ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 29, 1996 TAG: 9612310060
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PARTRIDGE, KAN.
SOURCE: STAN FINGER KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
Short, soft-spoken and kind, David Wagler doesn't look much like a master of deception.
But for many years, that is what he was.
His contraband was Christianity.
Working for the Slavic Gospel Association, he spent 19 years arranging the translation and printing of Bibles and spiritual materials into Russian and other languages for people caught behind the Iron Curtain, where Christianity was typically discouraged and frequently persecuted.
Many times, he crossed the border into communist countries with materials secretly packed away for people hungry to learn more about Jesus and his teachings. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union's empire, what he calls ``the cloak-and-dagger days'' have given way to free enterprise.
``It's changed things completely,'' Wagler said. ``We've gone from trying to figure out how can we get materials into Russia without being caught to just filling out orders.''
Things have calmed so dramatically that Wagler is able to operate a distributorship out of his farm home a few miles outside Partridge - about 50 miles northwest of Wichita - to which he returned about four years ago to care for his ailing mother.
With his wife, Trish, and eight children, Wagler lives near the farm where he grew up, hearing stories about Europe from his father and uncle, who traveled there when they were young.
``You can imagine what Germany was like in 1937,'' Wagler said, referring to Nazism's heyday.
Wagler and a cousin traveled Europe together in 1971, covering 22 countries in 10 weeks. While in Poland, they bumped into American missionaries working for the gospel association. He went to work for the association two years later.
Living first in northwest France and later in Vienna, Austria, Wagler worked to get Christian materials ready for transport behind the Iron Curtain. Some agencies involved in the same kind of work resorted to elaborate methods to elude detection, including carrying Bibles and other materials in sealed containers that were not eligible for inspection at the international borders.
Wagler said the Slavic Gospel Association would not go that far.
``We made a policy never to lie ... never to tell an untruth,'' he said. ``We felt that the end does not justify the means. The whole premise of communism was the end justifies the means.
``We believed we can't do God's work in some subversive means ... that's why we ourselves did not use concealment, smuggling means, such as vehicles with secret compartments.''
Wagler and others commonly carried the materials in suitcases and boxes in the vehicles they were driving at the border, and never volunteered information about what they contained. If a border guard asked directly whether Wagler or his group was carrying religious materials, they would say ``yes,'' and the material would usually be taken away.
``The American tendency is to say everything,'' Wagler said. ``We had to teach them [missionaries working with him] to keep their mouth shut more. A lot of them would tend to volunteer information that was not necessary.''
Religious materials were not against the law in communist nations, but they were discouraged and local authorities were given wide latitude in dealing with ``violations.''
One van was confiscated in Bulgaria, and another small group of missionaries was arrested in Czechoslovakia for transporting religious materials. Wagler was pulled off a train and searched once when he was found to be carrying religious materials, but he was not harmed.
Punishment was usually limited to natives, Wagler said. Beatings and imprisonment were common. Sometimes, people were even killed.
Wagler's oldest son, Vanya, 18, is named in honor of a young Soviet soldier who was beaten and eventually killed for living his Christian faith publicly.
Knowing such incidents were common, Wagler said, the missionaries did what they could to protect the people they worked with.
After living overseas for four years, Wagler moved to Wheaton, Ill., and continued his work there for the gospel association - frequently traveling to Europe to oversee printing and distribution of the materials.
When the Iron Curtain collapsed, there was an explosion in demand for religious articles and materials, Wagler said. Demand has leveled off, he said, but remains strong.
He has been shipping an average of 12,000 to 15,000 books in the past couple of years. ``We're really small,'' he said.
Most of the books are sent to Russia, though he also markets books printed in Georgian, Ukrainian, Romanian and Albanian.
With UPS service and extra care provided by Partridge's postmaster across the street, Wagler said his small-town location hasn't been the disadvantage many people presume it to be.
``It's been a study in geography for her,'' Wagler said of the postmaster. ``She's been much more helpful than a post office in a bigger city.''
(EDITORS: STORY CAN TRIM HERE)
One drawback he has encountered in Partridge, he said, is his inability to find an affordable Internet service provider so that he can use cyberspace to work with his customers.
Still, he said, ``I count it a privilege to be living in Partridge and to have contact with a number of cultures and still be involved in ministry for Jesus Christ internationally, not just locally.''
Wagler will return to Russia in January for the first time in nearly 17 years. But he is not the most accomplished Russian speaker in his own house. That title belongs to Rochelle, his oldest child. Now 20, she has become eager to continue the work he is doing.
``I didn't have a heart for it until I saw what was there and what the opportunity was,'' she said of her first trip to Russia, in 1993.
Rochelle spent more than four months in Russia last year, and her love for the country grew.
``I was amazed to be able to go to that former bastion of communism and freely give away the Scriptures, freely talk to people about the Lord,'' she said. ``That was something that really awed me.''
LENGTH: Long : 110 linesby CNB