A movie with a Harley-Davidson motorcycle led a young man in communist Czechoslovakia to flee for Canada, and eventually to faith in Christ..Milan Podsednik shared his story April 26 at the annual Full Gospel Businessmen’s banquet at the Saskatchewan legislature. The audience of 100 included a few MLAs and cabinet ministers..“I was born under communism … and I had to leave. And if you think the government cannot change things they can — to good, and to bad,” Podsednik said..“It's a dictatorship to Marx. If you think we're starting to have limitations, what we cannot say here [in Canada]. In communism, we wouldn't even think about saying anything.”.Podsednik said the first “miracle” in his story started when his mother almost died at the age of four. The local hospital could not treat her adequately, so his grandma took a train to the city. Upon arriving at the Catholic hospital, a nun noticed her and took the child to a doctor. Then the city was bombed.. Milan PodsednikMilan Podsednik .“He says, ‘Go everybody in the underground bunker,’ because the air sirens went off. ‘Me and my staff will stay on. We will do the operation because otherwise your daughter will die.’….“That hospital got hit by the bomb, but it wasn't the wing where they did the surgery, it was the wing next to it. So that’s the only reason I'm standing here today.”.Podsednik still remembers the Russian tanks arriving in 1968 to crack down against freedoms in Czechoslovakia. A bigger turning point in his life came in 1973 when he saw Electra Glide in Blue. The American action film was named for the Harley-Davidson motorcycle model police used to patrol..“The policeman was going to catch this hippie guy. And so he walks up to his motorcycle, he hits the electric start. And when that motor started in the theatre, my hair stood up on my arms. I said, ‘I'm going to have one too!’”.His dream took five years to accomplish. Finally he discovered a few Harleys had been left behind by Canadians in army surplus..“I was almost done with my apprenticeship as an electrician, but I borrowed money from everybody. I had to have it anyway. And that's how it started,” he said..“I bought my Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Like everybody says, they leak oil and they break down six months later. So, that's exactly what happened. I pulled the engine apart, and I seen all the oil. Was I ever depressed!”. Milan PodsednikMilan Podsednik .He found out parts were available in Germany, and he applied for a travel visa..“Living in communism, it's like you live in the glass cube. You can look outside but you cannot go there….“I was declined, declined, declined. Communism was horrific. If you think the real problem is the government here, you haven’t seen a communist government, yet. They're in control of everything, whatever they said, it would happen. And you have no way to say anything,” he said..After exhausting all avenues, he realized people with Communist Party memberships got approved. So he joined..“The guys hated me in the maintenance shop there, but I had the reason why I had to do it … I am not proud of some of the things that we had to do,” he said..“It started brewing inside of me, I needed to get out of there. You know when you feel that somebody's choking you and you want to take their hands off of your neck? That's how I felt.”.In 1982, he drove to the border on his motorcycle, his 18-year-old brother seated behind him. He was full of fear, afraid the guard would turn him down despite his travel visa. He ended up at a refugee camp in Austria, where a Canadian immigration official asked him why he wanted to come to Canada..“I said ‘because Christians aren’t getting prosecuted there.’ I wasn't a Christian. I just used the card. Pretty good. Pretty smooth. I didn't believe in God. And I said, ‘I want to come to Canada because I want to ride in free country, my motorcycle.’”.Podsednik and his brother received acceptance letters to Canada that said they would be settled in Fort McMurray. No one around him had a map to tell him where that even was..“I couldn’t even smile in English,” he joked..“I walked into Safeway in Fort McMurray on Monday morning, and I saw the grocery store full of meat. I never seen that in my life. You see, we used to have to go in lineup on Wednesday or Friday, they delivered at noon, they open the store at one o'clock if you were not in the lineup, you might not get nothing,” he said..“You said, ‘Well, did you starve under communism? No, because communists knew very well that you have to have the sugar, the flour … [but] nothing extra …. I tell you what communists do. They nationalize everything. Doesn't matter what you own, they will take over. If somebody wants to tell you any different, they should talk to me. I'll explain it to them how it works.”.Oil went bust in the mid-80’s and half the businesses shut down, including the previous Harley-Davidson dealer. Podsednik and his brother opened up a motorcycle shop of their own, and Podsednik slept there. He worked in the oil patch, too..Podsednik became an importer and built custom motorcycles of his own. “People thought I had everything,” he recalled, but he knew something was missing. Then he heard a question..