One brother in Ukraine often said that Christians are the trumpet of the Lord, because through us God speaks to this world. But for the last month we have been feeling like a chisel of the Lord, which is hammered into a hard stone… Not very comfortable, but very interesting!
In Tajikistan, one of the first understanding-revelations that God gave me consisted of two words: destroying strongholds. When I shared this phrase with my brothers and sisters, questions arose: what kind of strongholds? Ours or the people of Tajikistan? There were no answers, nothing is clear, but God has definitely prepared something interesting for us.
In less than a month, we personally saw one of the strongholds: corruption and “connections”.
Almost all issues in this country need to be resolved through “connections” or through bribes. It’s nicely called a “relationship,” but at its core, it’s about solving problems around the law. Even many Christians are not ashamed of this, saying that everyone lives like this, it is impossible to do otherwise here. I felt embarrassed, so I started praying about it sometimes to understand how God views it. And he began to open…
“Do not pervert the law, do not look at faces, and do not take gifts…” (Deut. 16:19)
“With the Lord our God there is no unrighteousness, no partiality, no bribery” (2 Chronicles 19:7)
“Woe to those who, for gifts, justify the guilty and deprive the right of what is right!” (Isaiah 5:22-23).
There are also several examples in the New Testament: a certain sorcerer Simon offered the apostles a bribe for the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:18-20), and the ruler Felix expected a bribe from Paul (Acts 24:25-26).
The Lord clearly and unequivocally showed in His word how He relates to this type of relationship. I will also quote a passage of Scripture that most vividly touched my heart:
“So, because you trample on the poor and take gifts of bread from him, you will build houses of hewn stones, but you will not live in them. You are enemies of the right, you take bribes and pervert the deeds of the poor in court, ”- the book of the prophet Amos, 5: 11-12.
Here we are talking about the whole nation, and not about isolated cases. The prophet promised such people a punishment in the form of an earthquake (“the whole earth will be stirred like a river, and it will rise and fall …”), and two years later there really was an earthquake.
We noticed the first “bell” when we tried to register “through a friend”. Usually, with a legal procedure, this takes up to 5 working days, but we had to do it in a day. As a result, the Lord put the circumstances in such a way that the passports with registration were returned to us only two weeks later. I immediately heard a rebuke in my heart: do not take the easy way and try to circumvent the law.
Immediately after that, a more significant and more unpleasant situation happened to us …
Due to the late payment of permission for window tinting, our car and driver’s license were taken away from us. And everything would be fine if it were not for the persistent extortion of a bribe by the traffic police. At first we asked for mercy, as the fine was huge: 800 dollars. But we were not even issued this fine, for 7 days we did not have any document stating that our car and driver’s license were confiscated.
In the traffic police department, we were openly called the amount that would “solve the issue.”
Thank God for the courage and determination of my husband. He tirelessly repeated each time that we do not give bribes, even if our car is on the scales. As a result, on the 8th day we were finally given an official fine – 8500 somoni, and were given a “temporary license” for 5 days. The car was left in the parking lot.
We talked to different people, looking for any information that could help us. Basically, everyone was very surprised, some bluntly said that we were stupid and unadapted, they say we had to give a bribe, because you can’t live here otherwise, you need to get used to Asia, here all visitors are first indignant, and then they become “like everyone else” …
But we just gave this whole situation to God and prayed daily for the leadership of the Tajik traffic police. There was peace and confidence in my heart that these are no longer our problems, because God cannot be mocked.
After a couple of weeks, God sent us a good lawyer who wrote an application to appeal the amount of the fine. We really violated the local law by not paying for the tinting on time, but paying such an amount within a month is beyond our ability, so we asked the court to reduce the fine.
In anticipation of judgment at every turn, we saw how God works through this situation: we witnessed to dozens of people about His love and warned of the coming judgment of God. We did not know how it would all end, and of course, we understood that we could not break local traditions, but we are obliged in this situation to show people God’s view of corruption.
Then there was our first trial in our life, before that we saw court hearings only in films. We decided to defend ourselves without a lawyer, as our Chief Counsel is always with us. Before the beginning, my husband and I quietly prayed in the courtroom that the Lord would clear this place of darkness, that he would send good workers here who would judge in truth.
We decided not to talk about bribes during the meeting, for two reasons. The first is the risk of getting serious accusations of perjury because we had no proof.
The second reason is mercy. Even before the trial, we were given the address and telephone number of an organization that fights corruption (allegedly it fights, but this is not accurate), and we could even anonymously complain there about specific traffic police officers. But after the prayer, both my husband and I came to understand that our main task now is not to punish people according to the law, but to show them our God, who is just and severely exacting for sin, but at the same time loving and merciful.
As a result, the judge decided to reduce the amount of the fine by 50%. We had 10 days to pay the $400 plus $90 toll fee, (for 38 days). This is a large sum both for Tajikistan, with an average salary of $150 per month, and for Ukraine. We only had $100 and again the only option was to pray and trust God. How good it is to be children of God!
We took a couple of days to pray, and then I wrote a post asking for help on my page on the social network, as well as in one of the chats in Tajikistan. And the very next day we had exactly $500! God bless!
The story ended well: we paid for everything according to the law, took the car, testified to all our friends about the mercy and goodness of our God the Father and the love of His Christ. This month and a half has been an interesting period in which we have learned to stand on the Word of God, even when it seems crazy to everyone around. And during this time we got to know the city better by riding minibuses!
In all this we have nothing to boast about, because we got such problems through our own fault. We didn’t take the laws of this country seriously, overdue an important payment, and thought we could get away with it. But God led us through this, did not turn away, but on the contrary, strengthened us. He turned everything for good, glorified His Name and will glorify it again!
“Some in chariots, some in horses, but we glory in the name of the Lord our God” – Psalms 19:8.