Participants:
Series Code: TDY
Program Code: TDY018053A
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00:01 I want to spend my life
00:07 mending broken people 00:12 I want to spend my life 00:18 removing pain 00:23 Lord, let my words 00:30 heal a heart that hurts 00:34 I want to spend my life 00:40 mending broken people 00:45 I want to spend my life 00:50 mending broken people 01:11 Hello and welcome to 3ABN Today. My name is CA Murray, 01:14 and allow me to thank you once again for spending a little 01:18 time with us and for sharing your love and your support with 01:21 3ABN, lo, these many, many years. I'm very excited today. 01:24 One, because of the subject matter; and then two, because 01:28 of the guests that are with me in the studio; they hadn't 01:31 been here for a couple years, and it is so good to see them 01:33 both again. This is Dr. Mikhail and Lyudmila Kulakov. Good to 01:38 have you both here. I want to shake your hands. These are 01:41 wonderful people- and this is a wonderful story. We really 01:44 want you to pay attention and sort of draw close. Dr. Kulakov 01:49 is on the faculty of Washington Adventist University, but he's 01:53 not here in that capacity, per se; he is here as a director 01:58 of the Russian Bible project - we're going to talk about 02:01 that. He was here several years ago, so we were going to start 02:03 with a whole new slate and bring you up to speed because 02:05 some wonderful things have been happening, and you talk about 02:08 miracles and the move of God and watching God weave and move 02:12 things along. That has happened in this project, and he's gonna 02:15 sorta unpackage that for us. And then right by his side has 02:18 been his wife, Lyudmila, all of the time. They're a lovely 02:21 couple as you can well see. Very, very nice Christian 02:25 people who God is using in a very, very special way; so I'm 02:28 very excited to have them here and to see them again after a 02:32 few years. We were together at General Conference for a big 02:36 meeting and had a wonderful time. I don't know if I've seen 02:39 you since then. [laughs] And that was back in 2015, so 02:44 God is very, very good. Before we go to our music- 02:48 let's just start and talk about someone who looms large in the 02:52 history of the Adventist church in the Soviet Union 02:56 during those days and in Russia, and that is your dad. He was 03:00 kind of the Genesis of this project, so walk us through, 03:04 Mikhail, if you will, who he was, what he did - because he 03:07 suffered for the Lord, did he not? But out of that, God 03:11 blessed him to do a number of things. So, kinda walk us 03:13 through that experience of your dad who was a sort of luminary 03:17 in the Adventist church. - I'm very grateful to God to have 03:25 him as my father, Mikhail Petrovich Kulakov Sr., born in 03:32 1927. And as a 20-year-old young man, he led the 03:40 Seventh-Day Adventist church in Moscow region during the 03:45 harshest persecutions of the Stalin's era. And for that, he 03:50 was imprisoned and put into a labor camp for 5 years, and 03:54 his dad was already in a labor camp serving a 10-year 03:58 sentence. He was released in 1953 when Stalin died and he 04:04 met my mom; they established a family and they established 04:07 a wonderful church in Kazakhstan where he was exiled, 04:12 and then was allowed to move to Russia proper back in 1976 04:19 only, but his lifelong dream was to create a clear, 04:28 accessible translation of the Bible for all the people of 04:35 Russia for anybody who can read Russian. - Now, the burden 04:40 was- and I just wanna tap the brake a little bit and ask, how 04:44 did Adventism come to your family? Where did it come from? 04:48 How did it get to the family? - To cut the long story short, 04:55 my great-grandfather back in 1905 was elected by his local 05:04 community in Russia to be a representative to the first 05:12 democratic prerevolutionary parliament of Russia, and he 05:18 went to save Petersburg from a little remote town. And there, 05:22 he had a couple days to kill, so- before the parliament 05:26 session would open. He was so in awe that the books of 05:30 Daniel and Revelation will be expounded by a German scholar 05:37 who is visiting St. Petersburg. He was a deacon at the Russian 05:43 Orthodox Church at the time, so he decided to go. He went and 05:47 was fascinated by lectures on history being fulfilled and 05:52 prophesied in the books of the Bible. He decided to talk to 05:57 the lecturer after the lecture. He went outside of the hole 06:01 and he noticed that the lecturer is smoking. As a 06:05 devout Russian Orthodox, he was shocked. He said, "Sir, 06:08 may I ask you, you are expounding the Holy Scriptures. 