7 Quick Takes Friday #2

I did not really think that I would (1) have time to do the 7 quick takes today or that (2) I would have seven things to mention. I was wrong on both accounts. I love it when I am wrong about such things!

1. I might as well jump in up front with the confession: I spent a day of physical and spiritual debauchery last Saturday prior to leaving for Kiev just a couple of days later. In the morning, we picked up Doah at his group home, then he, Donnie, and I honored the invitation of one of my employees to attend an Assyrian (Chaldean) festival, associated with his church, in a city to the north of us. We had some great Middle Eastern food and managed to observe the Sheikhani (a fun but tiring circle dance associating with the town of Sheikhan) but escape before becoming a part of it. (Usually I get pulled into it, and then everyone gets to laugh at my two left feet.) We got back to our home town just in time for our Saturday Roman Catholic mass and immediately after mass left for a town to the south, about an hour away, arriving just as the sun was setting, i.e. perfect timing for iftar (the Muslim breaking of the fast – it was still Ramadan), to which we had been invited by one of the supervisors who works for me.

2. One of my colleagues traveling with me had made the arrangements at a four-star hotel here in Kiev and was excited about seeing it, getting to soak up luxury. I did not have the heart to tell her that five-star hotels here are like good (but not necessarily luxurious) hotels in the USA and four-star hotels are less than one would expect in the USA. Four stars means that you do get those little soaps and shampoos that I like to bring back to the homeless shelter (they are the perfect individual size). You also usually get a hair dryer and a real bed, not a couch-like bed. Other than that, one would not call it anything special. My colleague was disappointed, but it was about what I had expected, and I am happy because I do have access to Internet here although I have to pay by the minute.

3. I had forgotten how much walking one does in a former Soviet country. Public transportation is excellent, and you can get anywhere very inexpensively, but you do walk – between transfer stations, to/from the nearest metro, etc. Yesterday we had great difficulty finding a place we were supposed to visit because we had poor directions, and neither of our phones worked so we could not call. (With cell phones universally available, the pay phones have all but disappeared from the streets.) By my calculation, we walked more than three hours all told, and I ended up very sore. I guess I need to do more than just think about getting in shape. After all, this body belongs to God as much as it belongs to me, and I don’t want to be someone who forgot to tend God’s property!

4. For those of you who have been following the story of 19-year-old orphan Katya of Tula, she needs some help. We still do not have her in the USA where she can be helped. Everything seems to be on track, but Russia is a country where business takes place slowly. Now, she has lost much of her hearing (in addition to her sight). She must raise $1000 for the kinds of hearing aids that she needs. If you have spare change or know someone who is looking for a good cause, this young lady is a good cause. The person to contact about Katya (whose real name is Tatyana Tusova) is Ken Wilcox at Orphan Cry.

5. If I had any doubt that sitting beside Maxim (the Ukrainian who thought I was Russian and then, realizing that I was a foreigner in a somewhat unknown land, offered to have his driver take me and my colleagues to the hotel after dropping him off) on the plane was pure coincidence, then that doubt was removed this morning, when the driver, Volodya, popped up out of nowhere as we were leaving the hotel. He happened to be driving by and stopped to confirm that we wanted to be picked up at 4:00 in the morning tomorrow as we had indicated when he dropped us off two days ago. Volodya’s surprise appearance comforted us because we had found that our cell phones for some reason do not work here even though they were supposedly turned out and had not been able to reach Volodya to confirm while running around town. We would have called from the hotel in the evening, but we did not have to; here was Volodya in person! While we could also have called a cab from the hotel, knowing that we will not have to deal with an unknown company in the middle of the night but will have someone reliable waiting for us is one of those extra-nice spoiling I seem to get from God from time to time without knowing why. I did not do anything to deserve anything special, but what a nice feeling to have it happen!

6. The next thing I have to do before tumbling into bed this evening early in order to leave at oh-dark-hundred is to translate a letter Fr. Julio sent to me from Colombia. It won’t take long; it is an update to the sponsors of children in Colombia. (And, by the way, Padre Julio is always looking for more sponsors as there are many children in need of help in Colombia.)

7. And now I am going to stop so I can translate the letter and get some sleep for my wee-hours-of-the-morning trip. Germany, here I come!

In the event that I am incommunicado over the weekend, I wish all of you a great weekend – restful and spirit-filled!

Monday Morning Meditation #8: Certainly, God Will Be With Us

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.

Katya of Tula

Is anyone following -- or interested in -- the story of Katya from Tula, the blind orphan I have been trying to pry out of Russia, which is similar to the story of Shura, the spina bifida boy from Siberia whose story is chronicled throughout Part I of Best Atheist. I began the story of Katya in Part II of Blest Atheist, but the book came out before Katya's story was finished. We left Katya in the process of getting a visa from the US Embassy in Russia, no easy task but one that had seemed to be facilitated by my trip to Russia last August.

Today I learned two very heartwarming facts. First, the lady who adopted Katya's younger brothers has completed all the paperwork for sponsoring Katya to live with her in the United States. Second, all the medical records have been assembled and reviewed. We had hoped that once Katya got to the USA she could receive excellent palliative care, her care being hit and miss at the moment in Russia although she has a wonderful nurse/caretaker there who really cares about her. Then, looking at old records, the doctors at Tufts, who would be the ones to care for Katya, thought that perhaps the terminal diagnosis, particularly the 5-year timeframe, was not the inevitable outcome. Today, with all the medical records updated and available, it was determined that all of Katya's tumors are benign.

Bottom line: Katya will be coming to the USA to live, not to die!

- e mahlou