Another week has passed, and in slow manner, I have finished another chapter. Moses has now grown up and is tending sheep when he sees a bush on fire but not being consumed. Intrigued, he checks it out to find God there with a tasking for him. What is it that they say about curiosity? Well, I'm sure God would have found him one way or another, anyway. I have learned that when God has a tasking for you, there is no way out except to do it, and that seems to be what Moses found out.
Moses found out something else, too: if God tasks us, we have help. God never abandons us to carry out the tasking unaided. Obviously taken aback and feeling inadequate to the task, Moses asked God, "Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?" to which God replies, "Certainly, I will be with thee."
Reading: Exodus 3: 11-12.
Meditation: Reading this passage, I immediately recalled the moment 16 years ago that I was tasked with rescuing a dying child artist from a remote little townlet in Siberia. Shura, a young teenager with spina bifida in a part of the world that had nearly no antibiotics, was already a published author and artist when I first heard about him. He had had two exhibits of his art work at the renown Dom uchenykh (House of Scientists), and a documentary film had been made of his life. I have no idea what Shura's role is supposed to be in this world. Nor does he. However, God clearly wants him alive. The number of miracles, serendipities, and downright people-pushing that God did on Shura's behalf is mind-boggling. I cannot relate them all here because there are so many. I will at some future time (not distant future) post Shura's fuller story on The Clan of Mahlou blogspot, but that will have to wait for now because the story has so many details. The story is the framework for the first two parts (of three) of Blest Atheist; obviously, it is a complex story. (Where God gets so highly involved, I don't think complexity and mystery is avoidable.)
Here are the major ones:
1. I was introduced to Shura's plight by his godmother in a serendipitous meeting in Krasnoyarsk, where she was the head of a delegation of teachers from Shura's home town, Akademgorodok, who attended a two-week seminar I was teaching at the behest of the Siberian Regional Ministry of Education. It turns out that we had a common mentor -- my consultant at the Academy of Sciences in Akademgorodok had been her graduate advisor at Novosibirsk State University.
2. It quickly became clear that I was supposed to take care of Shura. God did not seem to care that I was an atheist at the time. He tasked me, and I had no choice but to obey. (Well, I suppose I did have a choice, but I kept getting pushed so hard that I simply became caught up in a whirlwind of miracles with no time to think about backing out -- some of that story can be found in an excerpt from my book on Mahlou Musings.) People would tell me that I was being used. When I would remonstrate that this was not possible because I was an atheist and believed that everything that was happening was a matter of coincidence, they would tell me to hush and just keep following along, and basically that is what I did, not even knowing why I did it.
3. God prepared me with the basic skills I would need: the ability to speak Russian (at one time, my major in graduate school) and the knowledge of spina bifida care (my younger daughter Noelle being a child with spina bifida). In fact, Noelle's doctor in Washington, DC was the person who was most instrumental in helping to get Shura into the US, filling out all the embassy's medical documentation. Clearly God started that preparation long before I ever heard about Shura, who was born half a world away a year after Noelle.
4. When the consular officer at the US Embassy refused to give Shura a visa, two diplomats stepped forward on my behalf (for Shura). They were my former students. More pre-planning?
5. When US hospitals would not operate on Shura without a $50K deposit and evidence that we would be able to pay the anticipated $500K bill (it turned out to be closer to a million dollars), we went looking for funds and were directed to a billionaire, John Kluge, who responded with a check for $500K (and later with another for the same amount) and tickets to the hospital of his choice, University of Virginia Hospital. We later learned that we had sent our plea to an unforwardable address in Virginia (a follow-up thank-you letter was returned to us), and yet within three days Mr. Kluge had received it at his correct address in New York. Moreover, the clinic coordinator at UVA Hospital was a former art instructor -- she recognized Shura's talent and was able to get him a residency at the Virginia Center for Creative Arts. She also took him into her home when it became clear that he would be spending more time in Virginia than in California; she had a son the same age, and the two boys became friends. During his stay in the hospital and after, Shura was befriended by a cardiac surgeon from the Ukraine who spoke Russian and was on an internship at UVA Hospital. The surgeon acted as Shura's interpreter and advocate and, later, American father. He even got eventually got US residency although that had seemed impossible when we first met him. Hah! Nothing turned out to be impossible in Shura's case. I have found that when God lets you be part of His miracles, the word, impossible, disappears from your vocabulary.