06:12 Why are you smoking?" And he said, "Actually, you know, I'm 06:15 working in Hamburg. I am not a Christian; I am a translator- 06:20 professional translator. I'm translating the literature from 06:24 English and German into Russian. A Seventh-Day 06:29 Adventist community had hired me to translate the books and 06:33 the prophecy of Daniel." And I got so fascinated! And because 06:38 I have a background in education, I decided I should 06:41 give lectures about it! And so, he gave the address to my 06:46 great-grandfather- where to write for more books about 06:51 this. - I think what I'm going to do, I want to sort of 06:54 put a pause button right there, because this is an interesting 06:57 story, and it leads me to anothe- a couple of other 06:59 questions. We want to go to our music, because when we come 07:01 back, I want to sort of put this in the doctor's hands 07:03 and let him run with it. Our music today is coming to us 07:06 from a good friend of the ministry - Jaime Jorge, a 07:10 wonderful musician. He is going to be playing "The Holy City." 11:57 Amen and amen. Jaime plays that violin like he wants to saw it 12:01 in half sometimes. I asked him about that. He said, 12:03 "Sometimes, I actually do," but beautiful song; beautifully 12:07 rendered, and we thank him for that. My guests, Dr. Mikhail 12:10 and Lyudmila- I love that. Lyudmila... You call her 'Ludi.' 12:14 - Lyuda. - Lyuda [laughs] Kulakov. And of course, I know 12:21 you as Dr. Kulakov; I'm shortening it to Mikhail for 12:24 now so that we can kinda get to this kind of quick. But we 12:28 were just talking- your dad, your grandfather, and your 12:31 uncle- your great-uncle all spent time in prison for their 12:35 faith? - Yes. - Yeah, that is powerful. And maybe it's the 12:39 Lord's way of sort of punching the devil back by letting this 12:43 Bible get published, you know? And letting it be disseminated. 12:47 So, your dad got out of prison and took up his ministry again; 12:52 it didn't stop him? - It did not stop him; it only 12:56 strengthened his faith. The experience was actually 13:00 faith-building rather than faith-shattering. Before he 13:07 was imprisoned, he was very fortunate to meet a Bible 13:12 scholar in Latvia. Pastor Oltingue who, right after the 13:21 Second World War, introduced him to the latest biblical 13:27 resources and beautiful renditions of the scriptures- 13:33 in German, in English - books on biblical archaeology, and 13:39 some of the books were shot through with bullets from the 13:43 German advance and the battle that was there. My dad was so 13:51 inspired by the possibilities that opened for him - a vision 13:58 of what can be done in Russia, also. He met in the labor camp 14:06 with some of the leading rabbis who lectured to him in prison 14:15 cells on the grandeur of the biblical Hebrew language. 14:20 Some German scholars who expounded to him the beauty 14:26 of the- Martin Luther's translation of the scriptures 14:30 and encouraged him. A little New Testament in German was 14:35 smuggled to the camp for my dad, and he treasured only 14:42 some pages. He was able to salvage after the censor found 14:48 the books. He kept those pages with promises that kept him 14:53 going, so that's how his vision grew. He spent his entire 15:00 life preparing for this work, studying the biblical Hebrew 15:06 and the biblical Greek and the literary Russian language 15:10 and the series of Bible translations. - Yes... Yeah. 15:13 So prison actually was sort of the birthplace of this vision. 15:17 Rather than pushing down the vision, it kinda watered the 15:20 vision as he got a respect for the scriptures. I remember you 15:23 telling me some time ago, one of the reasons why it was 15:26 necessary to do a translation is because the translations 15:30 that were in existence were kinda old, and the language 15:33 had really changed, and people weren't able to read them; 15:36 is that not so? - Yeah, that's actually true, because the only 15:40 available translation at the time was the 1876 translation 15:49 of the Synodal Bible, and the Russian language has changed 15:53 so radically that, for instance, the word 'rested' no longer 15:59 means 'rested;' that was used in that translation. And 16:04 therefore, the verse in the scriptures which says that 16:09 the Lord created the world in 6 days then He rested on 16:14 the seventh day, literally means now that God passed 16:17 away on the seventh day. [laughter] And this is just one 16:22 example of how the language has changed. - Somehow - and 16:29 I'll use this term - you got infected with this desire of 16:35 your dad to complete this. Now, Lyudmila, you actually do get a 16:39 chance to talk. You do. [laughter] We're not going 16:42 to have you sitting quietly, but Mikhail was saying to me 16:46 a couple things. There was this time when- of course, your 16:50 dad was diagnosed with cancer, and there's a beautiful story 16:55 I want you to tell us about. We gotta go to this, because 16:58 when we talk about a honeymoon, we think of honeymoon as one 17:01 thing. Your honeymoon was a little bit different, so, 17:04 Lyudmila, kinda walk us through those two stories, because 17:06 they're kinda beautiful. - So should I start with 17:09 honeymoon? - Well, you start where the Lord tells you to 17:12 start- where you're impressed to start. - Should I start with 17:15 honeymoon? - Honeymoon? Okay. - Okay, I will start with 17:17 honeymoon. Mikhail had an idea to have our honeymoon camping. 