Rattling Wheel

To Sabbath School teachers: This story is for Sabbath, Feb. 8.

By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission

Three Seventh-day Adventists piled into the car and headed for Blagoevgrad, a city in southwestern Bulgaria.

It was communist times, and the law was strict. The authorities wouldn’t allow an Adventist pastor to visit the city, where a group of five Roma wanted to hear the Word of God. So Borislav Mitov, a 35-year-old Roma Adventist, invited two friends to join him on the 45-mile (70-kilometer) trip from Kyustendil.

About halfway into the trip, the car suddenly made a loud noise and shook violently. Borislav stopped the car, and he and the passengers got out to take a look at the source of the noise. They saw that something had broken around the area of the front wheel on the driver’s side.

“We can’t continue,” he said. “We need to get the car repaired here.”

Borislav, because the car was his, also wasn’t sure that he wanted to continue.

But the other friend had strong faith. “Let’s go,” he said. “God will be with us.”

Borislav and the skeptical friend were reluctant, but the friend kept encouraging them. Borislav started the engine.

Pop! pop! pop! pop! The car made a loud noise and shook violently.

Borislav slowed down. Pop! pop! pop! pop! The rattling noise seemed to grow louder.

“Let’s turn on the music so we can’t hear that noise,” a friend suggested.

“No, let’s sing so we can’t hear it,” said the other.

The men decided to sing a hymn.

As they began to sing, something amazing happened. The loud pop, pop, pop, pop stopped. The violent shaking ended. The car purred quietly and smoothly. The men sang all the way to their destination.

People were waiting eagerly to learn from the Bible. Borislav realized that the trip had been important and that Satan had tried to stop them.

After the visit, the faithful friend said, “Let’s not wait to repair the car here. Let’s sing again.”

The other two thought it was a childish idea. But seeing that it was midnight, they accepted his suggestion because there was nothing else that they could do.

Pop! pop! pop! pop! The car rattled and shook. But as soon as the three men started to sing a hymn, the noise and shaking stopped.

After a while, the men grew tired and stopped singing. They rode in complete silence for a minute.

Pop! pop! pop! pop!

The men opened their mouths and sang. The noise and shaking stopped.

Borislav only realized the extent of the miracle when he took the car to be repaired. The mechanic looked at the car in disbelief. “There’s no way that this car could have driven there and back,” he said. “After the wheel bearing broke, the front wheel should have jammed after just a minute or two.”

From the small Roma group, a Seventh-day Adventist church was established in Blagoevgrad that continues to meet and grow to this very day. Borislav himself went on to become a pastor.

He is now 69 and retired, but he hasn’t forgotten the rattling wheel. It reminds him of James 4:7, which says, “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you” (NKJV).

“The lesson that I learned is we should resist the devil so he will flee from us,” he said.

Part of this quarter’s Thirteenth Sabbath Offering will help construct a new church building for Sophia West Seventh-day Adventist Church in Sofia, Bulgaria. Thank you for planning to give.