Having grown up in Chicago myself, and with interest piqued, I asked where in Chicago was their home? “On the north side of the city,” he said. “That’s interesting”, I replied, “because I also lived on the north side, and in fact went to Lake View High School, near Wrigley Field.”
“So did my sister”, he exclaimed! I asked what year was that visit to your home, and he informed me that it was 1960. I asked him to describe the SA Officer who had visited his home and he shared, “he was tall, maybe in his late 30s, and he spoke English with an accent of some kind.” “Could it have been a Swedish accent”, I asked? And at that moment all of us at that Christmas table realized concurrently, as tears flowed freely, that the man who had brought the gift of Jesus to that young boy, 40 years earlier on a Christmas Eve was my father. The re-gifting of the story of the birth of Jesus, the love of God, to that young boy was the catalyst that was now bringing the name of Jesus to thousands of Russian military men and women, former atheists and agnostics. The Name above all other names was being re-gifted.
My father spoke from time to time through the years about how his father, my grandfather, had brought the Christmas message to Russia as a Salvation Army missionary in 1919. The Salvation Army's presence was short lived as all foreign missionaries were forcibly deported by 1923. I believe my father often pondered whether those early efforts by his father would ever find resolve and be reconciled with the scripture's command found in Matthew 28:19 (NIV). “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
Sven Ljungholm
Former Officer
USA, Sweden, Russia, Ukraine, Moldova
Birkenhead Corps UK
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