00:00:01 Welcome, brothers and sisters!
00:00:04 It’s a pleasure to be with you.
00:00:06 In this update, we’re going to share
00:00:08 a few brief reports.
00:00:11 Then we’ll watch a very encouraging video interview.
00:00:15 I’m sure you’ll find it faith-strengthening.
00:00:18 First, here are the updates.
00:00:21 In late April,
00:00:23 Brother Mark Sanderson traveled to Poland.
00:00:25 A special meeting was held at the Assembly Hall in Warsaw
00:00:29 to encourage the brothers and sisters
00:00:32 affected by the ongoing war in Ukraine.
00:00:36 Over 250,000 from Poland,
00:00:40 Ukraine, and the Donbas region
00:00:42 tied in for the program.
00:00:44 One circuit overseer in the Donbas region wrote:
00:00:49 “[It was a] wonderful program
00:00:52 “and ‘food [at the] proper time.’
00:00:55 “It brings tears of joy
00:00:58 to see how Jehovah loves us!”
00:01:00 After the program,
00:01:02 Brother Sanderson and three Branch Committee members
00:01:05 traveled 2,500 kilometers,
00:01:09 or 1,550 miles,
00:01:12 throughout Poland to visit refugees
00:01:15 and hardworking volunteers at Assembly Halls,
00:01:19 Kingdom Halls, and border crossings.
00:01:25 Truly, this visit was a warm expression
00:01:28 of Jehovah’s love for his people.
00:01:31 We sincerely thank all of you for your prayers
00:01:35 and generous donations that make the relief work possible.
00:01:41 On May 4,
71-year-old Sister Valentina Baranovskaya
00:01:46 was finally released from prison.
00:01:48 She was imprisoned for well over a year.
00:01:54 What a warm reception she received!
00:01:59 We rejoice with you, Sister Valentina!
00:02:03 But we’ve not forgotten that your son,
00:02:06 Roman, is still in prison for his faith.
00:02:09 We keep you both in our prayers.
00:02:13 On May 24,
00:02:15 Brother Dennis Christensen was released from a prison in Russia.
00:02:20 He spent five years in various detention facilities.
00:02:24 After his release, he was immediately deported.
00:02:28 He and his wife, Irina,
00:02:30 are now safe in Denmark,
00:02:33 as we can see in the following video.
00:02:53 Today is a happy day
00:02:56 —a happy day because I,
00:02:59 at least I, got freed from the prison
00:03:02 and I came home to Copenhagen, Denmark,
00:03:06 where I can again be together with my friends and my beloved family.
00:03:11 I am also looking forward to living
00:03:15 a more normal family life with my beloved wife, Irina.
00:03:19 I’m very glad,
00:03:21 and I appreciate all that the brothers and sisters
00:03:25 have done for me in these five years.
00:03:29 All these thoughts, all these letters,
00:03:34 all these prayers, all the drawings and other gifts
00:03:38 that I got from the children have encouraged me a lot.
00:03:42 And through all this,
00:03:44 I have always felt that I was not alone,
00:03:48 that Jehovah’s hand was never too short to save,
00:03:53 to support, and to help.
00:03:55 Many people ask me:
00:03:57 “Oh, Dennis, has the prison time crushed you?
00:04:01 Did they break you?”
00:04:03 No way! Never ever!
00:04:06 And you know what?
00:04:07 I am more determined than ever to be faithful to Jehovah,
00:04:12 more determined to preach the good news, to help other brothers and sisters
00:04:17 and other people to gain their goals.
00:04:20 The goal is eternal life in Paradise, where we all have the opportunity
00:04:23 to serve and praise Jehovah forever.
00:04:26 So, no, I’m not broken.
00:04:29 No, I’m not crushed.
00:04:30 I’m still here. I’m back!
00:04:34 We rejoice with you, Dennis and Irina!
00:04:37 Your faith and integrity have strengthened all of us.
00:04:41 We are overjoyed to have you back.
00:04:44 Although we’re happy about these developments,
00:04:47 we keep in mind that around the world
00:04:50 over 150 of our brothers and sisters
00:04:54 are in prison for their faith.
00:04:57 In Russia, four brothers are serving eight-year prison sentences,
00:05:02 and one sister is serving a six-year sentence.
00:05:07 Hebrews 13:3 says:
00:05:10 “Keep in mind those in prison,
00:05:13 as though you were imprisoned with them.”
00:05:19 How can we keep our imprisoned brothers and sisters in mind?
00:05:23 If we live close by,
00:05:25 there may be practical things we can do to assist.
00:05:29 But all of us can pray for them
00:05:32 and their family members every day.
00:05:36 We also can meditate on their fine example.
00:05:40 When we see these brothers and sisters endure unjust imprisonment
00:05:45 —and do so with joy—
00:05:47 we’re encouraged to imitate their faith,
00:05:51 we’re motivated to endure our own current trials,
00:05:56 and we’re assured that we can endure
00:05:59 future trials with joy.
