God used the time of Daniel’s recovery in the hospital in
many ways. The first Sunday of January,
two days before Ukrainian Christmas, our family was finding it very difficult
to pull ourselves out of bed to go to church.
Our thoughts at that time were more focused on counting down the time
until we could return to America. We
wanted our safe, American, Christian bubble of constant spiritual nourishment. We
wanted our closest friends and church family who also strive to live
God-honoring lives. We wanted
desperately to get away from the subculture of aged-out orphans whose gray
world is full of blatant, immoral lives. Lives including abortions, alcoholics,
sexually driven teenagers, constant foul language, and images of violence and
sex that run rampant while they seem to be trying to imitate the western world.
We were frustrated because we knew
Christians live here in the region, but they cannot be found nearby and even if
we did know believers nearby, it felt pointless meeting with them since-- outside
of one brother in the Lord (which we are very grateful for)-- we couldn’t
easily communicate with them. Honestly,
we just wanted our comfort again, and we were clouded by Satan’s lies-- lies
that we had chosen to believe.
We tried to stay the course, but we were obviously being
heavily tested with the cold weather and cabin fever (especially difficult for
an American family since we are so accustomed to jumping in a car and finding
refuge from our unhappy lives by going shopping or to a restaurant or on a
vacation to Disney World). We were stuck
and trapped. Not so much trapped by our
surroundings, but trapped by our choice to slip into selfishness which led us
even further, into depression. I felt
like ‘Christian’ in John Bunyan’s book Pilgrims Progress when he
was held captive in the castle of Great Despair. (I’m hoping that reference is
accurate by memory since I do not have the book with me.)
Then came that day, two days before Christmas, when we had
three teens with us, all of our children, musical instruments, and a tray of
Christmas cookies, all to arrive at church at 9am. We needed that day three taxis instead of our
usual two. It was an annoying Sunday
morning to say the least. We really
didn’t want the teens at the house.
It’s difficult inviting kids over to love them time after time when
their intentions are only to take advantage of you and they are so obvious
about it. You can only hope that by the
end of the weekend, they are back on track and reminded that we really do love
them. We had to drag them out of bed
minutes before the taxis arrived. Church was extra crowded and about two thirds
of the way through the service Daniel started complaining about pain in his
side. I chalked it up to complaining
because he was not getting enough attention over the weekend. (Another invalid
complaint I had…Why did God want a mother and father with eight children to
help these young adults who require so much attention?) He had been acting
whiny and tired for two days. I told
myself that we would recuperate as a family as soon as we had the teens back at
their schools or workplace. Which is
often our normal way of handling times like this. Then after about his third or fourth time of
expressing he had pain-- each time his cries getting louder and longer-- the
entire church service was stopped. The Babushka
(“grandmother”) closest to me told me he must have appendicitis. Then she told the church and everyone said he
needs to go to the hospital immediately.
Next, everyone prayed over him and one of the preachers, Dennis, drove us
right over to the hospital.
At that point I wanted more answers. I wanted to understand why God was doing
this. Was this more torture? Was he punishing us through Daniel because of
our state of hardened hearts toward the ‘difficult’ situation we were in?
Then to make matters worse, once the nurses and surgeon
explained to us that our little boy did indeed have appendicitis, the surgeon
cold-heartedly told us that only one of us could stay with Daniel! He said that there was no need for us to be
there! And that only Jennifer should
stay since she was the only one who could adequately understand the
language. That did it for me! I lost it!
In my mind I was thinking a very unkind, unloving, ungodly thought..., So
typical of these heartless .............. people.
Treating children like animals as if there was no need of love from a
mother’s touch and soothing voice. No
wonder these children we are ministering to are such heartless derelicts. I looked at Mike and with a broken heart I
said, “I can’t do this anymore. I’m
done. I can’t leave him here alone. I hate this! I hate it here!” The tears came
rolling down and I walked out of the hospital fully intending to walk to the
airport in Kyiv or freeze to death trying.