“The voice spoke to me and asked me again, ‘Do you know where you're going to end up when you die one day?’ I was sitting in my office by myself. And it was like audible voice.” He said six months later, the same question came to him..“I didn't talk about it much, but I shoved in a lot of garbage in my previous life, a lot of harm, I hurt people. I've done things. I tell people, hey, if you were in jail, what's the difference between you and me? You got caught, I didn't.”.A friend in Fort McMurray introduced him to cocaine, but the friend’s life fell apart..“He lost his family. He lost his children. He lost his job. He left Fort McMurray. He was actually crazy, and he used to be my one of my best friends. Well, guess what? He comes back to Fort McMurray about two three years later.”.“Trooper” as he was called, was now part of the Christian Motorcycle Association..“He started visiting me. Of course, I remembered he was a bad guy. So anytime he walked in, I was taking two steps back because I didn't trust the guy, OK? But he was just glowing with this joy and he was smiling. What was he going to do? Is something wrong with this guy?”.The CMA biker rally was also unlike anything Podsednik had seen before..“The ones I used to go to, there was lots of different things going on, legal, illegal, and everything in between… We go there and guess what? There was no booze. There was no titty contest. That was kind of weird,” he recalled..“The funniest thing was there was some guys with long hair, long beards, on the other Japanese motorcycles. I couldn't get over it man. I just couldn't even talk to these guys. And one of them came on gave me a hug. First of all, he's got a Honda, and he was hugging me. That was freaking me out.”.After getting some space, he and his future wife got past their discomfort..“She goes, ‘Did you feel it? Did you feel there was something there?’ And I started thinking and I said, ‘Yes, I did.’.“She says, ‘What was it?’ I don't know. I don't know. There was something amazing, what? I couldn't describe what I felt there.”.Meanwhile, people from Harley-Davidson’s head office showed up with contracts he had to sign right then or they would revoke his license to sell their bikes..“It was like a dagger in my heart. Because Harley-Davidson on that time was my god, OK? And so what happened? My girlfriend stood up there in the meeting, and she says, ‘We’re going to go home and pray about it.’.“I almost fell down. We never prayed at home. And you know what? They said, ‘OK, we're going to meet you here in the hotel room in two days from now.’ I go, ‘What just happened?!’”.That weekend, the CMA bikers “ganged up on Podesnik” and brought him and his girlfriend to a drama at a local church called Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames. He had not been to church since he was a boy, and he only liked going to mass with his grandma because she always bought him ice cream when it was over..The host church for the drama in Fort Mac was less ornate, and someone greeted him with a hug at the door, which was “absolutely freaking me out.” A cross was on the wall but “Jesus was missing.”.“As much as I wanted to leave on the beginning, I was like glued to the seat. I didn't want to go anywhere,” he said..“That drama was the first time ever in my life I got an understanding to what happens when we die.”.Following the play, someone addressed the audience..“He says, ‘In our lives, every one of you make so many decisions. Well, there's a most important decision in your life, that every one of us has to make. .“’All of us are sinners. You accept Him or you reject Him. Then he says, Is there anybody tonight who would like to accept Jesus Christ into his heart?’”.Despite having no intention to respond, he and his girlfriend “supernaturally…stood up at the exact same split second.”.“She goes, ‘You don’t have to do it for me.’.“You know what I told her? ‘I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for myself.’”.The couple walked forward where ministers led them in a prayer to repent and receive Christ..“I repeated that prayer. Did I have any supernatural experience on that moment? No, I didn't. But I can tell you one thing from that day on, my life started changing. I tell you, if I wouldn't have done that, that moment, I would have been dead.”.The couple came to terms with God, but not with Harley-Davidson. They married and Podsednik worked in the oil patch. A few years ago, he moved to Saskatoon and got into the business of motorcycles again. Now 62, he likes to restore vintage models, as it was in the early days of his journey..Podsednik told the audience to come to Christ as they are and let him do the fixing up..“Don't wait until you're perfect. You’re never going to be perfect. None of us. There was one perfect one and they nailed Him to the cross,” he said..“The question what I have for you tonight is if you die, do you know where you’re going to be? Are you going to be in heaven or you're going to be in hell?”
