When Communism Collapsed it was Euphoric

In November 1989, East Berlin’s Communist party began dismantling the Berlin Wall. There was no way that I could have known it, but that event would lead to the collapse of the Iron Curtain. In the months ahead, riots and unrest began to spread throughout Eastern Europe.

On Christmas Day, the news came that Communism was falling. Romania’s dictator, Nicolae Ceaușescu, and his wife, Elena, were taken outside and shot by a firing squad. The Romanian people were revolting in the streets; they had had enough of his tyranny and cruelty.

Every half hour, as the news was cycled over and over again, the sound bite that “the Antichrist died on Christmas Day” was played. I was glued to my television, and watched the news for ten hours straight; I could not get enough.

The General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party, dictator Tudor Zhivkov, was arrested just weeks later and then in February, the Bulgarian Communists officially relinquished their power.

Never dreaming that their grip on Bulgaria would come to an end, I walked around in shock and awe for days. Communism had collapsed. But the Lord had prepared me, and I already had my airline ticket.

Within weeks, I was standing in the euphoria filled streets of Sofia. My rock and roll friends placed me on the stage before two-hundred thousand people who were chanting “freedom” over and over again in the city square. Coming from America, they handed me the microphone and asked me to tell the people all about freedom. Of course, I told them about Jesus.

"Starting life in a brand-new country did not complete my escape. I often tell people that even though you could take me out of Communism, it was an entirely different matter to take Communism out of me! It was not until I gave my life to Jesus that I found the freedom, peace and joy that I had been yearning for."

(Part 5 of 6)

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