Welcome to Global Outpouring. I'm Philip Bus. And I'm Sharon Bus. We have very special guests with us today, and we're going to talk about something that is so important for this nation especially, and really for all the world. It has to do with who we are and how we live and whether we have freedom or not. I would like to welcome David and Sigi Oblander to be with us today. This is really a special treat for us.
We're really grateful that you've joined us today, and I just want to give people an opportunity to learn more about your ministry. David, can you give us some specifics, your website and that sort of thing, and maybe a little bit about the books that Sigi's written? Yes, sure. We have several books. Sigi has a devotional book which is full of teaching. It was published in South Africa, and it's really a daily format, but sermons that she's preached over the years.
It's really been a book to uplift people and encourage a deeper walk. It's full of a lot of concentrated stuff, something you have to just read a little and think about. Then she has her life story, how she lived in East Berlin as a young teenager before they escaped, really a story of how their family was preserved during this time and how they lived under the oppression of communism and how God finally delivered them and gave them the ability to get out.
There are Bible studies, several of those, others, and we have a book by Sigi's brother whom she got saved through which talks about the ability to go from poverty to our destiny and how God makes a way and gives us the ability to use gifts through our faith in Him and through our personalities to really be successful and to use that, what He gives us, to help the kingdom of God.
So it's a really uplifting story in how God brought a man from poverty really into a place of success and how He poured it back into the kingdom. It's a really great book and we love him. He's a dear man of God, Sigi's oldest brother. And those are several things. Our webpage is called just SigiOblander.com, S-I-G-I-O-B-L-A-N-D-E-R.com. That's our webpage. If you type in that, you'll get it one way or the other. We're situated in Atlanta. We travel 10 months out of the year.
Under normal circumstances. Under normal circumstances, yeah. So we're thankful for what God has done over the years and we do a lot of work overseas as well as the United States. And so how could people reach you? Is there a place to write to on that website? Yes, there is. On our website, you can make comments or you can make donations, whatever you want. You can order books and CDs. It's all available there. And they can email you there? Yes. Okay. Very good. Thank you.
Sigi has been, well, she was one of the founders of this ministry and she has been a dear friend for many, many years. She was one of the first people that I met from this ministry. One of the first people I heard and the anointing that was in her life so captivated me that I, all I could do was cry. And Sigi is from Germany. She was born in Berlin. It was during World War II, right? Yep. Okay. And after World War II, there were some political, what do they call it? Geopolitical changes.
What happened? David, can you give us a clue what happened politically and how Germany was kind of divided? Yes, well, after the war, when the Allies won the war, Germany was divided, East and West Germany. But in the middle of the country was Berlin and that was also divided, East and West Berlin. And Sigi happened to live in East Berlin, which was occupied by the Russians. The Allies occupied West Berlin.
So it was to get to Berlin, you'd have to drive through the country, East Berlin, Germany to get to Berlin. So it was like an island in the middle of everything, in the middle of Germany. And that's the life and that's the situation politically. So it was really a country divided. Wow. And not only a country divided, but a city divided. Yes. But it was a city that was an island in the middle of a communist country. That's right.
Wow. And without America, we would never have survived because the first thing the Russians did, they wanted to cut it off and the American took their planes and they sent food in and struck parcels from the airplanes so we could survive. So they couldn't really block West Berlin off. And that was our salvation because we would be smugglers. We go from the East to the West to survive. And we had influence before.
That's why the wall of Berlin was built because every day thousands of people escaped from the East to the West. Well, why would they want to escape? Isn't communism a good place, good kind of a place to live? That's what you think. It's in theory, it's a good place, what people think, but not in practical ways because communism is something which takes your freedom into your liberty. Now I went 10 years to a communistic school and in these schools we had Russian teachers.
We were the first generation who actually got brainwashed because we were not trained in socialism or communism. So the greatest thing was for the socialists to change a whole youth, a whole generation to think like they wanted us to think. So what they would do, we would go to brainwashing sessions. And these brainwashing sessions would be intense times of indoctrination where we would take Marxism and Leninism and all these things to transform our thinking.
Because you can see today too, it's not they don't want you to think, they just want you to think in a certain way. They don't want you to think yourself. They want that you think the way they teach. And they would say to us, since we were little, my mother and father were Christians so we were not in a party, and they would say to us that we will never go to high school, we will never go to university because they will not raise an enemy of the state.
And we were actually blackmailed and they would say we're enemies of the state. So because we were enemy of the state, that's why we had spies follow us. And everybody in Germany, East Germany was one of the greatest nation or country where every second or third neighbor was a spy. And what they did, they broke down the trust because we didn't trust any neighbor.