17:24 So we decided to go, to drive to Crimea, by the way. Crimea, 17:29 which is- belongs now to Russia, to Black Sea camping. So we 17:34 were very excited- you know, like we were very young. 17:37 Mikhail was 25 as I was 23. We had a Russian car, Zhiguli, 17:41 driving to Crimea, listening to music- crazy music- in the car; 17:46 we were so happy. We were driving through a big city in 17:51 Crimea- Novosibirsk. Novorossiysk! And listening 17:57 to the music in the van, we heard the, "Babah!" in our car. 18:02 And we just looked, "What happened?" so we jumped out 18:05 of the car and started looking, and we see a minivan. He bumped 18:10 into our car and into our- trunk got smashed and it 18:15 opened, and we went outside and we got scared. "Wow, what 18:20 should we do now?" You know? "It's our honeymoon and we had 18:23 so many plans and everything!" And from this minivan, a guy- 18:28 yeah, a guy around 20 years old came out and he was all 18:31 shaking and saying, "Sorry! I'm very sorry! I'm very sorry, 18:35 guys; it's my first day! Yesterday, I came from the army 18:38 and today's my first working day! That's what had happened; 18:42 sorry..." And we said, "Okay. We are not calling the police. 18:46 Okay...let's decide what we can do here." We said, "Can you show 18:50 us a place where we can drive to an office 18:53 and they can appraise 18:55 the damage and you can pay us and we'll just leave this." 18:58 And he said, "Yes, okay! Follow me!" So we started driving 19:01 to this place for- where a guy came out, and looked at the 19:08 damage, and said how much that it will be, so Mikhail went to 19:13 him into the office and I was sitting there outside next to 19:16 our damaged car. All our belongings were in the trunk 19:20 and now we couldn't open it. We found a piece of string 19:22 and we tried to tie the... It's Russia, you know? You need to 19:27 see pictures, so- -No money; it was 1985. -So, we were- Mikhail 19:33 went into the office; I was sitting on the ground, on 19:37 the grass, just crying, and crying, and crying, thinking, 19:41 "God, why did this happen? Why did this happen? This is such 19:45 a special time for us. We had so much fun. We were planning, 19:48 and now what do we do now? We don't have money and we don't 19:50 wa-." So I was just sitting there and crying. Then Mikhail 19:54 came out and said, "Lyuda.." And the guy with the van 19:58 was sitting in his van, also very sad, and Mikhail 20:02 said, "You know, the appraise is said it will be like 300 20:05 or 400 rubles." So at that time, that was like $300 20:08 or $400. And I want to tell you that, you know, what was 20:12 the salary at the time. For example, the salary in Russia 20:15 at that time was from 70 to 150 rubles a month, which is 20:21 $70 or $150 a month. So, when Mikhail said, "300 or 20:27 450," I said, "Oh my goodness. That's like 3 months' salary." 20:32 And I was thinking, "Oh, my. How will this guy pay? 20:35 He just came from the army; he doesn't have any money. 20:37 It was his first day." We were standing there, Mikhail- 20:41 and talking and talking and thinking, "What should I do?" 20:43 and then an idea came and we said, "You know what? Let's 20:46 tell this guy, 'You just go.'" You know? We'll- "Don't pay 20:49 us anything." You know? "You don't have any money- just-" 20:52 so we went to him, approached the guy and we said, and 20:56 Mikhail said, "You know, we decided that you don't need to 21:00 to pay us anything." - I had a very hard army. 21:02 - Yeah, so he had experience. He said, "Ple- we'll just, 21:07 you know, go home and forget it," and said... This guy just 21:10 started crying, you know? Saying, "No... Are you 21:13 serious?" "Yeah!" we said. "Don't worry! Don't worry! 