00:06:03 In the following video interview,
00:06:05 two brothers from Russia share how they
00:06:09 faithfully and joyfully
00:06:11 endured a four-year prison sentence.
00:06:17 My criminal prosecution
00:06:19 began on July 22, 2018.
00:06:22 It was a Sunday. A meeting was in progress.
00:06:26 After the search had finished,
00:06:28 they told me that I had to go with them.
00:06:33 I opened the door because FSB officers
00:06:36 were persistently ringing the doorbell.
00:06:39 Then after a few seconds came the sound of smashing glass.
00:06:44 They had smashed the balcony
00:06:46 and then had broken down the door on the balcony.
00:06:50 And when my wife had tried to tell them the door was already open
00:06:54 so that they wouldn’t smash anything, pieces of glass cut her forehead.
00:06:58 And a vein was—
00:07:02 They cut a vein in her hand.
00:07:06 And then the officers approached me and showed me the search warrant.
00:07:11 And I said to them:
00:07:13 “I’m not interested in the warrant.
00:07:16 Call an ambulance!”
00:07:18 I wanted to send my wife to the hospital,
00:07:21 but she decided to stay with me.
00:07:24 The search continued for five hours.
00:07:29 So they locked me up.
00:07:31 Two days later there was a court hearing
00:07:34 at which they ruled to place me under arrest
00:07:36 and send me to a pretrial detention center.
00:07:46 The most difficult part of all the persecution
00:07:50 was being in the pressure cell.
00:07:53 When I entered, or rather,
00:07:55 when the workers and guards of the detention center
00:07:57 pushed me in there,
00:07:59 the first thing I heard were the words, “Get down on your knees!”
00:08:02 But I told them that the only person I bend down on my knees for was God.
00:08:10 Then they started shouting, ridiculing me,
00:08:14 though I didn’t understand
00:08:16 what they were asking of me or what they wanted.
00:08:20 I only found out after several hours
00:08:23 when they told me directly that I had to give them information
00:08:28 about two brothers who had been detained in a neighboring town.
00:08:33 They laid out instruments of torture in front of me
00:08:37 and said that I wouldn’t be able to stand it or hold out,
00:08:43 so I’d better agree to cooperate with them.
00:08:47 I didn’t give any evidence against those brothers
00:08:51 because I knew it would make their situation worse.
00:08:55 I faced my own hardships
00:08:57 when I was put into pretrial detention.
00:09:02 Every day from morning to night, they had the radio on.
00:09:06 The radio was very loud in the cells.
00:09:08 People were talking.
00:09:10 Then after several months in the detention center,
00:09:13 they put me into a solitary-confinement cell.
00:09:15 I was worried about who I would
00:09:18 preach to if I had to spend the whole period there.
00:09:21 That evening I prayed very hard.
00:09:32 A few days later, a man was placed in the cell next to mine.
00:09:38 He had been in prison for 13 years.
00:09:41 In the last year,
00:09:44 he had begun to think deeply about spiritual subjects
00:09:47 and had even started to read the Bible.
00:09:50 We often talked about spiritual matters
00:09:52 —every day for several hours.
00:09:54 I sang Kingdom songs to him and read scriptures
00:09:58 that the brothers and sisters had sent me in letters.
00:10:02 One of those who was in the pressure cell
00:10:05 collaborated with the administration,
00:10:08 and physically he was very strong
00:10:11 —like a mountain of muscle.
00:10:14 The thought came to me that what was in front of me
00:10:18 was actually 80 percent water.
00:10:23 I don’t know, but maybe at that moment, I even smiled.
00:10:28 But that thought, which undoubtedly Jehovah gave me,
00:10:32 at that moment changed my view of those people.
00:10:38 There was a cell next to mine that was also a solitary-confinement cell,
00:10:42 and it was often empty.
00:10:44 Almost every day, I prayed to Jehovah
00:10:48 that my friend and brother, Vadim,
00:10:52 would be transferred to that cell.
00:10:54 When Vadim found out that I was making
00:10:56 requests like that to Jehovah, he said:
00:10:59 “Sergey! You’re too naive!
00:11:01 “You and I, in prison terms, are ‘partners in crime.’
00:11:05 So by law, we wouldn’t be allowed to be in adjacent cells.”
00:11:09 I said, “Let’s just wait and see.”
00:11:12 But in the evening, someone came into my cell and said,
00:11:16 “Levchuk, you are being transferred!”
00:11:19 And they took me out to a different block, took me into a cell,
00:11:23 and I heard Sergey’s voice in the next cell through the wall, saying:
00:11:26 “Vadim? Is that you?”
00:11:28 I said, “Yes, it’s me!”
00:11:30 And he said: “Oh, that’s wonderful!
