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| Interview - Maranatha |  |
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Cor.: Why did you call your band "Maranatha?" Answer: Our band is called "Maranatha" because we are waiting for a soon coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. We can find the Aramaic word "maran-atha" in the Holy Scriptures in the first Epistle to Corinthians. It is translated as "our Lord is coming." Corr.: How do you compose your songs? Answer: We write our songs with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The words and the music are like revelations from God. We write songs in different styles. Our songs are telling about different feelings that we have in our daily walk with God. We have songs of prayer, songs that express the joy and songs that reveal the character of our Lord and are addressed to people who are still living in their sins. Corr.: What does music mean for you? Answer: Music used to be my god and my goal. Now God Himself is my God and my goal, and music is a means to glorify him. Corr.: What categories of people is your music designed to reach? Answer: The ministry of our band is aimed to reach unbelievers. Our desire is that people who listen to our songs would meet Jesus Christ and accept his forgiveness and love as a gift from God. Corr.: Where do you perform? Answer: We perform in different situations and for different categories of people: for students and for drug addicts, for the elder and for the young, for Communists and for democrates, for prisoners and for health resort visitors. We try to use any opportunity that God provides for us to preach His Word to perishing people of this world. Corr.: Could you please briefly describe your band as a collective? Answer: We are all so different in characters and tastes! It is a miracle that we play together. If we have some conflicts about arrangements or something else we have to learn how to love each other because the main thing in our life is not music and people's respect but love toward God. You see, we as believers shouldn't live just to meet our own needs - we must for God and for each other. Corr.: Could you tell us more about each of you? Leonid Belenky: I am married, my wife's name is Ira. We have two children - Esther and Daniel. Before my salvation I played guitar in band "Anaesthesia Yaguzhynska." Now I go on playing but in other state of spirit, soul and body with "Maranatha." All members of the band are friends of mine. I'm going to go to Heaven. I was born in 1973, June 16 in Kremenchuk, Ukraine to a family of employees. My parents were atheists. My mother was a member of the Communist Party. I started practicing music since the age of six. I would listen to the records from my older brother's collection. Those were American and English music bands, and also some Soviet groups forbidden by Soviet authorities. By the age of thirteen I had been an active music lover. At that time I was also interested in different non-formal youth movements which I joined later. For a while I practiced break dance, heap-hop and rap. In 1989, I met a gathering of hippies - musicians and painters, they were their own masters. At that time I first tried drugs. That was considered to be something cool then. But the most important thing was that that life style was giving extraordinary spiritual feelings that at that moment of my life were making my life interesting and colorful. I was in conflict with my parents and went to Kharkov. I lived there on my own for half a year. I had been selling on the streets and spent all my free time with creative people like me. I also visited various exhibitions and sessions. I wanted to please my soul - but I couldn't do it. My friends and me also played in band "Anaesthesia Yaguzhynska." Music was god for me though it couldn't deliver me from depression. I noticed that despite of my external freedom I felt worse and worse inside. My girl friend was fond of different kinds of philosophies and occult literature. Her favorite authors were Yelena Blavatskaya, Jean-Paul Sartre, Fridrich Nitzsche and others. Their teachings were interesting for me, but they only deepened the feeling of brutality and fatality of the world around me. My soul couldn't agree with that! The more I was thinking about a sense in life the deeper I felt the danger of our dark world. Deep inside I knew that there should have been something real and light, that I could commit myself to. One day a musician, a friend of mine whom I loved and respected, came to me and began telling me about some God whom he believed in. My mind struggled against his words, but my heart was saying that all of that was true. Since that moment several events happened that caused me realize my need in God. First, my girlfriend suddenly gave up her spiritual experience. One day she woke up and understood that her previous ideas were void. I was shocked with such a sudden change of her mind. Second, a friend of mine came from St. Petersburg and told me about his extraordinary experience with God. He said that he had been born again, that all the old and dirty things had been taken away from him and he was clean then. I thought, "Here we are, here is one more of them." Soon after I went to a concert of my favorite jazz musician Sergey Goryunovich and felt shock: after his performance, Sergey told about his conversion to God and invited musicians to come to Christ. Then I started to realize that all these events were not accidental: God closely dealt with me then. The last straw was my old friend Jim. I found out that he believed in God too. He invited me to the church. By that time I had realized the necessity to repent before God. I understood that that was my destiny. So, when I came to the church I received Jesus as my Lord. I really experienced that God forgave my sins. I almost physically felt an extraordinary lightness, like a big and heavy backsack with bricks dropped out of my shoulders. The guilt that I constantly had been feeling by that time suddenly left me. I finally found the One Who I was looking for so long. The One Who accepts me the way I am and loves me unconditionally. That One is Jesus! Since that time my life has totally changed. Six years and a half have gone since then and I have never regretted for the decision that I made. I am convinced that God is faithful. He will never forsake nor leave me. There is no one like him! Pavel Zhezhel: I am married, my wife's name is Tatiana. I played in band "Orange Outrage," but after my salvation God arranged me to play in "Maranatha." Alexander Bereza: My wife's name's Alexandra. I am a former leader of band "Agressor." After my salvation all my creativity got the "green light". My hobby is my wife. My dream is to shoot a video clip on Mars. Sergey Spilnik: I am married, my wife's name is Marina. We have daughter Margarita. I was growing in a family of musicians. Since the age of six I have started to play drums that my father brought to me. After the military service I went to music college to study drums playing. After a year of studies I gave it up because of the economical crisis in our country. I played with band "Treasures," in the town of Kremenchuk. I also participated in