First Grain of Sand — Page 166
150 FIRST GRAIN OF SAND final step of the stairs and saw the officers from afar, I immedi- ately stood up straight, took off my hat, bowed in their direc- tion, and greeted them. I slowly approached them, then again took off my hat, bowed, and said to them in Russian, Здрасте [pronounced Zdraste], meaning, ‘Hello. ' In response, one of the officers pointed to an empty chair to gesture me to sit down, and so I sat down. There were close to twenty officers in this room. Never before had I been called to be interrogated or give a statement in front of so many officers. Instead, in each prison, there was one officer asking the questions and one interpreter. It was a hard reality that in my case, the government had a strong suspicion that I was a spy. Even if that were not the case, due to the fact that they were hostile towards religion, they also hated me from a religious point of view. So in the end, they thought it appropriate that they should come together and ask me religious questions collectively and finally see for themselves whether I am really a missionary or a spy. For this reason, the very first question they asked was, Бог Есть? [pronounced Bog yest], meaning, ‘Does God exist?' In that hall where I was being questioned, there were six or seven officers seated on both my right and left, and another six or seven officers sitting in front of me. There was a table in the middle and a very large wall in the front featuring a large photo of Vladimir Lenin-the one who declared, 'There is no God, and we are all comrades' as soon as he took over the Soviet presidency from the Czar. In response to their question, I remained seated and told them that indeed God exists.