More Than a Few Good Laughs

Since "a cheerful heart is good medicine" (Proverbs 17:22), most of us could use a good dose of laughter now and then.

Recently I spent two weeks teaching students from Eastern Europe at Haus Edelweiss, a leadership training center sponsored by TCM International in Austria. Interpreters translated my lectures into Russian, and on Sunday morning I preached to people from Hungary, Belarus, Ukraine, Romania, and the Czech Republic—and short-term workers from Oregon, Michigan, and Nebraska.

The group's oneness in Christ, however, transcended our cultural differences, and soon I discovered that humor is a universal language. My students, quite serious about studying God's Word, laughed heartily when I told stories about funny things that happened in my ministry or when I related amusing quotes from my children. By speaking through a translator, I enjoyed an added bonus: after delivering the punch line, I could wait in anticipation for a few moments before the students reacted with a smile or a laugh.

Between classes, the students told funny stories of their own. Sometimes they poked gentle fun at each other ("Did you hear about the Ukrainian who . . . ?"). Other times they told clever jokes ("A pessimist said, 'Things are so bad, they can never get any worse.' But an optimist told him, 'Oh no, my friend, be assured, they most certainly can get worse!'"). Often they chuckled about my awkwardly accented attempts to greet them in Russian. (They said, "When someone speaks three languages, we call him trilingual. If he speaks two languages, we call him bilingual. If he speaks one language, we call him an American!")

Some stories weren't funny, though. Alexandre, a prison minister from Belarus, offered occasional wisecracks from his seat in the back row of the classroom. During a coffee break, he showed me a map of Europe that was hanging on the wall. Gesturing to Moldova, he said through a translator, "This is where I was born." Then he pointed to a place about 2,000 miles north in Siberia and said solemnly, "This is where my family was forced to move by the Communists when I was a boy. We had nothing. My grandparents died of starvation and were buried in a simple grave without even caskets."

Visiliy told how he had been forbidden to board a plane because he was carrying a Bible in his luggage. Jacob recalled hiding under a chair in a children's Bible class because a government inspector had walked into the room and Jacob knew his parents would get into trouble for allowing their son to attend church. Leonid lamented the massive numbers of Belarussian men killed during World War II, and pointed out that much of his homeland was contaminated by radiation from the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Others related how difficult it is to serve Christ in nations still struggling to free themselves from the gloomy muck of Communism.

But there are many reasons to smile. As a biology professor in Ukraine, Lena had been (in her words) "an aggressive atheist" as recently as six years ago. One of her atheistic teachers had told her, "Be sure to read the Bible very much. You must always know your enemy." The teacher's strategy backfired, though. After reading the Bible a lot, Lena became a Christian.

How can God's people persevere through decades of suffering? We know we will eventually get the last laugh! What fills heavy hearts with cheer despite hardship and persecution? In Russian they call it radost. In English we call it joy. Joy translates well into any language—and somehow, I suspect, it echoes a wonderful sound often heard in the courts of Heaven.