by Jack Barsky
He is!
Was this a manifestation of the Holy Spirit? I couldn’t say. All I knew was that it was real, and it came without warning at a time when all I was thinking about was how to advance a little white ball on a stretch of green grass.
Not long after that, God had another surprise for me. The church I attended was not in the habit of making altar calls. However, one day at the end of the service, as the pastor was lingering near the pulpit, a powerful but unexplainable force caused me to march down the left-hand aisle toward the front.
This was not a casual stroll through the auditorium. My approach was resolute and purposeful, and the pastor quickly noticed me. When I reached the front of the room, he said, “You look like a man on a mission. What can I do for you?”
“I’m here to give my life to Jesus Christ.”
I have no memory of what followed, but Shawna later told me that the pastor reactivated his microphone and addressed the audience that was slowly filing out. As soon as he began to speak, people stopped in their tracks and began to listen. The pastor then spent about five minutes sharing my background as an atheist who had grown up behind the Iron Curtain (which I had shared with him and a few others at an earlier time). He finished by thanking God for another saved soul, and the people responded with loud and extended applause.
I remember none of it.
AFTER MAKING MY DECLARATION OF FAITH that Sunday morning, I began to reflect on the extraordinary transformation that had happened to me. The long journey I had been on from rigid atheism to born-again Christian seemed an altogether unlikely path. Or was it?
How could a person receive the message of the Bible and observe the truth revealed in nature without coming to the conclusion that God is real? I was thoroughly grounded in a scientific approach to everything in life, and it was logical thinking that started my conversion. Yet science has never reached the absolute and is not likely to ever do so. Over the centuries, scientists have tried to explain the world. And as many times as they believed they had found the answer, they’ve had to correct themselves.
Albert Einstein, arguably the most brilliant scientist in history, never fully embraced the validity of quantum mechanics—proving there’s always more to learn even for the greatest minds.
The big bang theory consists of a number of highly complex mathematical equations that only a select few can understand. I’m convinced that those formulas, too, will one day be enhanced, corrected, or even replaced.
Though humanity’s search for knowledge is noble and good, our claims to absolute knowledge are nothing but arrogance.
Born again. What did that mean to me? Outwardly, I was still the same person. But inwardly I began to notice changes. The most radical change was my growing acceptance that I would never be fully in control of my life—no matter how hard I worked at it. Once I began to reflect on this, I understood why Ravi Zacharias calls God “The Grand Weaver.” There were decisions made by others that acted as switches for the tracks of my life—such as Rosi’s decision to break up with me, the KGB’s decisions regarding my deployment, and the FBI’s decision not to prosecute me. These were all massively life-changing events over which I had absolutely no control.
Looking back, there were many moments when I was in grave danger of being arrested—or perhaps even killed—but somehow God’s protective hand shielded me during my entire high-risk life. I should have been caught when my first application for a birth certificate failed. I could have become a victim on the South Side of Chicago. I was fortunate that the FBI canceled their over-thirty notification program with the Social Security Administration just a few months before I applied. I dodged another bullet when I was able to retrieve my application and documents from the clerk at the passport office. I should have been investigated after paying cash for a last-minute ticket on the Concorde. And on and on it goes.
Finally, there were impossible coincidences that changed my course or direction—such as the tailor-made sermon the pastor preached on my first morning at church; Gerlinde showing up at my apartment in Berlin just after I returned from Moscow; the failed final dead-drop operation, Joe Reilly being appointed lead agent on my case; and Shawna appearing in my life when I was in desperate need of an evangelist, even though I didn’t know it. These are but a few examples of the overwhelming evidence in my life of a highly complex tapestry woven by an all-powerful God.
The acceptance of my own weakness in contrast with God’s all-surpassing power finally gave me a measure of inner peace. Though I have always been—and likely will continue to be—a very active and involved individual, I finally began to understand the meaning of the word relax. It means to let go. It means to do what I have to do, but without the urge to control everything and without biting my nails for fear that my plans may go awry. It means not burying my troubles inside or dumping them onto others, but instead taking them to Jesus—who is living and active and sharp.[5]
Though I was definitely a work in progress—and still am today—I found myself becoming a friendlier and more patient person. In the supermarket, I stopped racing the person with the overflowing shopping cart to get ahead of her in line. I would bend down and pick up garbage in the parking lot, and I said please and thank you far more often than ever before.
Finally, I did away with my “sleep medication,” the half bottle of wine I used to consume every night. For the first time in almost thirty years, I realized that I could fall asleep without a sedative. I also kept up my church attendance, continued to study the Bible, and audited a course on C. S. Lewis at a local Christian college. The Screwtape Letters was one of the most delightful pieces of literature I had ever read. Its powerful message that the business and noise of our daily lives can make us lose sight of what is truly important resonated strongly with me.
In early 2008, while I was chatting with Pastor Rob after church, he asked, “Are you ready to go public with your faith?”
“I’m not sure what you mean?” I responded with a half question.
