THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL DREAM!--By Father David        DO1131        4/10/79

       1. I JUST REMEMBERED IT WAS VERY IMPRESSIVE! (Maria: OK, tell me!) Oh, I don't even know why I was there or what for. It was the funniest thing. Maybe it was to make me thankful for where I am, because I have been thinking about going someplace else. Well, this is one of those crazy dreams, I can even still remember it, sort of a nightmare, I guess. Oh Honey, why do I have to say it at a time like this? I'm tired! (Maria: But you're always tired when you're in bed. You said to ask you what you dreamed.) OK, but I don't understand the dream.

       2. IT'S AMAZING HOW CLEAR IT WAS, IT'S JUST LIKE I CAN STILL SEE THOSE SCENES. I don't even know how I knew it was Russia, but that's my definite impression, that it was like I was a High School student in Russia. Whenever I used to have nightmares I used to dream about school, & later in life about driving. Either one of those was enough to give me nightmares!

       3. BUT FOR SOME REASON OR ANOTHER, I WAS DREAMING I WAS A HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT IN RUSSIA. But I wasn't a Russian, I knew I wasn't a Russian. Somehow or another I was in this school & they were real tough & strict, tough monitors, & it seemed to me like it was more like a reformatory or something.

       4. I REMEMBERED THIS BIG, BIG ROOM, ALMOST LIKE AN AUDITORIUM, sort of an assembly room, very old building, old-fashioned desks, where you still sat two. You know, that's really old, I don't think they've probably done that for a hundred years. And we were being given some kind of a lecture.

       5. IT WAS LIKE I WAS A NEW STUDENT IN A NEW SCHOOL, beginning of a new year--you know how much confusion there is & all that! (Maria: Yes!) And I wasn't the only new one, there were a few others too. And we were being given our books, I had this stack of books on my desk, & we were also given locker keys. I was given this little locker key & we were told to go find our lockers & put our books away etc. So we were dismissed & I went to try to find my locker.

       6. AND THEY HAD THE FUNNIEST SYSTEM BECAUSE OF THE TERRIBLE COLD WEATHER & ALL. Everybody wore a raincoat to school, apparently, & everybody hung their raincoat on their locker door, so that when their locker was shut & locked, why, it locked the raincoat! Although it was draped outside, part of it was inside the locker hanging on the locker door. They were just old lockers & it was easier to do. Jut like you'd hang your raincoat on an open door & then shut the door & lock it. That way the raincoat was squeezed tight so that it was locked so that it could not be taken out!

       7. BUT OF COURSE WITH ALL THESE BANKS OF LOCKERS, THERE WERE RAINCOATS HANGING OVER RAINCOATS, one after the other, & trying to go find your locker under all those raincoats was really a task! So I was going & fumbling through all the raincoats, looking under the raincoats for my locker number, trying to find it. I remember 240 or something I think it was on the key, you know, & I was getting close but I still couldn't find it for some reason, because of all these raincoats hanging over the lockers. The whole bank of lockers was just a big mass raincoats.

       8. HOW COULD I EVER DREAM UP A THING LIKE THAT?--I mean, I've never seen anything like that and never heard of a thing like that, but it was just clear as anything. When I come to think of it, it was a rather clever system, because that way your raincoat couldn't get stolen & it didn't have to be stuffed in your locker & get your books all wet, because it was left to drip dry outside your locker. I thought that was pretty clever, but it made it very difficult to find your locker unless you knew where it was.

       9. SO I WAS LOOKING FOR MY LOCKER & THEY HAD THESE OLDER BOYS WHO WERE LIKE MONITORS shouting orders to everybody & telling them what to do, & this guy came along, sort of a tough guy, & asked me what I was doing. I said I was trying to find my locker & he said, "Let me see your key." So I handed him my key, but I had already put it on a little key chain with the two other keys I had, like the key to my suitcase & so on. I said, "But I have my other keys on it!" He said, "Never mind, give me your key!"

