Listen, The Cry: A Mission for Life

By Dennis Hilman

"Listen, The Cry" deeply and personally portrays real-life examples of we can hear, see and respond to the cries and needs of the people who Jesus came to give His attention to. Those who are "different" in so many different ways at home and in divergent cultures. The poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, bruised, rejected, lonely, etc. For this missionary pastor it has become a lifelong "Mission for Life" beginning with a vision he was given as a 17-year-old which was dramatically confirmed 27 years later. It is a compelling and easy-read story of a life lived on the edge - with mountaintops, bumps, setbacks, lessons, joys and miracles all woven in. 22 page photo album illustrates the book.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 26, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543904338

Book preview

Listen, The Cry - A Mission For Life

Copyright © 2017 by the Publisher

Dennis Hilman

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for brief quotes in a book review.

First published by Barents Publishers-Fin 2011 Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-54390-432-1

eISBN 978-1-54390-433-8

Cover & layout: NC Aspegren

Editing: Jorma Aspegrén

Cover photo: Darrel Hilman

Most other photos by Dennis Hilman

Individual photo credits:

David Hatfield Greg Greve

Louise Heerman Tuomo Mehtälä

Printed and distributed by

BookBaby

Pennsauken, New Jersey, USA

In memory of my father

RAYMOND EDWIN RAY HILMAN (1911-2008), was ’a wayfarer in a strange land,’ as he would put it. A man of singular courage, humility, example, and great faith who preached the Word of God for 70 years from the time he was 25, just after the Great Depression, until he was 95 in the age of Google and ipods. Before I went to South Africa the first time, I stopped to see him in Portland, Oregon. He was then 96 and had had a stroke, which paralyzed his left side. He asked me for a paper and pen and then wrote carefully and painstakingly a blessing for me in the mission field — in Finnish. I will always cherish his blessing in my life and my mission. I did not understand the first part of his short epistle then, but now I do:

RAKAS POIKANI DENNIS, MENE AFRIKAAN ISÄSI SIUNAMANA.

Prologue

PART 1

Cries from Afar

On the Loose

German for a Day

The Call to Serve Young People Once More

Latvia

Bibles to Moldova

Iceland

Namibia

Russia at Last

Nepal

Bruce Doesn’t Give up

Venezuela Was Still to Come!

PART 2

War Child

A Congregation Emerges

Lessons for Life

Marat from Gagarka

Gryazz and Glory!

Busted for Bread

Brothers and Sisters in Christ

The Pelikan Center

Other Prison Doors Opened

ICHTHYS

Dark Clouds Gather

Izhevsk

The Matching Babushkas

Rzhev

Little Prince of the Streets

In the Lap of Poverty

The Storm Breaks

When One Door Closes

Latvia — Ten Years Later

PART 3

The Cry of Africa

South Africa

One Life — in Black and White

A Day in Soweto

Nelson Mandela and Regina Mundi

Truth and Reconciliation

My First South African Tour of Duty

The First Gleam of Dawn

Johanna

Sophie

Elias

Letters from Mamma

Ambushed!

Epilogue

Dennis, My Friend (By Jorma Aspegrén)

Living the Cry! (By John Ruotsala)

PHOTO ALBUM

I AM A FARM BOY from Alberta, Canada. I grew up listening to the eerie, plaintive cries of the coyotes at night and marveling at the beauty of the wild flowers, called Shooting stars, (lat. Dodecatheon), blooming in the meadow down by the river. I was also in awe at the grandeur of the Rocky Mountains marching along the horizon or cowering as a mighty thunder and lightning hailstorm pounded down upon us. But the most lasting memory of my childhood was the deeply spiritual home meetings that we regularly attended and the way my father and mother, grandfather and grandmother, aunts and uncles, all of Finnish descent, lived out their simple faith. I was taught to care and care deeply for people in my family, congregation, and community.

I remember how mom and dad befriended a Gypsy woman who lived with her 19 cats in a horse-drawn cart. And how they received a refugee family from Holland, gave them a place to live, and a new start on life… with a house full of kids of their own, who also needed food, clothing, and attention. Their attitude towards God’s grace was remarkable and exemplary.