00:11:32 I begged Jehovah for you!”
00:11:34 And when I heard that he had begged for me to be moved to the next cell,
00:11:38 I was quite angry because my return visits had been messed up;
00:11:42 we had agreed that I would tell them a Bible story.
00:11:45 But then I realized why Jehovah had arranged things in that way,
00:11:49 because we both needed emotional support from each other.
00:11:52 And we were together for two weeks.
00:11:56 We read and discussed the text for each day,
00:11:59 and we shared thoughts from letters.
00:12:07 There was a situation when I was depressed for several days
00:12:11 when I was in the solitary-confinement cell.
00:12:14 Then I received a new package of letters.
00:12:16 I usually sorted them into those I would read first
00:12:19 and those I would read later.
00:12:21 There was one letter that I didn’t want to read at all,
00:12:25 so I put it in a separate pile for the future.
00:12:27 But then something inside said to me,
00:12:30 ‘No, you need to read that letter.’
00:12:32 And that letter was the answer to my prayer.
00:12:35 The main theme of this letter
00:12:38 is how Satan uses one of his most effective weapons
00:12:42 —discouragement.
00:12:45 I started applying the counsel on that subject straightaway,
00:12:50 and that helped me to come out of that state of mind
00:12:53 and get rid of negative thoughts.
00:12:57 Everywhere, I was having good discussions with those in the neighboring cells.
00:13:03 We were able to talk through the walls.
00:13:05 And I kept asking myself why I was constantly being moved around.
00:13:10 ‘Couldn’t I just be left in one cell?’
00:13:14 And at that moment, I received a letter
00:13:17 in which a sister wrote the phrase,
00:13:20 “If you move from one cell to another,
00:13:23 “view it as being assigned to a new territory,
00:13:25 as you have completed the previous one.”
00:13:28 I had such a reaction to that!
00:13:30 I said, “That’s the answer!”
00:13:33 In their letters, brothers and sisters from all over the world
00:13:38 sent various illustrations, pictures, photographs.
00:13:42 Someone sent this portrait, for example.
00:13:46 It’s my wife, Natasha, and I sitting in Jehovah’s hands.
00:13:51 All the spiritual food we got was in the letters,
00:13:54 to the extent that even the entire three-day convention was written out
00:13:59 and sent to us in letters.
00:14:02 And when I was reading the letters,
00:14:04 it was as though I wasn’t there in the detention center or the prison colony.
00:14:09 I was with my friends, as if being with them as guests,
00:14:13 when I was reading their letters.
00:14:15 So it was as though for half of the three-and-a-half-year sentence,
00:14:19 I wasn’t really there in the detention center or the prison colony.
00:14:23 Each day throughout the entire time of my imprisonment,
00:14:28 each morning, I would ask Jehovah for godly peace,
00:14:32 or a sense of calm.
00:14:35 And in circumstances like that,
00:14:39 words just cannot express how much you feel that calmness.
00:14:44 It is totally opposite to the circumstances you’re in,
00:14:48 the company that surrounds you,
00:14:51 or even your state of health.
00:14:54 But to have peace of heart, that’s a real sense of calm.
00:14:58 As well as that, I felt enormous support from the brothers
00:15:01 and Jehovah’s love during the court proceedings
00:15:06 because there was always a large number
00:15:08 of brothers and sisters at the court hearings.
00:15:14 For the first few times
00:15:15 when brothers and sisters came for the hearings
00:15:18 on the measures of restriction,
00:15:19 the FSB would write down their names
00:15:22 and then hand them orders to appear for interrogation.
00:15:27 Then we would arrive for the next hearing
00:15:30 and see the same brothers and sisters there,
00:15:33 and that really strengthened us.
00:15:35 We saw that they were not afraid,
00:15:37 and that they sincerely wanted to support us.
00:15:41 And that was how it was right to the end.
00:15:50 In one letter, I received the outline for the Memorial,
00:15:53 and I was very eager to give the talk.
00:15:58 Just a few days later,
00:16:00 while exercising in the prison yard,
00:16:03 I started speaking with an inmate who was interested in the Bible.
00:16:07 On the day before the Memorial,
00:16:09 we were talking again, and I said to him,
00:16:12 “Did you know that tomorrow
00:16:15 a celebration will be taking place all over the world?”
00:16:19 I explained to him what the celebration was,
00:16:22 how it was going to be held, and that there will be a talk given.
00:16:26 And he said to me, “Sergey, do you have this talk?”
00:16:29 I said, “Yeah, I do!”
00:16:33 And so we agreed that the next day,
00:16:35 on the day of the Memorial, I would give the talk.
00:16:39 And so the day came.
00:16:41 It was already ten o’clock in the evening,
00:16:44 and the man was still busy with something.
00:16:47 I prayed to Jehovah, “What shall I do?”