       10. SO I HANDED HIM THE KEY CHAIN WITH THE THREE KEYS O IT & HE JUST STOMPED OFF! I didn't know what he was doing, whether he was just going to steal my keys & try to find out what they were for or some thing or what! I thought, "Now what am I going to do?--I've lost my keys & can't find my locker! Even if I had found it, I don't have a key now, & I wonder when he's going to give it back & so on." (Maria: Did he come back?) Well, not during the dream!

       11. THAT WAS ALL, THAT'S THE END OF IT, except that I stood there looking out the window at the fading sunset. It was early in the afternoon & the sun was already setting, sort of a rosy glow in the horizon. I remember it looked pretty through the bare, leafless trees, obviously it was cold Wintertime. I've heard about being up in the far North where the sun sets early in the afternoon or something, & here it was only about three o'clock & the sun was setting & it was cold.

       12. BUT IT WAS RATHER PRETTY & I WAS LOOKING AT IT & THINKING "HOW IN THE WORLD DID I EVER GET UP HERE? What am I doing here? I wonder if I'll ever be able to get back?"--It was sort of like a nightmare & "Why am I here?" Almost like being in the army or in prison. (Maria: That's really amazing!) And then I woke up! (Maria: Maybe Ivan or somebody was taking you back to their childhood!)

       13. THE HARD, TOUGH ATTITUDE OF THE TEACHERS & MONITORS WAS JUST ALMOST LIKE YOU'RE A PRISONER in a prison or at an army camp or some officers in an army camp. I had a feeling like I was a prisoner, or that maybe it was some kind of punishment or something. I remember when I was in the army, in the army camp, I used to watch the sunset sometimes way out over the hills, it looked so beautiful & I wondered if I would ever be free again. It's a terrible feeling, I mean, you're really a prisoner! A little bit like that.

       14. IT'S SO STRANGE, IT WAS SO REALISTIC, & I KNEW IT WAS RUSSIA. I don't understand how I could have possibly understood Russian, because I don't think they were speaking to me in Russian, I think they were speaking to us in English. (Maria: Maybe that was an exchange program.) Maybe it was some kind of a labour camp or something, I don't know. That's all I remember, just very clear, about the school & the lockers & the raincoats & the key--& the sunset. I can almost see it yet!

       15. MAYBE THE LORD REALLY WANTS ME TO PRAY FOR THOSE POOR PEOPLE THAT LIVE THERE UNDER THOSE CONDITIONS. They must all feel like prisoners. Well, of course they are in a way. So strange, I mean, why should I have dreamt that I was a young boy in school, unless it was some kind of nightmare. Why should it have been Russia & how would I know it was Russia? (Maria: Maybe someone's there praying to the Lord for help.) Yes, it could be, I actually thought about that too. (Maria: Some teenager.) And they got through to me. Amen. PTL!

       16. LORD, IF THAT WASN'T ME--ALTHOUGH IT SEEMED LIKE IT WAS ME--BUT IT MAY HAVE BEEN A SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION OF SOMEONE THERE. Lord, You help them, encourage them, strengthen them. It was the strangest system about the raincoats hanging on the lockers. I wonder if they actually have that there somewhere, this old school. I thought, in a way it's kind of clever because it was like having everybody's raincoats locked up, but they were still hanging outside where they could drip & not get your books wet!

       17. I JUST REMEMBER LOOKING AT THE FADING SUNSET, it was beautiful but sort of cold, you know, a rosy glow through the black dark branches of the trees like a cold Winter sunset in a cold snowy land. But it was early in the afternoon & we weren't even out of school yet.

       18. AMEN, LORD, IF THAT WAS A SPIRITUAL COMMUNICATION FROM SOME POOR BOY IN SCHOOL THERE, YOU HELP HIM, IN JESUS' NAME! (Maria: Amen, deliver him, Lord, free him.) Amen, Lord. Give him the grace & strength to bear it, to find You & know You. (Maria: You know, maybe Ivan or Alex sort of helped to make the link, you know?) Yes, make the connection. Maybe it's somebody they want me to pray for. Could even be one of their own children or something. Things in the Spirit World really can be strange experiences! It's almost like you're there, you see things through their eyes, you feel like you're them!