21:16 Everything will be fine; we'll be fine." So, the guy 21:20 left, and we were sitting on the ground- with Mikhail, 21:23 together, and thinking, "Okay, what do we do now?" 21:26 - I've gotta ask you- and forgive me, Lyudmila- when 21:30 the Lord impressed you with that, did you fight that at 21:33 all, or was it very natural for you to tell him? Because, 21:35 - Just natural. - really, you have no money, 21:37 you're a new wife; you just got married, and you're 21:40 gonna forgive this guy 3 months' worth of debt. 21:43 That's considerable! - That's considerable, and keeping in 21:46 mind, we didn't have this money. So when the guy left, 21:49 we were sitting on the ground and, "What do we do now? 21:52 We don't have any money to repair." - Right. - And what? 21:56 Mikhail said, "Okay, we'll figure out something. You 21:58 know, I'll go into the office and the guy who appraises 22:00 our car, I'll ask him. Maybe he knows somebody that, 22:03 you know, will fix our trunk somehow; but at least we can 22:06 close it and that will be fine." Mikhail went to the 22:09 office, spent like 15-20 minutes there, and then he 22:13 came back and he said- and it was around 2 o'clock, after 22:16 lunch, I think; and we were hungry - nowhere to eat - 22:18 so anyway, that didn't matter. So he came out- said, "I 22:21 talked to the guy and- who appraised our car, and 22:24 he said that he can repair our car. But we need to wait 22:28 till he finishes his job which will be at around 5 22:31 o'clock, and then we can go to- follow him into the city. 22:34 There's a parking lot where it's all closed. We can leave 22:38 the car there. In the morning, the next day, Friday morning, 22:41 he will come and will take our car and will fix it." 22:44 We were so excited. We were so excited. So we were sitting 22:49 there and I was still crying, of course- I was a girl. So, 22:55 at 5 o'clock, he finished his work. The guy came out, 22:58 sat on the other side- said, "Follow me." So we followed 23:00 him into the city. We came to this huge parking lot which 23:05 had barbed wire and the guy was there taking care of his 23:10 place. So, we parked our car. We came out from the parking 23:13 lot, and our guy, the appraiser, said, "You know 23:19 what? I don't know. Just- I want to tell you. I have 23:23 an apartment right here, like- on the next street. It's- 23:28 I'm doing some renovation right now - painting, and, 23:31 you know- and if you want, I can give you the key and 23:33 you can spend the night there." - Wow! - "And 23:36 tomorrow morning, I will come and we'll go to-..." 23:39 And we said, "What?" - Did he know you were on your 23:42 honeymoon? Did you tell him- - Yeah, we told- woo! 23:44 - Okay, you told hi- [laughter] - He said, "Okay, follow me." 23:47 So, he gave us the key. We opened his apartment, and 23:50 it was a nice apartment! Clean... In the apartment was 23:53 only one sofa. - There was absolutely nothing, and he 24:01 left us. He said, "Tomorrow morning, at 9 o'clock, I'll 24:03 be here and we'll go, then I'll fix your car." So he left, 24:07 and we're- I remember we were sitting on this sofa just- 24:11 you know, we didn't know what to think! - Right, yes. 24:14 - First, we're excited. "Wow." And when the evening 24:18 started coming, we became more and more scared. 24:21 "What does this mean?" - Yeah. - You know? In case- 24:24 we are sitting in this apartment. We don't know 24:27 this guy. We don't know anybody in this city. What 24:30 if he'll kill us in this apartment, you know?! Crazy 24:33 things! [more laughter] So, we decided, "You know what? 24:36 Let's go outside. And we'll be walking the whole night." 24:40 - Oh my goodne- [laughter] Was it war- was it summertime? 24:43 Was it warm? - It was summertime. It was July. 24:45 - Okay. Praise the Lord. Okay, good. - So we went outside 24:47 and Mikhail said, "You know, at that time, there were 24:50 no created cars, you know? No ATM. Nothing!" We had 24:54 one with 300 rubles for the whole honeymoon. But we 24:59 need like 300 or 400 to- - Just for the car. - For 25:02 the car. So Mikhail said, "Soviet Union- at the time, 25:05 it was a system you can trans- - Send telegrams 25:10 and wire money. - So he called his brother from a 25:15 phone, which- it was like a booth- special, like- 25:19 - Public telephone exchanges. - So, he called his brother 25:23 Paul in Moscow and said, "Paul, here's the situation. 25:28 Can you transfer us some money?" And he asked, "What 25:30 happened?" So he told him and said, "Okay. Tomorrow 25:32 morning, I'll transfer you this money. You can go to the 25:34 postal office and take the money." So we said, "Okay, 25:36 that's good." So we were happy that we fixed this. So we were 25:40 walking, walking, walking, and we were becoming more 25:43 tired and tired- 12 o'clock at night, you know? I said, 25:46 "You know, Mikhail? Let's go. Let's go back into the 25:49 apartment." So we came back into the apartment, lie 25:52 on the sofa, and just went to sleep right away. In 25:57 the morning, we heard a knock on the door. - What a way to 25:59 start your honeymoon. - Yes! So the guy came. He said, 26:02 "Okay, guys! Are you ready? Let's go!" We came out, took 26:05 our car, followed him. He said, "I have a garage out of the 26:11 city; I have a garage where I keep my stuff to fix cars. 26:14 So follow me and