Evangelist Found Most Russians “Contented”

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31317, 13 March 1967, Page 19

Evangelist Found Most Russians “Contented”

The average Russian is contented, although lacking many of the refinements of western-style living, according to Mr L. J. Cherry, an Australian evangelist who revisited Russia recently after seven years.

Mr Cherry said that Russians he met seemed to have plenty of money but nothing much to spend it on. There were plenty of goods, but “not what the Russians wanted," he said.

They appeared reasonably happy, but wanted some of the clothes worn by overseas tourists. He was offered the equivalent of £22 10s for a pair of shoes. Conditions generally were much improved from seven years ago, Mr Cherry said. However, when he told Russians that most people in Aus-

tralfa and New Zealand owned their own homes, had motorcars and were free to go where they wanted, they would not believe him. Talks with some church leaders told him of some of the harder facts of life in the country, he said. Mr Cherry, who will start a three-month campaign in Christchurch tomorrow, said his aim was to explain the Bible in “a pleasant manner” through pictorial lectures so that people went away “feeling they had not been hit on the head with it”

He had spoken in 25 countries, but none matched the response he had found in New Zealand, he said. In Auckland a two-month programme had been extended to seven months and in Wanganui the series had run for 10 months.