64. Russia with me

 

Marina and I

In 1993, when I was attending New Zealand, Disciple Training School, DTS staff asked the students to pray quietly and decide to go on a mission trip to Russia, India, and New Zealand. One day, during lunch time, my heart was at war with God, and the food on the lunch plate was scattered on the ground, so I ran to my room to fast and pray, and finally decided to obey God's will - to go to Russia.

Both the Indian and Russian groups went to Auckland in the South Island, and we both helped with the Youth With A Mission camp, and I was helping the kids so that their parents could gather service in peace, and my ministry was to take some of the little girls around 10 to the toilet and bring them back to the meeting ground, and I helped the kids with their crafts, and over the course of a few days, I had built a good relationship with the staffs and the kids.

When we entered Russia, in the small town of Tuapse near the Black Sea, we lived in an elementary school as a dormitory, and the local schoolchildren climbed through the window and looked inside at the blonde ladies of the United States and New Zealand, and when we went out, a group of schoolchildren surrounded us, some gave gifts, some followed us everywhere. We were required to bring two rolls of toilet paper, and when I had no toilet paper, I would buy yellow, rough Russian toilet paper, and in a week, my butt would be scratched, and I would sit on a chair and scream mournfully. American and New Zealand girls were smart and they didn't have to take out their toilet paper for public use, so they didn't have butt pains.

The Russians are very poor, but they are very hospitable to us, they take out everything for us to eat and drink, Russian tea is very sweet, kill the sugar sellers, they put a third of the sugar in it, the sugar does not dissolve, until the last few sips of tea, it is drinking sugar water.

We were in Tuapse, we went to some school performances, we went to the market to hand out leaflets, we held service in bars, etc., and I was assigned to witness every time, and I was not very good at acting in skits, so I could only say that my English was really bad at that time, and I spoke it badly, but I tried my best to bear witness to the Lord.

One day, I found myself constipated, or I had white nematodes in the stool I pulled out, and I felt like I was alive and couldn't sleep every night because a voice said to me, “You can't leave Russia alive.” So, I got out of bed, went into the kitchen, got on my knees and cried, "God, take me home, I'm going to go back alive...."

It had been almost seven weeks since we arrived in Russia, and we would be leaving. I have been constipated for a long time, my lower abdomen was getting bigger and bigger, I have to spend a lot of time squatting in the toilet, a New Zealand sister learned the sound I made when I squatted in the toilet, and when I went back to the dormitory, in front of other DTS female classmates, she learned my voice in the toilet, and they laughed at me together. There were 10 of us in this short-term mission team, we only share a toilet, and there was a long queue every morning, and if we stayed in it for a long time, we would be ridiculed or criticized, I really couldn't see the aroma of Christians coming here, we were just a bunch of nasty people, but Jesus loves us so much, I tried to be a good handmaiden, but I failed, because people were really difficult to get along with.

The girls in the small town of Tuapse were very nice to the American girls, New Zealand and England, and they were also good to a Taiwan lady, and when we left on the train, some of the Christians who saw us off shouted the names of these Western girls, and they ignored them, but I jumped off the train and said, "God says I'll go back again." I am the only one who knows how to repay the kindness and may the hearts of us as Christians warm their passionate hearts by the light of Jesus, and may God Himself reward them for what they have done to us.

The spiritual atmosphere in the small town of Tuapse was so bad that I had a headache that almost exploded every day, and the same as the missionaries who had come to Russia to preach. Once, when I went to the hospital to pray for a woman, Marina translated for me, and I prayed first for a woman in the ward, and she said to the woman in the room, “My prayer is powerful.” After that, I prayed for the women in the ward one by one.

The second time, Marina took me to a women's and children's hospital, where the director refused to allow us to pray for women and newborn babies, and we were forced to come out, so I took Marina around the hospital to pray, like the Israelites went around the city of Jericho, at first Marina prayed in Russian very quietly and frightened, and in the fourth circle, Marina prayed boldly in Russian, and the women and staffs in the hospital looked at these two mad women, and I didn't care anymore, I would rather be crazy for the Lord than compromise with this world of ideas. May the Lord raise up His own work!

Later, Marina was also sent by the Church of Tuapse to preach the gospel in other parts of Russia, and we prayed together, she was going to Africa, I was going to Russia, but God sent me to Africa again, and Marina made up for my lack in Russia. God! You're wonderful!