we'll go there." So we followed him to 26:18 this garage and it was July. Hot! That's- you know? 26:22 Ukraine- hot- very hot. The garages during the Soviet 26:27 Union were made of metal. So we came there and he started 26:32 working on our car. Mikhail was standing next to him- 26:35 you know, what do you do? He was just standing there 26:37 and I was sitting under the tree, just so sad and crying- 26:43 but at the same time, I was happy that at least he was 26:45 repairing our car. But at the same time, I was thinking, 26:47 "Wow, oh my... How much will he charge us? Will we 26:50 have enough to pay him? How much money do we have? 26:52 What will happen?" It was so hot. The guy was just sweating 26:58 in the sun- outside, he was repairing- outside- because 27:01 of the metal garage, so it was worse! In the sun. Mikhail 27:05 was there fixing. Okay - lunchtime came; we were 27:07 hungry. Nobody was eating- no drinking- no nothing. So 27:10 at around 5 o'clock, he was able to close the trunk. We 27:17 were so excited. He said, "The only thing I don't 27:20 have is the taillight, but my mom lives not far away from 27:26 here. Let's go to my mom. I will take the taillight, 27:29 install it, and then we will be done." - This is a total 27:31 stranger, mind you - this is someone you had never 27:33 seen before; you didn't know- yeah. - We didn't even know 27:35 his name! The only thing we knew was that his name 27:37 was Sergey. That's all. We followed him, went to his 27:41 mom, brought this taillight, installed it - everything was 27:44 ready. It was around 6 o'clock on Friday evening. He said, 27:50 "Guys, everything is ready. You can go now." We said, 27:55 "...How much do we owe you?" Scariest question. 28:00 He said, "Nothing." - Wow. What an angel. 28:04 - I said, "What do you mean, 'Nothing'?!" I looked at 28:07 Mikhail. I told him, "No, no, no, Sergey - that's not right. 28:10 That's not right. Please tell us how much we owe you." 28:14 He said, "I told you guys, nothing." I said, "No. We 28:18 can't leave like that. You know you worked like, from 28:21 morning, hot and sweating, fixing our car, and now you 28:25 tell us 'Nothing'?" "No, you owe me nothing." 28:28 We started insisting and insisting. He said, "Okay, 28:31 okay, guys. If you want to pay me, pay just 25 rubles- 28:36 $25 for the taillights and I'll give it to my mom. And 28:40 that's it." - Wow. - So we took 25 rubles and 28:45 gave it to him, said goodbye, sat in the car, and started 28:50 driving away. I don't know if you've experienced 28:53 something like this, but 28:54 I remember till this day- it's already more than 30 years 28:56 ago. We had a feeling that something happened - something 29:01 amazing! It was a miracle because in real life, that 29:04 doesn't happen! I can't explain it - the feeling I 29:08 had - we didn't know what to say. We were just quiet, 29:11 driving away and thinking, "Wow." Just, "Wow." I 29:17 remember that we drove a little way away, parked the car, and 29:21 we just stopped, started praying and 29:26 thanking God for showing us this miracle! Not only showing 29:32 it- He DID this miracle for us! I was sitting in the 29:38 car, thinking, and a verse from the Bible came into 29:43 my mind, like "Boom! Boom! Boom!" I want to read you 29:48 this verse and I want to read it to you in Russian 29:50 from our New Russian Translation so you can listen- 29:56 hear the Russian language, and Mikhail will read it in 29:59 English. So first, the idea came to mind- this verse 30:04 from the Bible. 30:06 [reads in Russian] 30:09 And Mikhail can translate. - It's Zephaniah chapter 3: 30:13 "Sorrow I will remove from you." - Uh-huh. Praise the 30:17 Lord. - And then, [continues reading in Russian] 30:24 And in English, it's "He will quiet you with His love." 30:28 - Amen. Amen. - So that's the experience that we 30:32 had. - Praise the Lord. - It's amazing; yes. - Yeah. 30:37 So your marriage started off with a miracle. Yeah. A 30:40 blessing from the Lord. - It was like He was telling us, 30:44 "You know, guys? I will be with you." We're human. 30:49 That's human. We started crying, were depressed, "Oh, 30:53 everything will end..." But if you know God is there, 31:00 He will just not let you go. He will help you. He'll 31:03 be with you. We had in our life...a lot of this. - A lot 31:08 of those? Praise the Lord. Now, let's go quickly onto 31:10 the story of Mikhail's dad dying of cancer, 'cause we 31:15 gotta get to this Bible cl- - Oh, okay. That will be a 31:19 short story. It was in 2010? Yes; he was diagnosed with 31:25 cancer. We knew that he would- brain cancer. In 4 months, he 31:30 would die. In January, we decided to go and visit him 31:35 for the last time. We spent 10 days there with him, 31:40 helping them around the house and talking like nothing was 31:45 happening. On the last day, we came in the evening to 31:48 say goodbye. We knew what was about to happen. We knew 31:52 that would be the last. Mikhail's dad said, "Okay, 31:58 let's have prayer before you leave," so we sat in the 32:01 living room, and he was praying for us and for 32:05 everything. We hugged each other, and then he looked at 32:08 us and he said, "Mikhail and Lyuda. Promise me that you'll 32:14 take this project and you'll not leave this project. 