Fred Smolchuck (1917-2008), Slavic Pentecostal leader, passes away

Fred Smolchuck had a passion for spreading the gospel and the Pentecostal message to Slavic people. A founding member of the former Ukrainian Branch of the Assemblies of God, he served as a pastor and district official in Michigan, and he authored 16 books. His life is inextricably intertwined with the history of the Slavic churches in the Assemblies of God. He passed away peacefully in Springfield, Missouri, at the age of 90 on February 23, 2008.

Born February 26, 1917, in Boston, Massachusetts, Smolchuck was the son of Ukrainian immigrants to America. A series of tragic events, beginning with the death of Fred’s seven-year-old sister, led the Smolchuck family to accept Christ. Fred was saved and baptized in the Holy Spirit at the age of ten. He and his parents joined the Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian Pentecostal Church of Chelsea, Massachusetts. In 1934, he enrolled at Zion Bible Institute in Rhode Island, graduating in 1936. A year later he married Stella Hanko.

Christmas testimonies from beyond the grave

In the West, Christmas has become a symbol of excess. For most Christians in other times and places, however, Christmas has been a reminder that God came down to meet each one of us at our point of need.

The following Christmas testimonies are from some of our Assemblies of God saints who blazed the trail that we now tread. Listen to how they celebrated Christmas, compare it with your own celebrations, then reflect about how God met each one of these dear saints at the point of their need. You will see that God didn’t always meet needs with provisions; sometimes He provided lessons.

C. M. Ward was the voice of the Revivaltime radio broadcast from 1953 to 1978. He and his fiancée, Dorothy, set their wedding date for Christmas Day, 1929. Of course, one month before their wedding, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began. Ward couldn’t afford to buy a wedding ring, much less presents, for their first Christmas. He later learned that times of deprivation like this birthed one of two things: either desperation or despair. Desperation spurred people to work hard and be creative, while despair caused people to simply give up.

Daniel W. Kerr was the primary author of the 1916 Statement of Fundamental Truths. One of the early parsonages he and his family lived in was actually an abandoned log chicken house that Kerr made into living quarters. One Christmas, his two children each received one penny in their stockings. And for Christmas dinner — they boiled potatoes. With our material prosperity, we sometimes forget that many go without. When God does provide for our needs, but not our wants, do we express gratitude or do we grumble?

John Kolenda was a German District pastor and missionary to Brazil. His daughter, Graceann, recalled that “Dad always practiced and taught us to put God first, others second, and ourselves last.” She explained that, to her and her young sibling, “This seemed entirely wrong.” Two days before Christmas, Kolenda took his children aside and said that — absent a miracle — there would be no Christmas presents that year. After providing for the needy children in the Sunday school and for other people, he explained, there was nothing left to give his own children. Graceann recalled that her parents prayed in an unusually fervent manner that evening. The next day an unexpected check arrived in the mail, which provided for a memorable Christmas. When the situation seems hopeless — do we still pray to God to intervene?