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atarahderek · 1 year

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A Beloved Murderer

A transcript from the pages of Jesus Freaks Vol. II: Revolutionaries

Richard and Sabina Wurmbrand

Romania, 1940s

"In the concentration camp where I worked, I killed many Jews, even Jews with children in their arms," the man boasted to Pastor Wurmbrand. He had just come back from the front fighting for the Nazis and was proud of his accomplishments. He was glad to tell of them to anyone who would listen. Having heard the good German name Wurmbrand, the man must have had no idea that the pastor he spoke with was a Jew.

In response to being "privileged" with hearing of the man's barbarity and murdering, most Christians would have been at a loss for words. But not Pastor Wurmbrand. He promptly and affectionately invited the man to his home for dinner. The man loved music, and when Pastor Wurmbrand told him he would play the piano for him, he said he would be glad to come.

When the man arrived that evening, there were some other believers present, but his wife, Sabina, was feeling ill, so she stayed in her room. Pastor Wurmbrand played the piano for them all, and they had a wonderful evening together enjoying the music. After that they all had a long discussion into the night, further enjoying one another's company.

When it had grown quite late, Pastor Wurmbrand turned to the soldier and said, "Sir, I have to tell you something. You must promise me that you will listen for ten minutes quietly. After that ten minutes you can say whatever you would like."

The man was smiling broadly from all he had enjoyed that evening and said quite warmly, "All right, all right, you can speak to me even more than ten minutes. I promise that I will not interrupt you. You can say whatever you like."

"In the other room," the pastor began, "my wife is sleeping. She is Jewish and I am Jewish too. Her family, which is also my family, perished in the big Nazi concentration camp where you boasted that you killed Jews with children still in their arms. So you are presumably the very murderer of my family.

"Now, I propose an experiment. We will pass into the other room and I will tell my wife who you are. I can assure you my wife will not speak one word of reproach to you, nor will she look angrily at you, but will smile at you as at every honored guest. She will go and prepare coffee and cookies for you. You will be received just like everyone else. Now, if my wife, who is only human, can do this, if she can love you like this, knowing what you have done, and can forgive you, then how much more will Jesus, who is love?"

The man began to tear at his jacket. "What have I done? What have I done? I am guilty of so much blood."

The pastor said, "Well, then, let us kneel down and ask for forgiveness from God."

They knelt. First Pastor Wurmbrand said a short prayer; then the man, who did not know how to pray, said again and again, "Jesus forgive me. Jesus forgive me. I believe that You will forgive me." There were many tears, and then he and the pastor embraced.

"I have promised you an experiment. Now we will go to see my wife."

Sabina had heard nothing while sleeping in the other room far away in the house from the main room where they had been speaking. They went to her and Pastor Wurmbrand woke her. "Do you know this man?" Pastor Wurmbrand began.

"No," she replied sleepily.

So he introduced the man. "This is the murderer of your sisters, your brothers and your parents. But now he has repented and he is our brother in the Messiah, our brother in the faith. What do you have to say to him?"

She fell around his neck and they both wept together.

#the heart of the gospel is forgiveness #Jesus Freaks #Revolutionaries #pgs. 295-296 #Richard Wurmbrand #Sabina Wurmbrand #Voice of the Martyrs #This is one of my favorite Wurmbrand stories #But it's not transcripted anywhere online #so I put it here #To learn more about how you can help persecuted Christians and find out the full story of the Wurmbrands visit persecution.com

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gracethefoundfamilyfan · 11 months

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ok i frickin love my found family lemme just say

first of all we all go to a baptist church and we call ourselves the jesus freaks after that DC Talk song even though we're all 12-19 (except for the Fathers who are some of our dads) and im making us all jesus freak shirts

second of all despite the baptist-ness we sound like a catholic something or other my dad is referred to as 'Father Louis' my "brother" is Brother George my 'sister' is Sister Abigail and there's also Sister Meredith and Sister Grace (me) and Father John (George's real life dad).

and the best part is we act like a family. Abigail and George and I are doubles in the same row in handbells choir and we smack each other and steal phones and all sorts of stuff. My 'nephew' (George's 'son') is a twelve year old little hispanic kid but his two real life brother's are my brothers not his don't ask me why but he and I are writing a play together because he asked me for help with the stage directions and Abigail helped him with his Etsy shop

and I'm the Grand Mother so i basically know/take care of everyone and everything and its literally the reason i live

George and I never talk over text except to send each other dog pictures at three in the morning (both kinds)

SIster Lily and i work at the same restaurant so sometimes they all come in and annoy the heck out of us

Any parent. and i mean ANY parent. (Like real life one). Is referred to as mom or dad. Period. I have fourteen or more moms. I love it.

