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Evidence of Evgeny Kiryanov
My life was like hell, there was no light in it, just total darkness. When I was ten years old my family was completely destroyed. My father died because of alcohol, my mother was left disabled (after my father was beaten), and my little brother and I were put in an orphanage. From the time I went to the boarding school, I was on my own. Running away from boarding school, dubious friends, imaginary freedom, everything negative began to creep into my life. I was brought up on the street, at the age of fifteen I had already been in jail and had a criminal record for robbery. Prison did not have a positive effect on my life, and when I got out after six months I began to learn the basics of the criminal world with even more enthusiasm and to absorb a variety of sins like a sponge.
This life brought me back to the defendants’ bench. I was sentenced to five years in a medium-security prison. After my release I thought that I would change my life, that I would work, that I would start a family, and that everything would be fine. But it all remained a pipe dream.
Everything was back to normal
Crime and life again, filled with pain, frustration and evil, evil that I myself had sown right and left.
The scripture says, “a bad beginning makes a bad ending,” and so I fully reaped the fruits of my wrongdoing, resulting in prison again and twelve years of high security. When I was brought to the colony to serve my sentence, I faced a hopeless picture – eleven years in prison and a meaningless existence, no hope, no future.
Was I really born for such a life? Is there no way out of it? I asked myself these questions and found no answers.
Now that I look back on my journey, I realize that those thoughts were from the Lord, and that was the beginning of my journey toward faith in God and sincere repentance before Him.
The Lord gave me these thoughts – first who am I? Where did I come from and where am I going to? I began to look for answers to these questions in books, which I was given for a reason, as I understand now.
I began to learn the scientific approach to the World creation of the world and man and the biblical approach.
Science offered me the belief that the world was formed by an explosion and that man came from an ape. The first thing I learned was that living things cannot be formed from non-living things unless someone higher up is standing over them.
The second was that there was no ancestor from the monkey, that the monkey was an ape, and still is an ape. I realized that the theory of evolution goes against common sense.
The biblical approach to the creation of the world and of man gave my quest complete satisfaction. God opened my eyes to His creations that I had previously looked at and not seen. I saw the complete interconnectedness in nature, I saw the order in the cosmos, I saw the complex mechanisms of the human body – eyes, heart, brain, etc., etc. – and I realized that all these mechanisms could not have developed by themselves. I came to the conclusion that everything around me was created by the Creator and the name of thу Creator is God.
Yes, in the process of my search for the meaning of existence, the Lord was also working with me from the outside.
I began to be surrounded by people who believed in Him, people I had recently ridiculed and laughed. Then in the process of my fellowship, I quietly began to go to a gathering of believing people.
It also revealed to me the purpose of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ 2000 years ago to our earth.
And now this significant event, my memory always remember this date – June 26, 2006, on this day I falled on my knees before God in a prayer of repentance and accepted the Son of God Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. From that time on, when I was reconciled to God, the Lord gave me insight into what I should do after liberation.
To go to the rehabilitation center and then came the long awaited day of December 18, 2009. My thoughts were along the following : i will be released, go home, see my relatives and friends, then go to Krasnoyarsk to the Central Baptist Church with my imprisoned brothers. I will learn all about the rehabilitation center from them and then go there.
When I was released and came home, I began to testify to my family that God, in His great mercy, had saved me from the slavery of sin, granted me freedom, and given me eternal life. To my evidence that there was a living God and that He had changed me, I met with complete misunderstanding. As I remember now, I walk down the street and ask the Lord tearfully to lead me out of this environment to my brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ, and God immediately responded.
I had an uncontrollable desire to go to the church in Krasnoyarsk to find out about the rehab center. I went and got there on Christmas Day and met the brothers I had been with in the colony. I explained to them the purpose of my visit and they gave me information that there was a center near my home in Yeniseisk. I was met at the center with understanding, warmth and care. That is how by the grace of God
I was brought to the center located 4.5 miles away from where my relatives live and where my childhood passed.
While in the rehabilitation center I got the inner urge to do something for the Lord, I thought to myself – I would get out of the center and serve the Lord with my own hands. But now I know that our ways are not God’s ways. God has His own plan for me, and He is leading me to it still.
When I was at the rehabilitation center, the pastor of Yenisei Church approached me
and asked if I would like to serve the Lord as a minister in the center.
I understood the seriousness of this ministry and came to the conclusion that I had no experience working with this group, and that I was not versed in God’s word to mentor the people entrusted to my care. But all things are possible to God, I had not considered that at the time.
The pastor suggested that I pray and ask God for His will on this. And I began to pray, and after a while the Lord answered me through the Scriptures – do not be afraid, I am with you, I will not give you anything beyond your strength, you will be able to do everything, just trust in me. And I trusted and stepped into this ministry in faith. Now, when I summarize my ministry in the rehabilitation center, I see the hand of God and His guidance, His blessings. As they say, right along the way, in the course of my ministry, the Lord began to open up the Scriptures to me, gave me wisdom in ministry, and gave me spiritual strength.
During my time as a minister in the rehabilitation center, I made a holy water covenant with the Lord that I would serve Him with my life and good conscience, and also during that year the Lord changed my way of thinking, my whole being, and my surroundings. I have no words to describe the gratitude the Lord has on my heart for all He has done for me. There is meaning and purpose in my life, how I should live, where I should go, and what I should do. The Lord continues to write His testimony in my life further, after leaving social ministry (I served for a year and a half), the Lord has seen fit to disciple me in a school in Novosibirsk, where they teach Christians to do missionary work.
I had finished the course on preparation for missionary work and now I am putting that knowledge into practice. What has happened in the meantime? Big changes. God strengthened my spirit, my faith, my dreams came true – God gave me a wife, a child, and I am doing very well, I now have a meaning of life, purpose and vision of where and how to go.
Where will I go from here? And what will I do? God only knows. But I know one thing, no matter where God leads me or what job He calls me to, I need to be ready. After all, this is a small part of what I can do for my loving God out of a sense of gratitude. Praise Jesus that He is not one of the many people today who offer a way out of our human sins but all to no avail, but a real living Savior-God who heals wounded souls, delivers from addictions, gives meaning and purpose in life, gives freedom, gives peace to the heart, a future and hope. Only He revives the soul from the shadow of death to a holy and godly life, to which I am a living witness. Glory to Him forever and ever, amen!!!
Friends! There is an eternity ahead! Each of us has a choice: admit that we are a sinner before God and repent of our sins, accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, submitting our will to the will of God, or go on living, trusting only in ourselves and our own strength. But I want to warn you and tell you this, God Himself says this in the Bible in Hebrews 9:27: “And as it is appointed for men to die once, and then the judgment. And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” and Daniel 12:2, “Everyone shall stand before God and give account for his life lived and the works he has done. No soul will be justified before him who has not received Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