Chervona Ruta music festival and for a short period of time worked in band "Free Style." After my salvation I play in the worship group of "The Life In Christ" church and in "Maranatha." My hobby is modelling of clay, plasticine and plastic. My friends are my wife and the musicians of "Maranatha." My dream is to go across the world preaching the Gospel. Marina Melnik: Since my childhood I sang popular Italian songs of the 80's. I studied piano for five years at the music school. I met Jesus at the age of 14, and I became a very good girl. I am a friend of my friends. My plan for the future is to get into God's future. I was born and raised up in a healthy and loving athmosphere. In fact, I was glad of myself though I experienced all the common humiliations of the Soviet school. Though I was not an ultimate leader I belonged to an elite. I did not want to follow the crowd, but in that environment in order to be respected you should do what all or almost all do. So I met standards of society that I lived in. Though at that time I was rushing by a steep road to hell alongside with the crowd, I know that God's mercy was upon me and I did not had problems that some of my friends had. In spite of the fact that everything was seemingly fine, waves of fear and depression flowed over me. I was confused with the question of the sense of life and inevitability of death. This fear pursued me night after night. I thought that one day I would be gone forever like billions of people who lived and struggled, felt joy and pain, but then passed like shadows and sank into oblivion - and this thought made me very depressed. I thought that nobody would recall these people and nobody would need them. I realized that the same destiny was waiting for me because nobody would stop this senseless chain. I started losing interest to life when I was 13. Interests and problems of kids of my age seemed to be senseless and dull to me. I wanted something more, I was looking for an answer. It seemed to me that what I saw was not the ultimate reality. God gave every man a feeling of eternity. Every man feels that he cannot just disappear. I looked for a different life, a meaningful life where there are no questions that have no answers. Then I said, "If there is something better, I want to have it. If there is eternity and paradise, I want to be there and I want to be sure in it!" And the Lord heard my prayer. God first found my mother, and then he found me. It was in January, 1993. An extraordinary thing happened to me! I came to a church service on Sunday. I sat and I understood nothing of what I saw and heard. Everything I saw did not attract me. A week later my mother made me go to church again. When there was an altar call she started pushing me towards the stage. Again, I did not understand anything, but I was mean and came on stage almost with a curse on my lips, I just hated being pushed. I did not pray, but looked at the priest with empty eyes. After that they lead us to a separate room, gave us New Testaments and invited to home groups. Then a girl shared her feelings and suddenly I started shaking. I cannot explain this, but I know that God himself came to me and took me under his protection. I will never forget the testimony of my sister with her eyes full of tears. At that very moment the Holy Spirit started his word inside of me. Since that time my life changed. It is a miracle. I tried to improve different traits of my character, but always failed because the sin lived in me. But now God lives in me, and he is the Lord of my life. I am happy because I have found what I was painfully looking for and what all people desperately need. I have almost forgotten my fear, and death does not seem to be a fathomless abyss anymore. I know that I have eternal life, and a reality of this is stronger than all theories and proofs. My life is full with extraordinary things. I can see God's works every day. I understand that the real value of man's life is in the death of God himself. Now I know what I am living for and what I am striving to. I have found an answer, and I want to help people find the real meaning in life. Dmitry Tkachenko: I am married, my wife's name is Olga. We have two children, Timothy amd Elizabeth. Being a boy, I graduated from a music school where I learned playing accordion. After that I abandoned my accordion for 14 years, and then started playing it back again. Before receiving Christ, I was a professional break dancer and performed rap with a little-known group named "St. Vitus's Dance." Now I try to follow Jesus everywhere. I love having fellowship with God. I dream to take part in a concert where many-many people would worship God with sincere and clean heart. And of course I am thirsty to meet the Lord. I received Christ in January 1993. Before that I believed that there was a god, but I never prayed or asked him about anything. My friends received Christ before me, and they were the ones who told me about him. I remembered their words, "If you don't receive Christ you will go to hell because of your sins." I was very angry to here that, and I told them they would go there themselves. I was mad of their assurance that they were telling the truth and that all those who didn't believe in Jesus were poor and mislead people. But in about two weeks I attended a service in a Evangelical church, along with my friends and my girl-friend who had already received Christ. As it was supposed, when the preacher invited unbelievers to ask God to forgive their sins I came forward and did that. It was the first time in my life that I prayed, and then I met God. When my girl-friend who now is my wife convinced me to be baptized of the Holy Spirit it was an extraordinary experience. For some time I did not want to do it and got very nervous when Olga was telling me about it, but finally she convinced me. When she laid her hands on me and started asking God to baptize me of the Holy Spirit I felt the power coming from on high. It was like a big wave that fell upon me and absorbed all of me. Something unclean came out of me; now I understand that these were demons. I fell on the floor because I couldn't stand still. When I raised up I noticed that I started to speak a language that I had never known or learned before. These were other tongues, a sign of baptism of the Holy Spirit. At that moment I felt a great desire to embrace the whole world, I was filled by God's love which is supernatural and as abnormal from the human point of view as God himself is. Then Jesus poured out his love on me. After that I changed completely. My old friends and parents could not recognize me because I lived in a different dimension, in the dimension of Holy God and his Kingdom. I was terribly happy with such life. I started to read and understand the Bible, God showed me my future which is now partly fulfilled.Miracles started to take place in my life. People who I laid my hands upon in Jesus' name got healed of different illnesses, for the Bible says, "And these signs will accompany those who believe: ...they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well." I saw how the Lord literally delivered some people from certain death.
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