Only Believe: A Spy Story, a Love Story, & a Story of God’s Great Miracles in Atheistic Russia By Hannu Haukka / Winepress Publishing This true story reads like a thriller from Hollywood! To trust and obey God and His will often takes a person through the most exciting experiences in their life. Only Believe is a powerful testimony of God’s grace and what He can do with those who are totally submitted to His will. Once you have read it, you will not be the same.

*Start of Review*

A very interesting overview, through a personal lense, of God’s work in Russia in opening up the country to the Gospel message through political means and the work of missionaries. Told from the point of view of a Finnish-Canadian called by God to work with the Russian people through radio and television ministries.  This book serves as a personal memoir of author, Hannu Hauka, describing God’s ongoing work in his life which eventually leads him to serve, and marry within the Russian people.

You’ll see that the subtitle of the book includes “a Love Story”, and indeed, it does include the story of Haukka and his wife coming to marry.  If you are interested in letting your children read this book, or in reading it aloud to them, you can rest assured that there is no offensive or objectionable material contained in these segments.  While Haukka does indeed allow his heart to be drawn to his future wife before she agrees to marry him, I was quite impressed with her ability to wait on the Lord until He made His perfect will clear for her life before she released her emotions.  As a result, this story of their coming together is glorifying to the Lord, as it displays the desire to do only His will in her life, and her deep desire to please only Him.

At times the chronology is a bit scattered, jumping through time periods in a way that I personally found a bit confusing.  I had a difficult time identifying at what stage their ministry was in when.  I would have preferred a chronological presentation of events rather than the large jump into the future when the television ministry started receiving success, then flipping back to the establishment of the ministry.

Although it did contain exciting events at the Russian border, with intelligence agencies, encounters with policing forces, bible smuggling etc. (the “spy story” element) some events were recited rather rotely and woodenly, and lacked the excitement they could have contained.  I can understand this however, as the author has been called of God to ministry that doesn’t primarily involve the written word.

I was blessed to learn of God’s work in the former Soviet Union, and to see His hand at work in spreading the gospel through faithful servants.  I read this book in the Spring of 2007, and have since then been blessed to meet some believers who are originally from Russia.  I often think back to the events portrayed in this book when I picture our Russian brothers and sisters in the Lord.