Horns of Light Chronicles 3

Welcome to the Horns of Light Chronicles. Peter Berbalis chronicles his family story, prophecy, and testimony. God's story unfolds, from his grandfather in Lithuania, Nazi Germany, the Russian Revolution, to Ronald Reagan in the fall of the Berlin Wall, the gospel spreading across Eastern Europe, how God called Peter to Petra, Jordan, and so much more as prophecy and testimonies unfold. And now, the Horns of Light Chronicles.

Well, how fun is this? I am so grateful that you have tuned in again for Horns of Light and the story of the Berbalis family, and I don't know, if you're like me, man, you're anxious to hear what's happening next. And so, Pete, take it from here.

Sure. I kind of just want to emphasize as we go through this story that this is really the story of God's grace and my grandfather walking in the grace that the Lord allowed him to walk through, and just an encouragement for people that are going through adversity. His is also a story of great adversity. And just, you know, during the war, as all these things were happening, my grandmother, who basically got kicked out of her house for her faith as a child, she lost her faith in the middle of the war, she kind of got to that point of how can there be a God when there's such evil going on all around? And the Lord in His goodness brought her back after the war, and she was once again strong in her faith, singing in the Lord, just using her voice, and doing Bible studies and all those things. So God's faithful in the midst of difficult times.

He's just really faithful. Another story during that time when my grandfather was in Germany, a doctor diagnosed him with melanoma skin cancer, and it was aggressive. And the doctor said that he likely would not live for much longer. And my grandfather always kind of would tell that story with a bit of a jest to it, in the sense that he outlived that doctor, and they gave him arsenic, and that the Lord used that to kind of keep the cancer at check, and ultimately, it didn't reappear again until his 90s, and that's not even what took his life. He died in his sleep, just went to sleep, and the Lord took him. Just another kind of thread that flows through his life that kind of has flowed through my dad's and a little bit through mine is evangelism. He used to go to the Lithuanian parks and bring a band and do evangelism in the park and kind of did that same thing in Lithuania, not driving, taking a horse town to town and preaching in the center squares of the streets.

Just kind of throwing those out there, that becomes kind of a thread in my own life for a time. So where we left off last time was the US postmaster coming to his house and telling him about, you know, we can't do those things, and the betrayal that happened as he was trying to get a man to translate Bible, he kind of had an Ivy League background. So at this point my grandfather still does not feel qualified, and the Lord starts speaking to him about doing the translation and he just does not feel qualified whatsoever. And so he basically the Lord kind of speaks to him again and says, you're going to do this willingly or unwillingly, but you're going to do this work. And shortly after that he's struck with arthritis, to the point where even taking the public transportation in Chicago, riding on a bus, the jolts of the bus really affect.

It's just extremely painful and he's pretty much bedridden at this time with arthritis. And when he's in his bedroom, he just surrenders fully to the Lord and says, Okay, I'll do this. And he's instantly healed. The next day, my dad went over to his house and sees him on a ladder with one foot on the ladder, the other foot on kind of a molding and just leaning over and working on the ceiling.

I don't know if he's spackling or painting and my dad just couldn't believe it. And my grandfather just said, I'm healed. I've got to work. So after that, my dad describes it as he became like a soldier and just worked on translating the Bible. One of the stories that kind of came up in that it was just such an urgency for that to be finished and to be done. He was in a meeting with a group of people and they just started arguing over some of the minutiae of the translation and there was such urgency and he just told them, We don't have time for this.

We don't have time for this. And they kind of said, Well, if that's how you feel, then why don't you do it? So he kind of grabbed the ladies in the room and got up and said, Well, we'll do this. So he just worked diligently from that point on of translating the Bible, and he finished it in the 80s. And in 1985, he kind of realized that he didn't want, he realized he had been gone from Lithuania for so long that he might have missed out on some of the cultural nuances in the language in his translation. So we really wanted a group in Lithuania that was still, you know, active in the language to take a look at his manuscripts and make any modifications that they felt needed to be made. So he arranged, a lady was going there and she had gotten access to Lithuania.

So we gave her a copy of the Bible of his manuscripts to smuggle in for them to review. And as this lady was gaining entrance into Lithuania, there was a line and it was kind of a checkpoint thing, I think, at the airport. As she was entering and everybody had to have all their luggage and baggage and everything gone through with the fine tooth comb, they were opening everything up.

And she began to get nervous because she knew that she had something that the Russian government would view as, as well, you know, illegal type of a thing. So as she's getting closer and closer to the end of the line, a guy in front of her, she notices, is getting really sick. So she goes to the guy that's working on checking everybody and says, this man's getting sick, this man's getting sick, and he just ignores her. So she gets back in line and the man falls and has a heart attack right in front of her. And so the commotion ensues and trying to help this man.

So basically, they send that whole group into another line. And when it comes to her turn to be checked, the guy doing the checking tells her that he saw what she tried to do for the man and he was just appreciative that he tried to help him. And that, you know, this guy didn't handle it correctly and kind of went down that whole path of dialogue with her. And he just let her go through without checking. But then the next person in line, he went through that rigorous checking. So the Lord used that situation of the man having a heart attack. The person in front of her was searched thoroughly.

The person behind her was searched thoroughly, but she was able to go through and get the manuscripts in and they were able to review it and make their changes. Then we kind of jump from that point. We have the fall of the Berlin Wall in November of 1989. Kind of what was interesting to me, I think it was the Christmas of 89 or 90, I can't remember.