“Baptism in water. We have a baptism scheduled in March.”
I had to think about that for a while. It was likely that some of the people I knew, who had the same prejudice against the Christian faith that I had carried for decades, would appreciate me less if I openly proclaimed my faith. But did that really matter? I decided that it didn’t. If I wasn’t ready to stand by my faith openly and publicly, it would mean I was a phony or a coward. Those were not options I was willing to consider.
On March 16, 2008, I arrived at the church early, went to a back room, and put on shorts, a T-shirt, and rubber sandals. When it was my turn, I stepped onto the platform and into the water-filled tub, where I relinquished control in more ways than one.
Pastor Rob and an assistant held me steady, and after a brief prayer, they leaned me backward and fully immersed me in the water. I emerged dripping and grinning. There it was for all who cared to see: Former Soviet spy Jack Barsky was a Christian!
Pastor Rob heard more about my background when I helped his niece with a history paper and told her some details about my experience as a spy. Inspired by the arc of my story, he approached me a month before Easter 2009 and asked, “Would you be willing to give your testimony at the Easter service?”
“Yes,” I replied, without thinking about the circumstances or possible consequences.
The pastor showed himself to be a man of great faith when he asked me to speak at all three Easter services without seeing a draft of my testimony. There was no rehearsal; he just handed me the microphone.
There was one service on Saturday and two on Sunday. At the second Sunday service, Jessie and Chelsea, as well as Shawna and her family, were present. This is the first time my two children saw me openly and publicly testify to my faith.
I shared with the congregation my journey from atheism to agnosticism to Christianity, and I illustrated how God had been at work in my life all along, even though I didn’t know Him. In conclusion, I recited a poem, titled “Lon
eliness,” that I had written when I was in the depths of despair in 2005, shortly after my return from the conference in Pebble Beach.
Loneliness is a stampeding multitude that tramples down the seeker of solace lying on the desert floor with one arm extended towards the heavens in a desperate plea for mercy
Loneliness is a prison cell with walls made of the fabric of fear
Loneliness cries out in anguish to the world only to be tortured by the magnified echo of the futile cry
Loneliness is a mirage of all that is good, a mirage close enough to be sensed but far enough to remain tortuously unattainable
Loneliness is the vision of a shoulder to lean on, always to be withdrawn at the last moment, resulting in a frightful eternal freefall towards utter darkness
Loneliness is a silent scream for a healing hand
Loneliness is the certitude that there is no healing hand
Loneliness is a demon who knows only himself
In my original version of the poem, I had ended with a plaintive cry of desperation in all caps: I AM LONELY! But when I recited the poem on Easter, I finished on a more hopeful note:
Loneliness is Jesus at the Cross betrayed by Man.
Rejoice brother, Christ rose again—and He extends His Love to You.
The Love of Christ overcomes the Specter of Loneliness—
He who is with Christ cannot be lonely.
Rob’s belief in me proved to be justified, but what I found even more remarkable was that I had shared my testimony with about a thousand people during those three services, many of whom lived and worked near my home and workplace, and yet miraculously, none of my testimony trickled out into the public realm. No local journalists picked up my story, and it seemed that no one from work had attended any of the three services. If the news about my background had reached my company, I would have been subject to immediate dismissal.
At the time, in spite of the fact that I had the full support of the United States government, my legal status had not yet been resolved. I could only conclude that God both protected me and determined that my time to go fully public had not yet come.
As my faith in God continued to grow, so did my relationship with Shawna. Her words, “You are already a Christian, you just don’t know it,” turned out to be prophetic. One day, God answered my prayer and turned this growing friendship into a deepening love. Shawna had asked me to stop by her apartment on my way home to help her fix some things around the house. I have always been rather handy with a hammer and a screwdriver, so I looked forward to displaying my manly skills to this woman I so admired and loved.
I was standing on a chair, fixing a loose curtain rod over a window, when suddenly I heard these words spoken in a low-key, seemingly disembodied voice: “I love this man. I can’t help it. I love this man.”
I did not respond, but the ice was broken. When I left her apartment, I asked for a hug, and she gave me one. I felt like running all the way back to my house. My entire life was turning around in a way I could never have expected.
Over the next eighteen months, our relationship continued to grow, and on September 12, 2009, Shawna and I were married in the same sanctuary where I had accepted Christ and was baptized. Jessie and Chelsea attended, along with Shawna’s mother and her son, Carmellau. We were now a new family made up from rather disparate parts, yet we were the most functional family I had ever been a part of.
Two years later, at the age of sixty-two, I became a father again when Shawna delivered a beautiful little girl, whom we named Trinity. I asked Joe Reilly, who had long since retired from the FBI, to be Trinity’s godfather. He and I still enjoyed periodic phone conversations, with topics ranging from history to world affairs, and from sports to politics. Throughout history, many people have been killed in wars by someone who could have been their best friend under different circumstances. And to me, there’s no better proof that friendship has the capacity to triumph over enmity than my relationship with Joe.