One day we kids were driving with them down the street of a local town. We all noticed a drunken man staggering along the sidewalk and began to laugh at him. Children, my father said in a loving solemn voice, there, but by the grace of God go I!

My Mom, Irene, was a truly unique and creative woman of compassion and patience, who also had her pie philosophy. She was famous for her rich and tasty pies. Someone suggested that the love we have received from God is like a pie, if we have one person to love they get the whole pie, with two they get 50% and so on. How did she manage then with 13 children? With each child God has given me another pie! she asserted wisely! And so it has been with the people God has given me to love and care for in my life. Lots of pies! I learned to share and to love without bias from my earliest childhood.

As a boy of Finnish descent growing up in the Canadian culture, I learned what it was to be different and I learned especially from my grandfather about the suffering and difficulties they had come from in those terrible years in the late 1800’s in Finland. This is undoubtedly why they never looked down on other people, helped anyone they could whenever they could, and were ultimately thankful to the grace of God in their lives.

It has not been a matter of choice that I have responded to the cries of so many in the lands I have lived in and visited. My faith, my background, my training, and my calling have compelled me to listen, as I once listened to the distant cries of the coyotes. So join me now in this journey that has been my life.

Dennis Hilman

THE NIGHT WAS a cloudless one. I had gone to sleep early that evening in March 1963. As a 17-year-old it seemed I needed a lot of sleep in those days. Somewhere during that night I was shown a dream or a vision that would shape the rest of my life. In that vision I heard a cry from the people of Russia and saw myself called to preach the Word of God to them.

When I awoke the next morning I carefully pondered what I had seen. At that time I certainly had no idea of ever being a preacher or a missionary. Furthermore, during those years Russia, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as it was known then, was one of the most closed places to the Gospel on this earth. The Cold War was raging and I had not yet even finished high school. Of course the vision impacted me, but like Mary, I simply received it and pondered it in my heart.

The next year, however, when I entered college, I signed up immediately for a Russian course. I wanted to be prepared for what I thought was just around the bend. In July of 1963, a few months after receiving the vision, I went to the place of my birth, Alberta, Canada, to work for the summer. I landed my first real job in the resort town of Sylvan Lake at a lakefront cafe. There we served hamburgers and hotdogs through the front window to the swimmers, boaters, and other vacationers. When I got my first full paycheck I really stopped to think what I should do with it. To buy beer and cigarettes like several of my colleagues were doing and go out and party for the night was, of course, not an option for me. Certainly not the lasting one I was contemplating. I thought of some nice clothes that might last a year or so. That was tempting. But then I was led to a bookstore in Red Deer, the city of my birth, and found a lovely leather-bound Bible with gold edges on the pages, Jesus’ words in red, and a good concordance. Now that should last for a while, I thought. It did last, in fact, and is right here on the table beside my laptop. It has gone through a lot, been to most of the almost 40 countries I have visited since then, and has been rebound twice. The gold has faded from the page edges, but it is truly more precious than gold could ever be to me. It is a beautiful old KJV Bible that I still preach from around the world.

In 1965, as a nineteen-year-old, I received another kind of call. This time it was to the country of my ancestry, Finland, where I went to find my roots. I found the birthplace of my father’s father in Karijoki and the birthplace of my mother’s father in Raahe, But it was at the birthplace of my father’s mother in Menkijärvi, near Alajärvi that I found my deepest identity with my forefathers. It was like a divining rod forcing itself down toward a deep underwater artesian… I had come home! The next year on my return to Finland to study, I met and married a beautiful young lady of Swedish-Finnish decent, Birgitta Zilliacus. Soon we returned to America where I continued my university studies and we began raising our family.

For two years I continued my Russian studies, but it seemed apparent to me that nothing was going to come of my vision after such a long time had passed, so I discontinued those studies.

My higher education continued. During that time I became more acutely aware of the plight of young people in difficult personal and social situations. As a night manager at a large local restaurant where I was working to support my family and studies, many of these young people came looking for work, often having trouble in their personal lives or in school. Their cry increasingly reached my ears and heart. In completing my Master’s Degree in Special Education