Russian
family Bible study
We started the YWAM team and I joined them in
the preparatory work, made some cross charms and invitation cards, and when the
school started, I became a teacher of two children of a Canadian couple,
teaching crafts, watching the children and supervising their homework so that
their parents could concentrate on completing the DTS program.
I really couldn't get any ministry from YWAM
because the husband and wife repeatedly told me to find a ministry on my own,
and then I went to a children's hospital with a Salvation Army female
missionary to visit some of the children in pain and play games with them.
After my prayers, I decided to go to the children's Sunday school, and I asked
a sister Laura, who was studying at an African medical school, to be a Russian
translator for me, and I had no problem telling Bible stories in English, but I
could only communicate in Russian, but I could not tell Bible stories in
Russian alone, and Laura was happy to accompany me to the hospital, where the
director of the blood cancer hospital smiled when she heard that we were going
to teach Sunday school on Friday morning; Nodding his head to say yes to what
we asked, and encouraging us to pray for children with blood cancer, so that
God's love is shared among us.
Every Friday morning, I take two buses to the
hospital, which was donated by the Germans, and the average sick child stays in
the hospital for two weeks, and then goes back for two weeks to rest and relive
their lives. Some children have blood cancer in infancy, and the older the
onset of blood cancer, the faster they die, and the average child rarely lives
past the age of 18. Every time Laura waited for me at the entrance of the
hospital, the two of us seemed to go with a sense of mission, Laura took the
children to sing hymns, and then I told Bible stories in English, which Laura
translated into Russian, then prayed, and finally did the craft. “One time I
brought a laptop and a printer, and the reaction of the sick child hit my
heart, we made computer cards, and then printed them out of colored paper, and
then folded them into cards, and each of them asked me to write "God heals
me”, and my tears flowed from me, and my joy was left to them, so that they
still had hope for healing, which was my sincere hope, and what I did with
Laura was helpful to these sick children. At the end of each Sunday school,
Laura and I would sit next to the ward to pray for the sick children and their
families.
Once, when we came to the hospital room of this
14-year-old boy, and Laura was talking to his mother, a Russian Orthodox woman,
God said to me, “Rebecca, why don't you ask this boy if he wants to be a
believer?” I said, “Lord! He's still sleeping...?” While I was still talking,
he woke up with a drip or needle on the back of his hand, and his mother told
us, “He couldn't eat for a long time because his gums were swollen and his face
was swollen,” and the boy begged his mother to hug him, who managed to hold him
because there were too many lines. God said to me, “Ask him quickly.” I asked
the 14-year-old boy, “Will you believe Jesus?” He said, “Da (yes)!” Then I
asked him, “Will you bear witness to the Lord Jesus?” He replied, “Da!” So,
before he lay down to go to bed again, he told Laura that the boy liked our
Sunday school so much that he had only attended it twice because he was sick.
Both Laura and I would like to visit the boy and his mother again because we were
both busy with different things, Laura was busy with her studies, and my home was
hosting a Canadian missionary and a Georgian sister.
At a Russian family gathering on Thursday night,
we sang “This is God's day, and we rejoice in it...”, and God said to me, “This
boy is dead...,” and I ran to the toilet crying, complaining that I hadn't gone
to see him, and God encouraged me with Revelation 21:4, “God will wipe away all
his tears. There will be no more death, nor mourning, nor wailing, nor pain.”
Then my heart was comforted.
On Friday morning, when Laura and I went to
Sunday school again, I asked about the 14-year-old boy, and the hospital staff
told me, “He's gone.” Then I said, “When are you leaving?” She responded, “Gone
last night.” That's when God spoke to me, and He said, “He was taken away by
the Lord.” Fighting back tears, I was about to leave when the employee
continued, “When his mother left, she told her that she had faith in Jesus and
that she was going back to take care of her three sons at home.” I wonder what
happened to this 14-year-old boy when he was picked up? But I believe there
must have been a great testimony that made his mother willing to believe, and
that he used his last short life to testify about the Lord that I could not
have done.
Whenever my faith in the Lord was weak, this
14-year-old boy with blood cancer was always my encouragement and my motivation
to move forward. I also learned to obey the word of the Lord and do what Jesus
wanted me to do. May our testimony be like a cloud that draws some into the
name of the Lord, which is what we will put on the table of our lives.
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