We didn't trust any, not even sometimes our relatives, because the indoctrination was so strong that it actually broke down natural feelings and natural bondings in people's lives. Wow. So what happened is eventually the teachers would come to our house. Right to your house? Yeah. And they would talk to our parents so that we would become communists. So eventually my mom and dad came, gave in because we could not do sports. We were cut out from doing sports. We were not allowed to do anything.
We were like the outcast of the school. And the pressure became so hard that we, my sister and I, we became young pioneers. And that's a youth communist party. And as we became young pioneers, we became like clay supposedly in their hand so that they could form us. Now, one of the things they would teach us for many, many indoctrination sessions is how to conquer America. Really? Yes. How to conquer America and how to destroy Israel because it just, it even just got formed in order to destroy.
And they said to us in many of these sessions, they said America is too strong. We never conquer it from without. We will conquer America from within. Even if it takes years and years and years, we are going to get a people from within who will conquer what America is or under foundation of America. We didn't know the foundation. I didn't know the constitution. I did not understand liberty.
We just knew that America was a nation which, and the flag was a flag which would be a sign of freedom and liberty to us. So we would risk our lives sometimes. We had a radio up in the attic and we would go in the attic and they had in a German language a voice of America. And the neighbors are not allowed to hear it. So we would go up there and we would risk our freedom to actually listen because we're so hungry for freedom and for liberty.
And I, you know, when I came here as a young woman, I would go to many schools and I would preach in many universities and I would see that the young people are trying to awaken them what freedom is. And I remember one time I was in one of the universities, I think it was somewhere in Nebraska. And when I came out, that was in the 70s, when I came out of the university, all my tires were slashed. And you can see that they start working the indoctrination in this nation. And that's what happened.
You can see it now. If you actually have a people raised up in this nation who don't is not a part of America anymore. Yeah, it's true. And I understand that there are those that have this mindset now. They've been raised in this here in this country, but they don't seem to have awakened to the fact that communism and socialism have actually failed in so many nations where it started out.
Yeah. But you see, this communism now is a little different than over there as much more as we've had was brutal communism. If they like China now or like Cuba, they would just take you in prisons and you get indoctrination. I mean, before we escaped, then we had somebody come and tell us that we're an enemy of the state and we're on a blacklist and that eventually we escaped. Now here in America, this communism and socialism is more sophisticated. It comes in a way that people don't even know.
It's like a frog. It's in water, in cold water, and you put the boiling on and then that frog doesn't jump out. We had boiling water put on us and we tried to jump out. Here it's cold water and they get so used to that they don't even know that they are boiled. But don't you think like what we've seen up in Seattle where they took over this portion of the city, don't you think that what we saw there is kind of like what we would expect if that whole thing was able to take over?
Yes, that will be because then it comes that when they're in power, then they will come after the people who are the implorables or the ones who don't fit and then we will have the same as China or re-education where people are going to be re-educated or you suffer or maybe you get the IRS after you or some systems and things and they're going to put pressure on you and they're going to put pressure on the church.
The pressure will be that you say things who don't fit into society and you're going to suffer for it. Wow. So where we are right now, what do you see is what needs to happen in order for that to not happen? Well, I can see in churches it's not just that people are safe.
Many people are safe but their thinking does not change and to understand or to get your thinking changed you almost have to have certain experiences in your life because it says that experience brings hope and hope doesn't make a shame. So some of us we have to actually experience things in our life to have new hope and that hope has to come into our perception of our mind the way we see things in our life.
So I realized when I came back we were evacuated from South Africa and as I came back I was really... When was that? In April this year. Yeah, because of the lockdown. Because of COVID and we got locked up and so the government evacuated us and we came here and as I came here and the riots are starting, I tell you something, it shook me to the bottom of my soul because I did not think that I would see that so drastically in my lifetime.
I know it would happen because of the way people perceive things and think and that freedom doesn't mean much. In these days people don't want to be free, people want to be secure and I realized that people don't understand freedom because you can... Look at the birds, we have some friends who have parrots, big huge parrots and when you have a parrot for 30 years, they live 70 years, something like that, you have a parrot or whatever you call these birds in a cage for 30 years.
Now how are you going to teach that parrot to be free? He's tame. Now you see the gospel has not made us free, it has made us tame. We're tame. We don't know how to fly. We're just happy to be in the cage because our message was that God's blessing us, it's our prosperity, it's our security, it's our lifestyle is more important than life. So we don't understand life just because we have a lifestyle.
We can eat and drink and do the things around here and there and the church has promoted that so that many of us are tame in the gospel. We don't know how to fly. We don't know how to dare things and we lose our priority and I have to check my own life. I mean in a certain age of your life when you become secure and the Lord speaks about that you must lose your life to gain it.