00:16:50 And then at 10:30,
00:16:52 he shouts to me: “Sergey, you can begin!
00:16:56 We’re all listening to you carefully!”
00:16:58 And that was how I began my presentation.
00:17:03 Literally, a few minutes pass,
00:17:05 and I hear footsteps in the corridor.
00:17:08 The inspector comes to my door
00:17:11 and looks through the spyhole on the cell door.
00:17:16 I ask him, “Did something happen?”
00:17:19 He says: “Nothing, nothing!
00:17:21 Continue reading! Read!”
00:17:24 I said: “Oh, Jehovah! Thank you so much.”
00:17:27 And so I continued with the talk.
00:17:38 I knew that we would probably be separated
00:17:41 and that we could be assigned to separate sections,
00:17:44 so we wouldn’t have the opportunity to support each other
00:17:49 and conduct meetings,
00:17:51 which was really important to me.
00:17:54 He explained his position,
00:17:56 that he needed to look after me as I was disabled,
00:18:00 and the administration made the concession.
00:18:03 That was such a support
00:18:05 —spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
00:18:26 We conducted congregation meetings together.
00:18:31 Each week at the same time, we held the congregation meetings.
00:18:58 Sometimes others would join us to listen to the talk.
00:19:13 Vadim and I always prayed in full view of everyone;
00:19:19 that was in the dining hall, before meetings, after meetings,
00:19:23 and before going to bed.
00:19:28 It was a witness to the others, and people took note of it.
00:19:33 And because of that, we were respected for being people of faith.
00:19:45 I always knew that I had to make special use of this time.
00:19:49 And I prayed.
00:19:51 The whole time, I said a particular prayer to Jehovah.
00:19:54 I said to him, “Jehovah, you are the Potter, and I am the clay,
00:19:59 so please mold me.”
00:20:02 So the situations that I found myself in throughout
00:20:06 those three and a half years,
00:20:08 both the good and the bad ones,
00:20:10 were always opportunities to be molded.
00:20:13 In going through all of those trials,
00:20:16 I saw and felt that my relationship with Jehovah
00:20:20 was getting stronger —stronger and more trusting.
00:20:25 That was because in those circumstances, there was a lot of time for prayer.
00:20:30 And I saw very often how Jehovah answers specific prayers.
00:20:35 That really drew me closer to Jehovah.
00:20:40 Throughout the whole period of persecution,
00:20:42 I was strengthened by the words of Jeremiah 48:10:
00:20:47 “Cursed is the one who carries out the mission of Jehovah neglectfully!”
00:20:51 When I found myself in such hard and difficult circumstances,
00:20:55 I understood that I had the responsibility
00:20:58 to give a witness for Jehovah’s name
00:21:00 by my conduct and deeds.
00:21:02 Another thing that always strengthened me throughout the whole time
00:21:07 was the scripture at Isaiah 57:15
00:21:12 and the thought that Jehovah lives with those who are “crushed”
00:21:16 and who are in a bad place emotionally.
00:21:20 At such times, I was able to imagine Jehovah sitting right next to me
00:21:24 and stroking my shoulder
00:21:27 and reassuring me: “Everything will be fine.
00:21:30 I am with you.”
00:21:33 I have seen that in all the trials that have been allowed,
00:21:37 despite their difficulty,
00:21:39 Jehovah has turned them all into blessings.
00:22:07 What a touching interview!
00:22:09 Did you notice
00:22:11 what helped our brothers to joyfully endure their unjust imprisonment?
00:22:16 They mentioned how vital it was
00:22:18 to keep a good routine of Bible reading,
00:22:23 prayer, and meetings even though they were in prison.
00:22:28 They witnessed to others at every opportunity.
00:22:32 And they saw Jehovah’s love and care in very personal ways.
00:22:38 We can do these same things to strengthen our faith
00:22:41 and maintain our joy.
00:22:44 Speaking of joy,
00:22:46 what a blessing it has been for us
00:22:49 to return to in-person meetings!
00:22:52 It takes some effort to attend,
00:22:55 but seeing our brothers and sisters,
00:22:57 hearing their laughter,
00:22:59 and joining with them in song and prayer
00:23:03 makes the effort so worthwhile!
00:23:08 It’s another gift from Jehovah to help us joyfully endure.
00:23:13 So whatever trials you’re dealing with,
00:23:16 don’t lose your joy in serving Jehovah.
00:23:21 As Nehemiah 8:10 says:
00:23:23 “Do not feel sad,
00:23:25 for the joy of Jehovah is your stronghold.”
00:23:29 Brothers and sisters,
00:23:32 we appreciate you and the joy that you maintain
00:23:36 despite the many challenges we face.
00:23:40 It makes us love you all the more.
00:23:44 From the World Headquarters of Jehovah’s Witnesses,
00:23:47 this is JW Broadcasting®.