32:18 Please promise me that you'll do this for me." I remember we 32:22 looked at him and, "Of course! Of course. Of 32:26 course." Even though we were thinking, "Wow." But we said, 32:30 "Yes, Dad. Don't worry. We'll take this project and we will 32:35 finish it." So we hugged, said goodbye, and we left. 32:41 We never saw him ever again. That was our last- 32:45 - He just hugged us and prayed with us and asked for God to 32:51 lead the way. - That was amazing. 32:55 - A powerful, powerful man. Now, he had the good sense- 32:59 the Spirit-led sense to- when he began this project, 33:04 to begin to include other scholars. Tell me, Mikhail, 33:08 if you'll just a little- of the mindset- actually, it 33:11 was a brilliant move to include other individuals 33:14 rather than just try to make this an "Adventist" project, 33:17 but to include other scholars from other religious groups 33:20 to help with that. - Yes. In 1992, when he formally 33:27 established the Bible Translation Institute, he 33:31 wrote to the leaders of all Christian denominations and 33:36 Jewish scholars and invited them to work on the project. 33:41 He also wrote to leading philologists in Russia - 33:46 specialists in the Russian language, because he always 33:49 used to say, "Imagine if Russian people are reading 33:55 the masterpieces of Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky and the 34:01 poems of Pushkin - imagine in what kind of language we 34:08 need to render the Word of God." - So he wanted this 34:12 project to be an exalted translation. The best language 34:16 available using the best individuals. Yeah. 34:20 So he kind of lays that burden on you and you accept 34:22 that burden, so you had to carry it on. Now, was much of 34:27 this work done while you were in Russia or did you have to 34:30 it from the States and kind of go back and forth? 34:31 Walk us through that for us, 'cause that must've been a 34:34 massive undertaking. - Yes... I'm very grateful to God 34:39 that we were able to establish partnerships. 34:42 Washington Adventist University here in the United States, 34:46 Zaoksky Theological Seminary in Russia, the St. Apostle 34:52 Andrew Institute - the Russian Orthodox Institute 34:55 in Moscow - and, the General Conference - we all work 35:00 together across the Atlantic using the internet and Skype 35:05 and e-mail and a lot of traveling to Russia. 35:10 I received, from the President of the university here - 35:15 Washington Adventist - a five-year sabbatical lease. 35:24 I was able to work around the clock, almost taking no 35:28 breaks. - It occurred to me, because even with internet 35:31 and Skype and all of those things, there's gotta be some 35:34 face-to-face, one-on-one, or one-on-group talking, so 35:37 you have to log a lot of miles back and forth across the 35:39 Atlantic with just sorta- yeah. Skype also. Yeah. 35:46 How many, Mikhail, in general, people are we talking about 35:50 that had input - significant input into the project? 35:54 - The project took about 22 years to complete. I would 36:01 say over a hundred people, taking into consideration all 36:07 aspects of the work, because work on a Bible translation 36:12 includes specialists in biblical Hebrew, Aramaic, 36:18 biblical Greek, the Russian language, style, layout, 36:26 design, Bible maps, biblical archaeology, specialists with 36:33 the databases for ancient manuscripts. It involved a 36:43 large, large group of specialists. - You're 36:46 superintending all of this stuff and somebody's gotta be the man 36:48 and you were it. - By God's grace, with Lyudmila, with 36:54 my manager... Yes. God blessed her with great administrative 37:01 abilities. - Can I ask you, what is the difference - 37:04 for our?- between a version and a translation. 37:08 Because this was a translation, was it not? What is the 37:11 difference? Can you explain that? - A version is usually 37:15 an edition of a translation. A group of translators would 37:22 prepare a brand new translation, and then that 37:28 translation can be designed and published with additional 37:34 apparatus or without the additional apparatus with 37:39 introductory notes to the books of the Bible. Each 37:45 particular edition is represented or registered 37:53 as a version - as a specific version. - Once the actual 37:59 hard work began, did expand that five years 38:04 that they gave you or five years plus? - We were able, 38:08 by God's grace, to complete the project in five years. 