The first years of marriage brought numerous struggles, not the least of which was being laid off from my job at the same time that Shawna found out she was pregnant. There are very few employment opportunities for executives in their sixties, and when I wasn’t able to find a new job right away, my faith wavered and I turned once again to my old companion: alcohol. But God was faithful and answered my prayers. After eighteen months of forced idleness, I landed a good full-time job that would allow me to take care of my entire family. After one year of a weekly two-hundred-mile commute, we were able to sell our home in New Jersey and move to a lovely house on the Hudson River, just north of Albany, New York.
But God wasn’t finished with me yet. In fact, He still had some major life changes in store. Just when I thought the past was securely behind me, God brought it back again.
I NEVER WOULD HAVE SOUGHT OUT a final assignment to wrap up the loose ends of my life. I was hoping that the process of becoming a legal US citizen would finally come to a close, but there was no urgency to that. Thoughts of returning to visit the country of my birth were no more than a fuzzy notion. Germany had become a foreign country to me, or so I had convinced myself.
But God decided to use Chelsea to crack open a door to the other side of the Atlantic. I had told her that she had a half-brother in Germany named Matthias. Sometime in 2009, and unbeknownst to me, she began a systematic Internet search to find him. For months and months, that search yielded nothing. But one day in the spring of 2010, I received a phone call from Chelsea.
“Hello?”
“I found him.”
“What? Found who?”
“Matthias, of course, and he’s coming to visit me in a month. He doesn’t want to see you, though.” Her voice tailed off with disappointment, but that was just fine with me. I wasn’t ready to burst the American bubble I had been living in for years and face the past—or the little boy I’d left behind in Germany.
But once Matthias was in the US, he changed his mind and told Chelsea, “I want to meet my father.”
On a Friday evening, Chelsea called and said, “Dad, Matthias and I are having dinner at the Clinton House, and we would like you to join us.”
Considering that the Clinton House was only three miles from my home at the time, a refusal to join them for dinner would have branded me a coward. Chelsea had forced my hand.
When I entered the restaurant, the two half-siblings were waiting for me near the entrance. Matthias just stared at me for a long time without saying a word. This was the oddest reception I had ever received from another human being. After we took our seats at the table and ordered our meals, we began to talk, and the initial awkwardness soon gave way to a free-flowing conversation—mostly in English, for Chelsea’s benefit, but also because Matthias’s English was much better than my rusty German. When our meal was finished, we decided to continue the conversation at my home.
There was only so much time we could spend on pleasantries and small talk before I had to address the most delicate issue between us—my choice. The unvarnished truth was that I had chosen one sibling over the other, and now they were both in my presence—one waiting for an explanation and the other a much interested audience.
I picked the only approach that I thought would resonate with Matthias, explaining to him the raw logic behind my thinking, namely that Chelsea needed my support much more than he did. He agreed. He told me that the KGB had taken good care of him and his mother while I was still in their employ. They hand-delivered my salary to Gerlinde until early 1990, more than a year after I cut ties with them. Matthias remembered at least two all-expense paid vacations with Gerlinde to Moscow and Yalta, a city on the Black Sea. Finally, and this was very important to me, when Matthias told me that the KGB had delivered my $60,000 bankroll to his mother, I was ecstatic. I saw it as yet another link in the chain of events that could only be held together by God’s protective hand.
When Matthias and I said good-bye, I felt a tenuous thread of hope that we might be able to
build a relationship—something we’d never had. But with my application for US citizenship still stuck in a bureaucratic quagmire, some of that hope would have to be deferred. Still, I had my son back, thanks to Chelsea’s enterprising persistence.
It seemed that my paperwork had fallen down a rabbit hole somewhere in the offices of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. Phone inquiries about the status of my application yielded no results, and even the FBI couldn’t get a straight answer. Like a page out of Franz Kafka’s The Castle—a tale of horror describing the frustrations of an individual in his dealings with a large faceless bureaucracy—this seemed to be a case of finding the right person who knew the right person who knew the right person. Had it not been for the unflagging efforts of my FBI liaison, to whom I am forever grateful, my papers might still be stuck in a bureaucratic graveyard, slowly taking on the yellowed look of ancient historical documents.
But on the morning of August 20, 2014, against all hope, I got The Phone Call at work.
“This is Officer Cahill from Homeland Security, the Albany office. Would you be able to come in tomorrow morning?”
The creature of habit in me responded, “Let me check my calendar.” Then it hit me: I had been waiting thirteen years for this moment!
“What am I saying? Of course I can come over. What time do you want me to be there?”
The next morning, I met Officer Cahill, who took my oath. Ten minutes later, I walked out a proud—and official—American citizen.
On my drive back to the office, I reflected on the circuitous journey I had taken to get here—from the little village of Rietschen in East Germany to Moscow, via Jena and Berlin, to my final home in the USA. What I had not expected was my emotional reaction. It felt really good to call a country my home again.