6. At a Tuesday evening pre-surgery moleibin (special intentions prayer during mass) for Shura at the Russian Orthodox Church in Washington DC, we met the overseer of the INS. He had worked late, knew that there was a mass that day, and "for some reason" felt compelled to stop in on his way home. He had not been in that church for over a year because he had moved his residence to Baltimore and attended church there. I am told that since that evening 16 years ago he has not been back. This wonderful man introduced himself after the mass, gave us his card, and offered to help in any way and ultimately assisted in getting Shura the long-term permission to stay in the USA that he needed to ensure his good health. We thought that he was a very special Good Samaritan. We only learned how very special he was several months ago with the publication of a book about an unusual icon and the identification of this man's son as the recipient of an incredible miracle. The boy had become blind, and his parents, ethnically Jews and spiritually atheists, were desperate to help him in any way possible. Grasping for straws, when they heard that the icon that weeps myrrh and causes healing would be at a church nearby (the same church that conducted Shura's moleibin), they took their son there. Myrrh flowed and gushed onto the floor. The priest anointed the boy's eyes with it, and the boy saw. The parents converted on the spot. Years later, the father was able to pass on God's blessing to his blind son by helping Shura, the lame son of another man.
There is much more to the story and even a follow-on story of a blind orphan with brain tumors who will be coming to the US as a result of her benefactor learning about Shura, contacting me, and my experience in working visas through the embassy coming to the rescue. The Russian doctors had given Katya of Tula only five years to live, and she wanted to die with relatives, the only ones she has being two brothers who were adopted by a family in New Hampshire a dozen years ago. Just when it seemed that it would be impossible to bring Katya to the USA all of the key players (the benefactor, me, my connections with and at the US Embassy, and Katya's nurse) all ended up in Moscow last August 6. None of us knew in advance that any of the others would be there, and I personally had earlier had no reason to go to Moscow, but suddenly I was needed as a consultant for an educational matter there. Subsequently, when Katya's Russian doctor refused to sign the paperwork to allow her to travel, that doctor mysteriously disappeared from the clinic and a new, more helpful doctor appeared in her place. Katya will be here soon, and now, after consultation with doctors in Boston, it appears that she may be coming to the USA not to die but to live. The doctors in Boston think that they can remove all the tumors.
There is too much complexity to these stories to include all the details here. I would simply ask two questions: (1) Could anyone of sound mind claim that all of these things were mere coincidence? and (2) assuming that this was a tasking from God, is there any doubt that He kept the same promise that He made to Moses: "Certainly, I will be with thee."
And that is far as I can go with you on this Monday morning. I must retire to prayer to ask God to keep using me for these marvelous plans of His to help the people of this world for I so very much enjoy being part of those plans, to express my regret for any and all pushes, nudges, and opportunities that I have missed as a result of my sometimes contrary and somewhat obtuse nature, to give thanks for these waves of miracles which God has washed over so many people in the cases of Shura and Katya alone, and to offer praise for the unimaginably skillful way in which God works to bring good from bad, to network dozens of people and institutions to help just one injured lamb, and to make the unbelievable real.
After that, I will spend some time in contemplation with this wonderful God who does not care who we are, who will use even an atheist to help the hurt and lost, who equips us to accomplish whatever task He has set before us, and who is with us every step of the way, moving forests, mountains, and every other obstacle so that we might complete His tasking successfully and in full confidence that our trust in Him is never misplaced.
I will now leave you to your prayer and contemplation.
If you pick this up as a weekly devotional activity, please share with me and others your own thoughts about the message of Exodus 3: 11-12 or any other scripture that you choose for meditation. Feel free to export the image of the mission church; maybe some time in the near future my Internet-inept self will be able to figure out how to use the Mr. Linky buttons. In the interim, perhaps you are welcome to use the image and share the meme of Monday Morning Meditation for starting out the work week closer to God.
Have a good day and a blessed week, filled with all good things -- and may God task you with something wonderful! No need to fear: He will be with you. He has promised it.
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