38:14 But prior to that, in 2010, when my father passed away, 38:20 the New Testament was already completed - and the book of 38:25 Psalms - and published. The Pentateuch was already 38:30 completed and published. But when we sat down and created 38:37 the schedule for the five years, we realized that the 38:42 entire mass of the Old Testament books has to be 38:47 worked. - Yeah. You've got some things covered, but you 38:50 still got a lot of work to do. - I think it's important 38:54 here to say that, at that time, in 2010, there was 39:00 no budget. - Ooh! That makes things a little complex. 39:03 - We didn't have any money at all for this project, so 39:08 Mikhail spent a lot of time to talk to the General 39:13 Conference to do fundraising so we can have the funds to 39:19 finish this project. It was hard. It was very hard. 39:23 - It was terrifying in 2010. When my father died, the 39:28 account was depleted. We were alone...but God showed to us, 39:36 "You're not alone." - Praise the Lord. - What I realized- 39:40 that if God gives you a task and He gives you a dream 39:43 to do something that people need, help comes from nowhere. 39:51 People come from left and right and they ask you, "Do 39:55 you need help?" "Do you need help?" It was fearsome to 40:04 experience. - Talk to me a little bit about the idea that 40:07 you had so many scholars from across religious disciplines, 40:12 including the Russian Orthodox Church - how that helped in 40:17 the acceptance of the final product. - It was providential. 40:22 It was uniquely led by God- the vision that he granted to 40:28 my father. He always used to say, "God is the God of 40:37 every human being. Of every Russian person and of every 40:42 person on the globe. The Bible is God's Word for 40:47 everybody. He wants us to give it back to everybody; 40:54 therefore, we need to involve as many scholars as possible." 41:01 When we completed the project, the newspapers, the media, 41:07 social networks, television in Russia - they started 41:13 interviewing people and scholars- Russian 41:17 Orthodox-leading scholars gave wonderful reviews about 41:25 the level of scholarship - the transparency that existed 41:32 in the project - the spirit of mutual respect and reverence 41:38 for God's Word... At one of the most difficult times in Russian 41:43 history where there was so much tension and so much 41:47 mistrust, this project was a beautiful testimony of 41:53 what God can do - how He can unite different people 41:59 from different communities to labor on His Word. - Yeah. 42:04 And given the way things were, it was important that 42:08 that happened. I want to go to that video. You can 42:10 walk us through this, Mikhail, if you will. This 42:13 is a national news agency talking about this project, 42:16 isn't it? Guys, if you can kind of set that up, let's 42:19 go right into that video. Mikhail, sort of walk us 42:22 through what we're looking at. This got very wide 42:26 acceptance when this was rolled out - in the nation; 42:29 not just among the religious community, but in the nation. 42:31 So what's happening here? - Here, we see the 42:36 editor-in-chief of a leading national newspaper - The Russian 42:42 Independent Newspaper. He has a weekly talk show where, 42:47 at the end of the talk show, discussing current political 42:50 events, he introduces a book to the audience that he read 42:56 that week and that impacted him personally. So at the end 43:00 of this program, he suddenly, out of the blue, produces our 43:06 Bible; and he says, "Over the break, I just finished 43:12 reading this brand new literary, scholarly translation 43:18 of the scriptures, and it changed my life. I'm a new 43:24 man. I wish that when I was a young man that there 43:29 was a translation this clear and accessible. If I have 43:36 read it when I was young, I'm sure my life would have 43:40 turned out different." - Wow. Wow. That is quite an 43:43 affirmation. And the fact that you took the time to get the 43:47 best scholarship, to use the best language, to appeal 43:50 to someone of that nature - it could do that because it 43:54 was well done. Had it been a kind of cheap project, it 43:57 would not have done so. We praise the Lord for that. 44:01 There's a couple pi- we saw the picture of your dad. 44:05 There's another picture of a group of people. If we can 44:08 bring that one up- 'cause I wanna just sort of clue in 44:11 on who this group of people are. Yep. Who are we looking 44:14 at here, Mikhail? - We are looking here at our team 44:19 of translators; the literary editors: Ivan Lobanov, 44:25 Victor Leahu, the coordinator of the project in Russia, 44:30 Jana Lebedeva, the coordinator in the United 44:33 States, Lyudmila here, and on my left, Iliya Velgosha, the 44:40 treasurer of the project in Russia. It was such a 44:45 privilege for me to work with this group of people. 