The National Football League pre-season is underway. Unless you followed the off season activity closely, you may find plenty of surprises of who is and who is not on your team. For example, Russell Wilson is now playing for Denver. Khalil Mack was traded to the Los Angeles Chargers. The legally-troubled former Houston quarterback, DeShaun Watson, was traded to Cleveland. And the former Cleveland QB — Baker Mayfield — was traded to Carolina.
Apparently, governments get into this game as well. The latest on this front is a pending deal where the United States would send Russia a known arms trafficker — Victor Bout — back to his comrades in exchange for WNBA rebel superstar Brittney Griner and another American prisoner — Paul Whelan. He’s a 54-year-old former Marine, a security consultant arrested in 2018, whom the Russians convicted of spying in 2020. He says he was framed. The Russkies gave him a 16-year sentence anyway.
As for Griner, in her travels to Russia last February, she was arrested at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. Authorities there found two vape cartridges containing cannabis oil. A minor amount, but the substance is banned in Russia. The court did not consider this a misdemeanor, but instead, handed out a 9½ year prison term to Griner. Lawyers for the athlete plan to appeal. Good luck in that.
The United States government has already made one trade earlier this year. In April, a retired U.S. Marine named Trevor Reed came home after negotiators worked out a swap for Konstantin Yaroshenko. This bad boy was a convicted Russian drug trafficker!
So what was Brittney Griner doing in Russia anyway? Playing basketball, of course. She apparently has played for UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian Premier League during the WNBA offseason. Maybe she was checking out whether Mother Russia treated people better than the way she thinks we do in the U.S. She’s made her feelings about our country known before.
Anyway you slice it, these are not particularly good days to be making travel plans to Russia. Hey, if you really want one of those Matryoshka Dolls, you can find them on Amazon. Or eBay. Some even offer free shipping! Russian vodka is easy to find as well. Uh…I think.
In the 1990s, the well-known Christian apologist Josh McDowell made a number of trips to Russia. Somehow during his many excursions to the communist country, Josh had developed God-led friendships with leaders in the military, government, and business. At that time, a significant amount of freedom existed, which allowed Josh to print and share materials in the Russian language about Jesus and the Christian faith.
McDowell then organized a number of trips to the former Soviet country recruiting people from his mailing lists and radio advertising. I was one of several radio broadcasters invited to travel with Josh in the mid-1980s to witness the open opportunities of handing out literatures and meeting the Russian people. My eldest son, Marshall, later would travel with Josh and experience this openness as well.
Those days are over. Vladimir Putin put an end to such liberty. Not only for Americans with evangelical zeal, but for churches not blessed by Emperor Putin himself. One might think he’s a control freak.
So now Americans are expected to give up a true drug trafficker and known arms dealer for, well, who knows what we’re getting back. I do know that if any of the three Americans were my relatives, I’d hope we’d try something reasonable to get them home. And we are trying. Why? Because contrary to Griner’s perception, America still has a soul. One tied to freedom.
One of my daily prayers recognizes that what seems impossible requires but a nudge by God to move in a new direction. Proverbs 21:1 says, “The LORD controls the mind of a king as easily as he directs the course of a stream.” (GNT)
May God’s hand move favorably in these matters. But in the meantime, I don’t recommend you rush to Russia.
That’s Forward Thinking.
You can find a number of YouTube episodes and podcasts of Mark’s program, Moving People Forward at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCosyuBzdSh1mXIas_kGY2Aw?
For more information on the Elfstrand Group, please visit www.elfstrandgroup.com
Articles of interest:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/08/11/russia-prisoner-exchange-griner-whelan/
https://www.josh.org
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