Now that process of losing has an effect in your life and you have to become free because you can't lose without being free because you will hang on and you're attached to things and you will wrestle for things and fight for things. So I realized when you see and use that example of that bird and you open the cage and you say fly, they don't fly. They don't even want, actually that one bird would take all time. You open the cage door, it shuts the door because it doesn't know what's freedom.
It never flown. It's a bird. It's never flown but it's been in the cage all its life and some of us are like that as Christians. We don't know how to fly. We have a lifestyle. You know and I always use the beaver too. You know what the beaver does? He takes a flow and makes a lake and that's what we do.
We take a flow when the revival comes and the move of God comes and we take the flow and we create a lake where we can live the lifestyle, protect the lifestyle, love the lifestyle and do what we need to do. But now what the Lord does now, I think in America, in that generation right now, that has to be an awakening and that awakening is not just to see miracles and signs.
That awakening has to wake us up from our nightmares and dreams and ideas so that we can see as He sees and knows as He knows so that we can become a free people otherwise we're going to lose it just like the children of Israel. They have 430 years crying for liberty and become what a generation who was an evil generation who didn't know how to walk in the freedom and liberty of God's Spirit. Yeah, they didn't know, it's like they came out of Egypt but Egypt hadn't gotten out of them.
They had food given to them, they had a cloud by day to protect them from the elements, they had fire by night to protect them from the cold. They were protected and taken care of and they were secure but they were complaining and moaning. And they could not conquer the giants. That was the problem. Yes. It was their mindset. And that's what happens right now in America. See, people, I think the awakening has to be, has to be converted.
Like the Lord said to Peter, when thou art converted, strengthen your brethren. And I think that awakening has to bring a conversion that we see life from just a different aspect as He sees, as He feels. And I think the key is that we love as He loves and that we know as He knows and feels as He feels and hates as He hates. That's significant. Very significant because we love, we think about Him, we love things about Him but we don't love like He loves and does as He does.
We just don't know how to do that. And we're pretty flippant with the Almighty God who created us. We don't really have much of a reverence for Him and for His presence because we don't know Him. But you know, when Gwen and I, the first thing is when we, the first time we took the Bible into Russia, I mean, we take great risks. This is how, do you tell them how God, David, how the Lord changed their life just on that one trip? Yes, that was a life-changing trip.
In 1976 you had a tour, Gwen Shaw and Sigi were the leaders. Yeah, I wanted to go on that one. Were you in that? You didn't come. I wanted to so badly. So you know, here I am raised in Montana and never been on an airplane, very, you know, lived a very simple, easy life. But when I had a burden to go on this trip, God put it in my heart to go because I'd heard that there were things happening there. And so He made the way possible. I got there and I'd never really felt such fear in my life.
As I felt people watching us, as I felt people being manipulated, there was just the atmosphere that I wasn't prepared for. It shook me to the core. And as Sigi and others went out every night in the middle of the winter to bring Bibles to people, I knew that they were taking a risk. And the whole time we were doing things that was legally against their law. As we entered the border, I remember going into Russia, we were, first of all, already found out in England.
And as we were in England, they said, oh, you shouldn't go there. But they said, well, we feel like God wants us to bring the life, the word of life, the Bible into the people of Russia. I said, OK, well, we can't guarantee your safety. So they let us back on the plane in London. And we flew four hours in Russia and I could see everybody was very ashen white in their face and praying up a storm. We got into the airport and everybody was going through so nicely.
We were told not to have any Bible, any material in our pockets, only head vests underneath. It was the middle of winter and we looked 20, 30 pounds heavier than our normal weight, but they didn't know that. And so everybody was going through great and then finally one guy in the tour of about 40 people, he didn't take, he had a song book, a Christian song book in his pocket. And they saw that and the immigration officers, they said, hey, this is this anti-Soviet literature.
Search the Americans, search the Americans. So everybody that was left in the group after that was was searched. And if they had Bibles on them, they would have been found. Unfortunately, no other ones had it. Only person left to go through was Sigi. But in God's wisdom, she still had a West German passport. They didn't connect her with the group. So she was loaded with Bibles. She was 40 pounds heavier looking and she went through scot-free and I said, my God, You're even bigger than the KGB.
I remember saying that You're even bigger than the KGB. My faith was just illuminated and it was really a faith and a whole week was a week of fear and anxiety. And I remember going to the state run church there and we went there and we sat in a service that was pretty much controlled by the state. And there were two women there sitting. You know, people came. There's a hunger for the word of God, whether it was a state manipulated thing or not. People there, their word of God was read.