       19. THAT'S THE WAY I USED TO FEEL ABOUT SOME OF THOSE FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH ABRAHIM. I could see the places & the things happening & I though I was there & I though it was happening to me! And afterwards I learned that it was just that I was seeing all those ancient events through his eyes, his memories, & I was made to see them & feel them & understand them, sort of symphathise with him.

       20. SOME OF THEM WERE BEAUTIFUL, SOME OF THEM WERE HORRIBLE. The beautiful scenery of the fields of roses in Bulgaria were beautiful, mountains & trees & forest & the Gypsy camp & the Gypsy dancing & all, I mean, it was really beautiful! Their wagons were beautiful & life was beautiful, till that horrible massacre! I used to almost have nightmares about that massacre for quite a few days after he first showed me that picture! I could hardly stand to think about it without weeping.

       21. SO MAYBE THE LORD WANTS US TO PRAY FOR THOSE POOR PEOPLE. Think how it must be on poor young people, High School students, you know? School life is hard enough even under good conditions, being like a prisoner in a prison camp, & at the same time, the attitude of that monitor was very mean & antagonistic, sort of like he knew I was a Christian & I was sort of being punished by being there. So he was very hard & mean!

       22. SO LORD, I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU GAVE ME THAT DREAM FOR, I still remember it so clearly, whether it's to have compassion on those poor people & pray for them. Because I remember many such places like that in my own life. But it was so real! I can still vividly remember it & see it so clearly--that big old-fashioned school room & all those lockers, those old dilapidated lockers & all those raincoats hanging on them.

       23. (MARIA: DID YOU SEE THE OUTSIDE OF THE BUILDING?) No, never! It was all a scene that took place inside. I only just saw the outside as I looked out that window, sort of like a hall window, & I looked out & saw the sun setting. I thought it was beautiful but it was so cold.

       24. IT WAS LIKE I HAD COME FROM SOMEPLACE THAT WAS BETTER & I was wondering, "I wonder if I'll ever get back again, out of this cold place." It was sort of like I was wondering, "Why am I here?" I was sort of like wondering even in the dream, "How did I get here?" & "I wonder if I'll ever get back to my own warm country & freedom again?" Isn't it strange? (Maria: Yes!)

       25. AND THAT SYSTEM WHERE THEY WERE HANGING THOSE RAINCOATS ON THOSE LOCKERS, IT WAS SO CLEAR! They were overlapping each other, raincoats on the bottom underneath, & that's where I was looking for my locker, like it was somewhere on the bottom. And the raincoats were in tiers, each one of them, the higher ones overlapping the ones below. And then when I couldn't find my locker this guy snapped at me & asked me what I was doing, why couldn't I
find my locker & so on.

       26. I HAD THESE BOOKS IN ONE ARM TRYING TO LIFT UP THE RAINCOATS & look at the locker number underneath. I said, "Oh, I was looking for my locker." And he said, "Well here, give me your keys." I thought maybe he was going to help me find it, you know? I really did! Although he was acting tough, I thought maybe he was going to help me find it, because I presumed he knew where they were. So then he grabbed my three keys & marched off.

       27. (MARIA: ARE YOU SURE YOU WEREN'T SPEAKING RUSSIAN?) Well I don't know for sure! If it was, I understood it. (Maria: Did you feel like you were an outsider amongst the others?) I felt like when I was an outsider in a way, sort of like I always felt in school. I always felt like an outsider because I was a Christian, so that wasn't anything new & different!

       28. I HAD MORE THE FEELING LIKELY WAS SOMEBODY NEW THERE FROM SOME PLACE ELSE, but not that I was different that I didn't understand the language, whatever they were speaking. I understood it & apparently I could speak it. (Maria: I wonder why whoever it is would give you a burden for that particular person or people or that certain place.

       29. WELL, LIKE YOU SAY, IT MIGHT BE SOME RELATIVE OF EITHER ABRAHIM OR IVAN OR ALEX or somebody that they are really burdened about, and since they already are in communication with me, they just wanted prayer for them, wanted us to pray for them, & so communicated their burden to us! I don't know! All know is it was very clear, very clear, & was I glad when I woke up & found I was here & not there! Ohh! That sure made me thankful for where I'm at! (Are you!--GBAKY!)

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