In the 1930s, Stalin ordered that all Bibles be bconfiscated and Christian believers be sent to prison camps. Ironically, most of the Bibles were not destroyed, yet many Christians died as "enemies of the state."
With the dissolution of the U.S.S.R., a CoMission team arrived in Stavropol in 1994 for ministry. Their request to have Bibles shipped to Moscow was being held up. But someone told them about a warehouse outside of town where confiscated Bibles were still stored. Remarkably, the team was granted permission to distribute them. Hiring several local Russian workers, they began to load their trucks. Ken Taylor, one of the members of the CoMission team tells the following story.
“One young man, a hostile agnostic, came only for the day’s wages. But not long after they had started, he disappeared. Later he was found in the corner of the warehouse, weeping, a Bible in his hands. Intending to steal it for himself, he had picked a bible off one of the selves. Before stuffing it in his coat he opened the bible to the front page. To his shock and amazement it bore the signature of his late grandmother. Her signature was on the front page! The very Bible that his grandmother was persecuted and died for transformed that young Russian. He would later commit his heart and life to the Lord Jesus Christ.”