Source: God Reports, July 30, 2019<\/p>\n
\u201cViktor\u201d once smuggled illegal drugs from Tajikistan to the state where he lives in Central Asia.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe seemed to have natural abilities to covertly network across communities,\u201d according to a report by Open Doors. He was so good he was offered the opportunity to smuggle drugs across the Afghanistan border, which would expand his illicit operation into three countries.<\/p>\n
But in 1996, Viktor was caught with nine pounds of heroin and sent to jail. Once incarcerated, he became depressed and suicidal. \u201cI felt empty inside and did not want to live anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n
One day Viktor\u2019s cellmate received a package from his mother that contained the Gospel of John. The cellmate offered to let Viktor read it. Viktor didn\u2019t want any part of the book at first. But after 10 nights of poor sleep, he picked up the book and began to peruse it. It didn\u2019t make any sense to him. \u201c\u2018The Word was first and the Word was God\u2019 made no sense to me\u2026 What did it mean? I put it away and stopped reading.\u201d<\/p>\n
But then something unusual happened. He had more sleepless nights. Thoroughly exhausted and despairing, he picked up the Bible once more and this time, he couldn\u2019t stop reading.<\/p>\n
\u201cI read about eternal life,\u201d Viktor told Open Doors. \u201cReading about eternal life caught my attention. Thinking about it, I really desired eternal life even more than I desired to be released from jail.\u201d<\/p>\n
The more he read the Bible the more he felt God\u2019s presence. He didn\u2019t know how to pray, but he called out to Jesus.<\/p>\n
Today, he is the pastor of an underground church in Central Asia. He secretly stores Bibles and other Christian media useful for evangelism in his barn. Viktor marvels at the way God turned his life around. \u201cPlease do pray that my testimony and my life can bring many people to Christ, and pray also for my relatives,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: God Reports, July 30, 2019 \u201cViktor\u201d once smuggled illegal drugs from Tajikistan to the state where he lives in Central Asia. \u201cHe seemed to have natural abilities to covertly network across communities,\u201d according to a report by Open Doors. He was so good he was offered the opportunity to smuggle drugs across the Afghanistan … Continue reading CENTRAL ASIA: He Once Smuggled Heroin, Now He Smuggles Bibles<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8712"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8713,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8712\/revisions\/8713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}