We have a group bible study that gets heckin chaotic because everyone gets into debates

then there's brother caden who is a little ADHD preacher and also pole dances and he's the most horrible goofy kid ever but he also was the first one of us to lead a kid to christ and he prays like nobody's business

we all are helping each other discover our spiritual gifts (aka what we're best at that God wants us to use to further our group/the church in general's ministry to help people have a little bit better of a life here on earth)

we also protect each other

like david and i were arguing because we couldn't figure out which bells went in which case (we have three sets of eight octaves plus chimes and aluminums, screw it) and he paused for a second to pull me out of the way of a cart that almost ran over my feet and he was like 'you good' and i was like 'yeah' and then we went back to arguing

oh and there's this one kid who's called the Grand Father because he says he's my dad's dad (my dad is 60, he's fourteen, but math and our family don't go well together so whatever) and he kind of just. hovers. on our family tree.

also we're gosh darn near emotionally connected. like we did a feet washing ceremony (don't ask, we're teenagers with too much time on our hands) and some of us were super nervous about showing our dogs but we prayed for God to use our dumbness and then Caden started crying at the end of it and lily and i went to pray for him and then we started crying and before you knew it we were all sobbing and we were singing and praying for our nation and our friends and i've never felt more free than i did sitting on the dusty tile floor of that random church basement out in Appalachia with my family and God. Juju (the protector of the family, seriously she will kill anyone who lays a hand on us) said it felt like 'something big and hot and awesome was bursting out of my chest and making everyone's lives brighter'. That's the closest thing to poetry i've ever heard come out of her lips.

there's alexis too she and i almost dated (long story) but when I told her i wanted to follow the traditional view of the bible she said it was okay and she supported me and now she's best friends with my entire irl family

oh and there's katie she's the weird adopted neighbor lol she loves knives and debating with people about the existence of the Bible

back to the spritual gifts thing, Lily and I were the first to understand ours. Mine is... hmm, the best way to describe it, I guess, is empathy. it's an ability to read people, to discern? maybe? to see through their reactions into their soul and what they really need, and the most loving way to give it to them. Lily's is basically spiritual sight-- she's seen demons since she was little. she told me she saw something dark in me the day after i started cutting, and she told me she could tell the difference when i stopped. no one else except for alexis and juju knew. now i've told my story more, but not much yet. I think the day we realized this weird crap was real was the day a guy walked into the amish market. normal as ever, he'd come in there before, but I literally cringed when he came up to make his order. there was someting off about him, something dangerous. I turned to Lily and told her when he was way out of earshot and she was already giving me the exact same look. she said there was darkness in him. we prayed for him for almost an hour, off and on while we did our work. when he left we breathed a sigh of relief. turns out he'd robbed a nearby place earlier in the day and was armed he was picked up.

there was another time one of my friends from another church got stuck when that plane thing crashed into the main power lines and all the street lights and stuff went out? they were all stuck at their church and one of the new attendees pulled out a gun. he texted us. i texted the group. we started praying. the guy never shot anyone, and the police said he handed his weapon over without a fight.

we also crave discomfort. it's a brave thing, learning to be comfortable in discomfort. i've never met any other group, christian or not, who jumps at the chance to help a group of heroin addicts get cleaned up for job interviews, or volunteers to clean out an entire warehouse full of dust and inhalants and possibly mold or lice or bed bugs or who knew what else as we worked. but we did it. we cheered. we sang. we laughed. we connected with people. and when we came home it didn't stop. every time we meet we do something. we pray for change. we go out and hand out soda and ask people if there's anything we can pray for. we've made friends with every family within ten miles of our church. we regularly bring food and candy to people. we're hosting a trunk or treat and i was asked to do the Chops Fam (get it, knives) trunk. i can't fathom how to represent us well. maybe that's why my brain needed to shove all this out.