44:50 My life has been changed. - Praise the Lord. Praise 44:55 the Lord. We have another video I want- I think we 44:57 have enough time to squeeze it in - wanna go to it. It 45:00 kind of sets up what this project was all about. We'll 45:02 take a chance to look at that, then I want to give you a 45:04 chance to say something good about Lyudmila, 'cause 45:07 obviously, she's very integral to this project. Let's 45:10 go to that second video just now. 45:34 It began a long time ago when the founder of the Bible 45:41 Translations Institute, my father, was a young man 45:46 barely in his 20s in Soviet Latvia in 1947. 45:54 He had a dream that the Bible should be translated 46:02 with the same accuracy, the same masterful use of all 46:11 the riches of the great Russian language, for the people of 46:17 Russia and all those who use the Russian language 46:20 around the world. - 7 years ago, when he 46:25 passed, his son picked it up. Over a 20-year period, 46:28 General Conference, Eurasian Division, Zaoksky University, 46:34 Washington Adventist University - all these 46:36 individuals got together and sacrificed time and 46:40 money in order to develop a clear and accurate modern 46:46 translation for Russian Bibles. So we've got the people of- 46:50 the Russian-speaking people can also get the spiritual 46:53 Bread of Life. - This new project called the 46:58 New Bible in the Russian language is an affirmation 47:01 of the role of Seventh-Day Adventists - not only among 47:04 Protestant or evangelical churches, but also among 47:07 ? the great majority- is the popular 47:12 church in our countries. So, that is very important for 47:15 us because it's an affirmation that Adventists are careful 47:20 for the Word of God. - This is such a golden 47:24 opportunity for witnessing to the population of Russia, 47:27 which today stands at approximately 143 million. 47:32 - The project of the Russian Bible is of great significance 47:36 because this is probably the most accurate, complete 47:39 Bible that will be introduced into the Russian community. 48:29 Amen and amen. An impressive list of names of people who 48:33 were involved in the project. The General Conference, 48:35 Washington Adventist University, the Seminary- 48:38 Zaoksky, all of the scholars that are part of this, but 48:41 the person who paid such an important part in your 48:45 life and directing you was your boss, Lyudmila. - Amen. 48:50 Yes. - Take just a moment and talk about the value of her 48:54 in this project. You'll- she'll have to give us some 48:56 flowers. - Yes. It would not have been possible for me 49:02 to finish this without Lyudmila. From the very 49:08 first day, when we left my dad and said goodbye to him, 49:13 Lyudmila said to me, "Mikhail, you need to sit 49:16 down and you need to calculate the number of verses in 49:20 all the remaining books of the Old Testament. Divide 49:24 it by the number of days that are left before the 49:28 General Conference and we will be giving an account 49:32 to each other. We'll be sitting down at the end of 49:35 every week and we will be making sure." And you know, 49:39 God gave Lyudmila amazing administrative abilities and 49:44 loyalty and selflessness. Lyudmila worked with donors. 49:51 Every single donation, she personally, with her hand, 49:55 would write out the receipt duri- and thank you cards 50:03 to every single one. She kept the books of the account 50:10 going with a group of people with whom we met to review 50:16 regularly and vote and approve the new budget and 50:24 move on - develop the vision. She encouraged me. Lyuda 50:32 found me a reuben. I said to Lyuda at the beginning of 50:36 the project in 2010, "We need a Reuben. We need a 50:39 Reuben." She came to me and she said, "Adventist Risk 50:45 Management just got a new leader - a new president. 50:48 Michael - he has such administrative abilities and 50:52 gifts. He fears God in a good way and he has a kind 50:59 heart. You need to talk to him about raising funds for 51:05 this project." - "I'll make an appointment for you." 51:11 I want to tell you - without the people that Lyuda brought 51:14 into the project and God brought through her, we 51:18 wouldn't be able to- - Praise the Lord. Praise God. 51:21 So many people. So many viewers of 3ABN helped us tremendously. 51:28 - Praise the Lord. It's a good team. From the day you 51:31 got hit in the back there until this day... We praise 51:36 the Lord. We're going to go quickly now to our news break. 51:41 We've got a couple things we want to share with you, 51:43 then we're gonna come back and get a little closing 51:44 thought from Mikhail and Lyudmila. |
Revised 2018-07-18