THANKFUL FOR A DIRTY DIAPER

The tale of Russian master spy Oleg Gordievsky’s escape from the Soviet Union is absolutely riveting. No one escaped the Soviets with the KGB on their tail. Oleg did. And he can thank a dirty diaper. Oleg had been working as a double agent for the British MI-6. He was betrayed by the infamous American double agent, Aldrich Ames. Ames had relayed to the KGB a list of their agents working with the MI-6 and America’s CIA. Oleg’s name was on it. Oleg had been posted in London to the Soviet embassy. The KGB, list in hand, recalled Oleg. They had his name but had not yet assembled enough evidence to try and execute such a high-level officer. Thus, though they’d drugged and questioned him, they had not yet detained him. They did watch his every move. But, the MI-6 had devised an escape plan that everyone thought could not possibly work. In the end, it did. But only because of a dirty diaper. The plan entailed embassy officials and two embassy vehicles. Two couples would take a trip to Finland, ostensibly because one of the wives had injured her back, a faked injury which she with Academy-Award acting demonstrated for sake of KGB surveillance. As a ploy to involve the other couple and a second car, the doctor’s appointment in Finland was used as an excuse to go on a recreational excursion-shopping spree in Helsinki. The other couple had a baby, Florence, whom they took with them to make the trip look like a two-family outing. That’s where the dirty diaper (or nappy as the British call it) comes in. Just before reaching the Finnish border, the two diplomatic cars abruptly pulled into a turnout to have a “picnic”—at least they brought the fixings for one in case the KGB caught up. It was at this wooded off-road parking they were to pick up Oleg who was hiding there. The story of his masterfully escaping his assigned KGB surveillance and making his way to this rendezvous is harrowingly suspenseful but our story is about how a dirty diaper saved him. Before the KGB cars following the two British ones caught up, Oleg had been put into the back of the trunk of one of the cars and hidden by luggage. The trunk had hardly been closed and the cars back on the road when the KGB tailing them appeared. In the trunk, Oleg struggled out of his clothes and wrapped himself in a provided aluminum blanket which would supposedly keep border guards’ and KGB officers’ infra-devices from picking up his body heat while examining the vehicles at the border crossing checkpoints. There were five such checkpoints established between Russia and Soviet-friendly Finland that the two cars would have to smuggle Oleg through. Five. Five searches. At one of these, the KGB came within a hair’s breadth of discovering Oleg. Or, I should say, the KGB came within a dirty diaper’s length of finding him. KGB officers watching, a border guard was eying the embassy car. With his dog, he began to circle the vehicle. The searchers were so close Oleg inside could hear Russian voices. The dog began to show interest in the trunk. At that very moment, Florence fortuitously filled her diaper. Her mother, Mrs. Ascot, immediately picked her up, grabbed the diaper bag, and laid Florence out on the lid of the trunk, and began to change her diaper. As she opened the diaper, the stench filled the air. The dog began sniffing and the guard wrinkled his nose at its unpleasantness. Assuming the dog was only reacting to the fetid, foul odor of the diaper, the guard pulled at its leash and with the KGB officers following walked away to distance himself from the smell. Florence got her dirty diaper changed, and Oleg was saved. The British were given back their papers and once back in their vehicles, waved through the gate. Never had anything in the spycraft's, intelligence’s, or escapees’ arsenal worked as well. Arguably, no weapon in espionage had ever been as effective as a dirty diaper. Who would have thought that something as disagreeable, unpleasant, unwelcomed as a dirty diaper could result in such a good outcome? We often encounter dirty diapers in our lives. Things come that are just as disagreeable, unpleasant, unwelcomed, and far, far, more serious. Yet, if we’ve paid attention, we have discovered as Joseph did long ago, that God uses even evil done to and against us to accomplish good in our lives. We have learned that all things work together for good to them that love God. We have learned to in all things give thanks. As Oleg, we can give thanks for even a dirty diaper. Delivered by a dirty diaper. In 2015 on the thirtieth anniversary of his escape, all those who helped him gathered to celebrate with Oleg. They gave him a satchel containing souvenirs and mementos of his escape. Among them was a baby’s diaper. I wonder, if during our celebration of making it to heaven, when we review all the great things God has done for us to get us there, if we won’t see some of our toughest times as memorials of how He helped, rescued, and delivered us? Might we give thanks for a “dirty diaper” or two? --Pastor Clifford Hurst