The Ice House | Previous Challenge Entry

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TITLE: The Ice House | Previous Challenge Entry
By Jack Taylor
08/26/24
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Soren was seven when the authorities kicked down the door of his uncle’s house in Romania. The family had prepared for this moment and he hid in the closet peering through a small opening as his aunt was beaten and his uncle shot. The soldiers tore apart the house searching for the hidden Bibles but found nothing. When they found him, they threw him into the back of their truck. The house was torched and he settled into a re-education camp.

At eleven, he escaped from a work detail along a road and traipsed across the country looking for the railway. He borrowed some clothing off a clothesline along the way, waded through creeks to disguise his scent from the pursuing dogs, and hid at the top of a water tower for two days to ensure no one was close.

From the top of the tower, he saw the train inching across the horizon near a lake. Dim flashes of a story edged their way out of his memory. Only days before his uncle was shot, his father had taken him on a smuggling trip to deliver Bibles.

It started at a farmer’s field near Uzhhorod by the border of modern Slovakia. At the earliest hours of the morn, as the sun shared its first rays, his father’s truck accepted a load of grain from a tractor. Hidden in the grain were boxes. “200 Bibles for Russians” his dad confirmed.

As they drove across the country they stopped by a train track far away from any settlement. His dad unloaded the boxes and stored them in bushes near the tracks. When the train arrived, it slowed, and a man in overalls hopped off, heaved the boxes onto the coal car, and raced to get back on again.

“What will happen with the boxes?” Soren had asked.

“What I tell you must never be shared,” his dad had answered. “The Bibles in those boxes are hidden in the coal behind the engine. Sometimes the authorities stop a train to inspect it without warning. The engineer knows that if he sees a block on the tracks, he is to shovel the Bibles into the fire before the train stops. He is constantly risking his life for the love of Jesus.”

Father and son bounced across pot-holed roads, attempting to keep up with the iron horse, blowing smoke so its trail was visible. When the engine outpaced them, his dad turned off toward a high hill and parked on top. The smoke was visible far across the plain. His dad pointed toward a field near where the train was chugging. “The engineer will drop the boxes off to the side of the tracks where a shepherd is waiting to pick them up. He has a donkey cart to carry the Bibles.”

“What will the shepherd do with all those Bibles?” Soren asked.

His dad had ushered them back into the car for more bouncing. “From there he’ll take them to your uncle’s home to hide in his ice house under all the vegetables. When we have enough for the markets in Kyiv, we will load up this truck and meet a smuggler at the stalls in the city. He will take the Bibles into Russia.”

As they rounded a corner, six soldiers stood across the road. “Sit quietly, say nothing,” his dad whispered. A thorough inspection of the grain in the truck revealed nothing. Their papers were in order and they were waved through.

Soren braced himself as they hit a rock on the road and careened sideways. “Can I go with you to Kyiv?”

“I can take you to your uncle’s when I load up the truck with the vegetables and Bibles, but there are too many of these stops along the way and I can’t put you at risk.”

The hug from his dad was the last he’d know of that courageous man as he drove the Bibles to Kyiv. It had been hours later that the soldiers had raided his uncle’s farmhouse. Somehow, the secret chain had been broken but the ice house remained untouched. He knew his aunt would have found a way to rebuild the house and the chain. She would need help.

Seeing a sign for Brasov, he hitched a ride with a passing trucker. It was ten years before the authorities raided the home again. While rifle butts crushed his ribs as he knelt in prayer, the Bibles hid in the ice house, undiscovered.

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