Within minutes, Mike came out of the hospital. Apparently
Dennis gently explained to the surgeon that ‘A mother is a mother.’ At these words, a cultural barrier seemed to
be broken. The surgeon was able to see
us for who we were…strangers in a foreign land leaving our little boy in the
hands of people we can’t understand or even know if we can trust. He said we could stay.
All trust was then handed over to God. Whatever was God’s will for Daniel, blessed
be the name of the Lord.
From that point on, thank God, we no longer had time to feel
sorry for ourselves. I was reminded of 1
Corinthians where the Bible says God provides a way out of all
tests. We knew we were in a bad place
spiritually before this all happened, but we were just waiting and praying for
a way out.
As soon as the operation was over, Daniel was moved to a room
with two other patients. One was a
thirteen year old boy who also had an appendectomy, and the other, an older man
who had a leg amputation. Both of these
other patients had a family member staying in the room 24/7 to help care for
their loved one.
Once we were all settled in, Mike began receiving calls from Christians
we know in the Region-- and not all calls were regarding Daniel. Those who called Mike without a knowledge of Daniel’s
situation, upon hearing the news, came to visit with us, pray for Daniel and
encourage us. Was God using this
experience to bring us closer to the Body which we so longed to be in
fellowship with?
Amazingly, the week Daniel was in the hospital was the same
week that two American, English-speaking missionaries were in our little town,
one of whom we met the year before, and the other, a pastor from
Mississippi! Both of them came to the
hospital.
The first to visit was Bo, the Mississippi pastor. He entered our room one evening with two other
people to share ‘about God.’ At that
point, I was staying with Daniel in the hospital. Daniel was just capable of walking to the
bathroom and asked minutes earlier if he could use the facilities. As we began to walk out, Bo walked in. I wasn’t sure if he was a Christian or a Jehovah
Witness. I excused us and said we’d be
back in a few minutes. On the way down
the hall I told Daniel that I didn’t know if they were Christians or not but
when we get back, we will just listen politely and have fun trying to see if
they are Christians by what they are teaching.
Daniel liked the idea very much.
Once we returned, Daniel climbed back in bed. We listened carefully and then Daniel nudged
my arm. “Mom,” he said smiling and
nodding his head, “I’m pretty sure they are Christians.” I smiled back encouraged by my sons
understanding and said, “Yes, I think so too!”
It was interesting watching the reactions of the people in
the room. Some of the listeners were
polite, some were considering what was being said, and yet another became a
little hostile. At first I didn’t know
what to make of the experience. What is
fair to ‘corner’ the patients in their room along with their family
members? I think so. God uses all things for His glory.
What I could see was the elderly patient’s eyes. He must have had the end of his years on his
mind. He wanted to hear more. But his son was the hostile one and his
behavior swayed his father and the young teenage boy who was the other patient
in the room. The boy’s mom remained
quiet and did not want to share her thoughts for what seemed like fear of how
she would be viewed after Bo left. As
for Daniel and I, it was obvious now that we were ‘one of them’-- Christians who had the ‘weird joy thing.’ I wondered how we would be treated once Bo
and his friends left and moved on to other rooms. I wondered if all these layers and layers of
‘perfect timing of Daniel’s being sick’ would also play into the lives of the
two other patients in the room. In the
days to follow, we believe, yes, God was not only using this week to minister
to our family but also simultaneously to minister to these two other families.
After Bo shared the full Gospel, I told him how thankful I
was personally to be sitting in a room where God led an English speaking
Christian to share the Gospel after being parched for Christian
conversation. He proceeded to explain
that another Christian downstairs who works at the hospital told him to come to
this room and pray with us since she knew we were here. What joy!
I have tears writing this because she knew we were in the hospital, but
we did not know about her. It’s a
reminder of Matthew
25:40, that a sister in the Lord would take care of us and in turn
it is as if caring for the Lord Himself.