we also renovate houses. for fun. did i mention that? the only thing more satisfying than ripping into walls with three of your best friends beside you is the looks on people's faces when they see how much we've done and how much we care and how it's all free because we'll take the load for you this once because 'if we have the power to give even one person a little bit of relief, how can we not give it?'

oh, and one time a crazy guy came to our church. we gave him a doughnut and a coupon to the local bakery before we called the authorities (and then prayed until they got there).

then a bunch of teens came in and smoked marijuanna in our barn (yes, youth group happens in a renovated barn. we fixed it up ourselves. it's freaking awesome.) We set out snacks for them and put up signs to let them know when the doors would be unlocked and the wifi password, so they could stay-- as long as they didn't smoke inside or break anything. they haven't come for service or youth yet, but they come just before. sometimes we see them leave. we wave, they wave back. maybe someday they'll want to meet us.

i've never felt more alive than when eight of us are all crammed on one couch, calling out answers and debating things and stuffing our faces with food, or when you're at the end of a street and you look back and see all the groups spread out like a tree, handing out candy and praying and laying hands on people and giving people hugs. my dad finally reconciled his past of drug abuse when he met the addicts we were loving. he wrote music with one of them. one of them gave him an extra Bible, just about the only thing they owned, and later that day George gave it to a kid who followed us to ask Caden why we were so nice.

I remember us all crying on the floor of that basement. I remember crying at worship, leading my family up to the front, locking arms at the shoulders like we were going to war, screaming the words at the tops of our lungs. i remember holding a girl for hours while she cried and sobbed and begged God to forgive her. I remember someone sobbing as they were freed from the depression that had held them captive for so long. I remember the senior, if not his name, who walked up to me during worship and told me God had a message for me-- that I was waiting on something important, something school related, and I was stressed, but God's answer was no and it was for the best. Two days later I was rejected from the early college program. This year i have the time to support three of my friends who are going through the most stressful time of their lives, and my dad, who just lost a friend. and even when that happened, all of his 'kids' gathered around and prayed for him. we send him messages every day reminding him that there is hope. that he will be okay. that he will see his friend again. we're still hoping that friend will get off his deathbed, but if he doesn't, we're still here. we're still fighting. God's will be done. We never pray for anything else.

i remember standing around that friend's parents and praying, not for their son to survive, although that too, but for them to have strength. peace. their tears were dried. they smiled for the first time in weeks.

i remember screaming. laughing. crying.

i remember feeling nothing at all, and i wonder

how could i not be so endlessly greatful?

in short, i love my family, and i refuse to outgrow them. call it a cult if you must, but they are my life, my hope for the future, my pride, and my joy. we keep each other accountable. we lift each other up. We encourage each other We fight for each other. We see the crap the world pulls, and we say fuck that. We choose to love. We choose to spread light. We choose to love. We choose to pray in public places, and sing on the streets. We choose to do all we can for our neighbors, the people God tells us to serve the most. We are the servants. We are the rebels. We are the change.

That's not to say we don't have a lot of fun, either. We dance and laugh and try on each other's lip gloss and have karaoke at one in the morning and that one time we all caught the same flu bug at church camp we still beat the other churches' asses and then collapsed on the floor of the common room in bags and told each other stories. We sneak out and sit on roofs and look at the stars. We watch the meteors and talk about life. We have an entire row of the tree (my grandchildren) that are stuffed animals, each with their own names and personalities and birthdays which are heavily celebrated. we make the birthday kid feel as awkward as humanly possible. we wrestle. we go to bell festival once a year and chug energy drinks and try to sing our parts on the bells until the adults threaten to turn around and go home. we built a gaga ball pit-- leveled the ground, built the pit, churned out the gravel, tamped it, decorated it, all by ourselves. church work days are a fricking BLAST.

i love my family. i love my home. i love the life that i live. and i wouldn't change it for the world.

because when you have all this, who cares what some random strangers on the internet say?

#christianity #jesus freaks #friends #found family #love #beauty #jesus

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