I was working at a chain store called Venture, which has gone out of business since. It was cashier there and they had a piece of the Berlin Wall. And I bought that, bought a little piece that was in just a small box and just figured I'd give that to my grandfather for Christmas. So I went and gave that to him and I'll never forget that Christmas.

He just started to weep when he opened up that gift. He was basically the type of person that early in the morning, you woke up and at that point in time, I wasn't really looking for the Lord. And we'd come home at odd hours of the night and sometimes the next morning and you'd see him early in the morning on his knees at his bed, praying every single morning. And his prayers were for Lithuania and for the fall of communism and all those types of things.

So for him to kind of see the fruition of what the Lord had put on his heart and the many years of praying and for the Lord to kind of orchestrate that whole thing with Ronald Reagan, which also kind of becomes a significant thread in my life and that speech that he was never supposed to give of tear down this wall. So after that, in August of 1991, my grandfather was finally able to get admission to Lithuania. He was trying, as things were beginning to open up, but they still viewed him as an enemy of the state kind of deal. So they never issued him permission to come. He finally gets permission to come. And in August of 1991, he lands and the day that he lands is the day that they finally, that the coup in Russia, the Russian coup happens in Lithuania, and that battle for independence begins, which was very minimal.

I think maybe one person died in that fight. But he's there on September 6th when the treaty is signed with Russia and Lithuania gains their independence. And what's kind of interesting in that story is, as my grandfather was praying in America all those decades for the fall of communism and just for the people of Lithuania, the Lord raises up one of his relatives. His name is Gennady Berblis. And when we came through Ellis Island, the name, the spelling of our name was changed from what?

From I-S to Y-S. It really should be B-U-R-B-L-I-S. And the Lord raised up one of his relatives that ends up becoming Yeltsin's right hand man and kind of sent a Wikipedia article if you could look it up. And he ends up, he would have become Yeltsin's vice president had he denied his Lithuanian name.

They wanted him to change his name, but he didn't want to change that. And he ended up basically coming up with the document that everybody signed that led to the split up of the Roman or of the Russian empire and that kind of granted the other states their independence. So as my grandfather is praying, the Lord on the other side of the world raises up another man, another one of his relatives that ends up becoming and would have become the vice president to Yeltsin in Russia. That ends up being the one who kind of comes up with the ideology for the freedom of Lithuania and the other countries and opens up Russia for a time for evangelism to come into that nation and for the gospel to be spread throughout Russia and the former Soviet Bloc countries. So finally in 1996, my grandfather's Bible gets published. He was a Methodist but had kind of seen that the Lord was using a charismatic group in Lithuania, so he handed over the manuscripts to them and they ended up getting it published in, I think, I can't remember if it was Sweden or Norway. And so he's 93 years old. Finally when that word that the Lord had spoken to him in his 20s that the Lord was going to greatly use him to affect the nation of Lithuania and that kind of word gets fulfilled when he's 93 years old and that Bible gets published. And then that's basically what's used as revival hits that nation. There's a small revival that hits and even to this day we get requests for, we've recently received a request for the editing of these manuscripts for the publishing of another Bible. I think there's at least two other translations that have used his translation as a source.

Basically just an encouragement for people that God has plans and purposes for our lives all the way up until we take our last breath, be it the work that he's given us, the grace to walk in, to finish and complete, or the prayers that he has for us to pray. And kind of another story related to that is in 2004 I went to the Ukraine on kind of a missions trip and there was a conference that was going on. And just sat down at this conference and there was a lady next to me and just kind of made small talk and found out that she was from Lithuania and kind of shared a little bit about my grandfather. And she said, oh, your last name must be Berblis.

And I said, yes. And she held up her Bible. And just kind of one of those things that you just never forget. And she said, this is your grandfather's Bible. It was just really, really cool to see the work that the Lord had used him to do. And even when I went to him, when the Bible was finally published, walked into his room one day. And that was just another never forget moment and just kind of said to him, you've got to be so proud of this lifetime achievement of yours, this work kind of finally being done.

And his words to me were, this wasn't my work. This was the Lord's work. And he just really walked a very humble life and kind of given it all for the work. And he died basically in debt. He had taken a loan out for, it was $30,000 for the church in Lithuania for the work to be continued.

And it was something that my dad repaid, ended up having to repay. So just an amazing story and just such kind of an honor to see his life and that his walk matched his life. And kind of towards the end of his life, another hopeful thing.

I believe in his 90s, he lived with us towards the end of his life and was just sitting having a conversation with him one day. And he just looked at me and he said, and he wasn't the guy that very rarely would he, you know, I can only think of three or four times that he used the words the Lord spoke to me. So that wasn't something that he threw around or he was flippantly, but he just turned to me and just said, the Lord spoke to me. And he told me that one million people in Lithuania would come to know him.

And considering Lithuania is a population of 2.8 million people, that's kind of one of those things that just kind of tuck away as a promise from the Lord and just kind of an encouragement to believe and to pray that there will be another worldwide awakening where many will come to know the Lord. So I hate to jump in again, but we've come to the end of the time, but we're far from the end of the story. So again, tune in again soon as we continue where the Berbalist family goes and these horns of light. Thank you, Pete. Thank you. God bless.