Earlier that day, which was actually Ukraine’s Christmas and
long before Bo arrived, Daniel and the other children each received an Operation
Christmas Child shoebox. This
was a huge blessing since we had nothing to give the children due to Dan’s
operation. After everyone but Daniel
opened their box at home, we all agreed to take items from each of their boxes
along with some things from our ministry supplies to make a box especially for
the boy that was staying in the room with Daniel. We included in the boy’s box a very good
Russian translation of Scripture written in comic strip style.
Finally, later that evening, Mike arrived to spend the night
with Daniel. I didn’t tell him about Bo
until a day later mainly to prevent the possibility of quenching the Spirit
when Mike offered the boy his shoe box. : )
Daniel was so relieved to get his shoebox because of such
boredom-- and so was the boy! He and his
mom were a bit skeptical since people don’t give things away here and
especially after finding out about us being some of ‘those Christians.’ The boy looked through all the goodies
packed inside and finally came across the Bible story book. His mom looked through the book and didn’t
say much. Then I noticed she made a
phone call. She must have called a
friend, someone who would be able to answer her questions about this ‘box’ and
the ‘book’ that was inside. Whatever she
was told, she was pleasantly surprised with the answers she was receiving. I could tell because she kept saying ‘Slava
Bohu’ (Praise God) . . . words I hadn’t heard her say in prior days. Something special and mysterious was happening
in her life and we couldn’t tell what, but we could tell she was no longer
afraid of us or what we might say. God put
Daniel, our family, and Bo AND the hospital worker in her life that week to
teach her and her son more about God.
It was a joy to see God working.
As for the older man, he seemed more kind and longing to talk
after Bo left that night. When his son
was not around, he made eye contact with me and smiled kindly. Mike felt convicted to give him more
information about Jesus when his son was not in the room. He accepted it. Pray for this man and especially his son who
said to Bo during his visit, “I believe in Me!” We plan to mail the old man a photo of him
and his son from the hospital and also send him more literature since he spent
most of his time reading while in the hospital.
Since then, we found out that the surgeon who operated on Daniel
is actually the head surgeon and in charge of the hospital. He met with us and was extremely kind to us
and sensitive to our lack of understanding all things about Ukrainian medical
care. We rejoiced at this opportunity to
meet with him. It has been on our hearts
to help those without who are patients in the hospital-- especially young
mothers with newborn babies.
We have been renewed by the fact that many people in our
village felt our sense of helplessness with our young child being operated on,
and at the mercy of people we do not know or understand (or so it seemed). The taxi men are so wonderful and the people
at the supermarket seemed especially understanding as well.
Mostly though, we have been renewed by the promise that God
never changes. Although our spirits were
low and we were falling apart, Christ brought us back to the fold. Thankfully we who call Jesus Christ our Lord
and Savior know that “there is no pit so deep that God’s love is not deeper
still” (Betsie ten Boom).
May those of you who do not know Jesus Christ find peace in
Him today. He loves you and wants you
and is waiting to give you peace beyond all understanding. If He is willing to forgive me for my
complaining heart and care for my young son when I felt most helpless, then I
know He is equally willing to forgive and help you.
Final Note: as for those 'heartless derelicts' I spoke about earlier. They are just people with broken lives. Who will help them? Is it too inconvenient for us to stay and keep trying to be Christ to them? Well, as selfish as I have admitted being...my heart still breaks at the thought of leaving them. They are worthy of love, they are equally worthy of Christ's love. ...and as this picture reveals, they ARE seeing Christ in us, despite our failures. See caption below this pic...
 |
| One of the teens we are ministering to sent this picture me last week. He left no explanation....only the picture. The day earlier he wrote to me how much it meant to him that I was a 'kind soul'. I can't type this without crying... these words coming from someone so bound to darkness and immoral peer pressure. I do not want to leave here...cold, misery and potential civil war and all...by God's grace alone, I'd rather stay. We all see the good in staying...to serve God. Pray God will show us the way. |
