slavic Baptists. There are at least 100,000 of them in Sacramento.

We have several very strong Slavic Baptist communities here in New England, as well. They are good, clean, hardworking people. I have been in their homes. They are very neat and tidy and orderly.

I went to a couple of their Thanksgiving services. At one of them, after the meal, they had a time of testimony and song. They passed out a card with two questions in Russian on it.

• Were there times in your life when your circumstances made it difficult for you to give thanks to God for them?

• Can you look back at those times now and give thanks to God for them?

Of course, the answer to both of those questions for everybody in the room was, "YES".

However, the things they spoke about as difficult times were not about the kinds of difficulties we have here in the States, but of persecutions, State-authorized murders and kidnappings; the disappearances of fathers and brothers and their church leadership; the razing of their church buildings. We don't know what persecution is here in the States.

They are willing to fight for their Faith, because they are not afraid of the State. They have faced a much less tolerant and much more brutal State than we have here.

.

[A. Pole]

However, the things they spoke about as difficult times were not about the kinds of difficulties we have here in the States, but of persecutions, State-authorized murders and kidnappings; the disappearances of fathers and brothers and their church leadership; the razing of their church buildings. We don't know what persecution is here in the States.

Not yet. But when the "community's political progress" advances enough it WILL come to that.