And these two ladies were not far from me. And I looked in their eyes and in their eyes, I saw I can't describe it like a joy, a depth of a well of joy that I know I didn't have. And I said, God, I want that. Wow. I want that. So from that point on, it wakened something new in me and something I'd never seen. And when I came back to America, of course, the first thing I did was go on the ground and kiss the ground and said, thank you for freedom, Lord. Thank you for freedom.
But those are the kind of things that change us when we allow ourselves to be in situations where we're out of our comfort zone and God really worked in my life. That was a life changing moment and really what brought me into full time ministry eventually. Wow. That's a tremendous testimony. I hadn't heard that part. Oh, no. No, I never heard that. Wow. You were right there when it all happened. I was actually just finishing high school at that point. Oh, you did?
And then at the next world convention, let's see, that was 76. That was the first world convention. So by that time, Sister Gwen had written the booklet Destination Moscow and told some of the stories about that going on. Oh, she did. I read that one. I'm sure you read it back then. I think it's gone out of print long ago. But these are things that were formative for me because when I first met you, you were a Bible smuggler.
And that was the hook that caught me because I wanted to hear about these ladies that smuggled Bibles behind the Aaron curtain. I don't think you and David weren't married yet. No, we married afterwards. Yeah. Afterwards. Yeah. So, but my sister had invited me to come and hear these ladies that smuggled Bibles behind the Aaron curtain. I thought, wow, that sounds like adventure. I'd like to hear them. I want to know what's going on. This sounds good.
And when you preach, you didn't preach anything about smuggling Bibles. But there was something in your anointing that was calling to my spiritual DNA that was saying, there's something about these women that has something to do with me. And all I could do was cry. It was amazing. It was amazing. How things come together. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. It really was amazing. And here we are, something like 45 years later. And these are formative things.
But we had an understanding in those days of the potential of socialism coming to this nation and communism taking over that slow frog warming way. And now we're seeing it. Now you mentioned something about how it affected you when you saw the rioting. Oh, yeah. It affected me because I thought, where am I going now? Suddenly, I know here it was always my dream to be in America. And I never thought it would come in my lifetime.
I knew eventually maybe my kids and grandkids would deal with it, but not me. Because where we go now? I've been everywhere. I've lived there. I've done this and done that. And it actually affected me physically. One day my blood pressure was up to 200 something. And David had to take me to emergency. So I realized that something was stirred up within me that America was such a, what would you say, price to me, which I dreamt about, wanted to be and be a part of it.
And I realized that I had to release it. And it was a process again. It is not just something which come because that was my heart's desire since I've been in a trial to be in this nation because to us this nation was exceptional, was different, was something God has done. And you can't even explain it today to people because people don't see America the same way as we have seen it. No, they don't. It's a viewpoint from within the pot, where the frog is in the cold water.
But see, when you think of it, now we lived under Russian occupation. Now the teachers tell us the Russians are your friend. Now they raped us, they robbed us, they dominate us. And they say now America's your enemy. And we come over to the West. Now that was our privilege that we could do that. Before the wall of Berlin was built, we just went back and forth as kids. Ten years old, six years old, we went on our own.
And we would come in streets and see, that's why I seen the first black American and black soldiers. And they would come and put their hands in their pockets and give us chocolate and give us candies. And there was a love born because of these guys who just gave to us that something happened within, doesn't matter what they said, we knew that America wasn't our enemy. And Russia wasn't our friend. Because the experience gave hope. There you go. There you go. You were being told lies.
Yes. But your experience was giving you truth. Truth, right. And that led you on this longing journey that brought you here to America. Absolutely. Yes. And it was the pursuit of freedom that really brought you here. Yes. That was my greatest cry, to know what freedom is. I wanted to always be free. Free from, and then when I became a Christian, I thought, now I'm not free either because German religion was so strong that I started another journey to find freedom.
Well why don't we talk about that next week on the next podcast? All right. Sure, I'd love to. All right. All right. But freedom in Christ is really... Only free. It's the only freedom. It's only freedom. Because David, you saw that those people in Russia had a freedom that was inside that you didn't have. Right. Right, exactly. But you have to fight for that freedom all the time. It's born from within. But you have to defend it all the time. It's true. All the time.
Only I can take it away from you. That's the truth. So we're going to take this up again next week. And in the meantime, press in for the reality of freedom. What is freedom really all about? And if you know somebody who is pressing towards this socialism thing and this communism thing, believing that it's the best way to go, share this podcast with them. Because they need to know the truth and the truth will make them free.
Yeah. Amen. If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps the show reach more people and spread the good news of God's global outpouring. Check out our website at globaloutpouring.org. To find out more information, connect with us, get a link to our Facebook page and our YouTube channel. You can browse our online bookstore for amazing anointed material. Until next time, this is Sharon Bus.
And I'm Philip Bus. God bless you with this overwhelming loving presence.