Love Ruined My Life (Part 1)

written by Laura

*This is the first installment of this story, second part to come next week.

I sat in a small room in the middle of Russia, very crowded cosy with lots of people. We had just landed that morning for a summer mission project in the city where the Romanov family was killed by the Bolsheviks.

We were meeting for introductions about the city and other things that I couldn't stay awake for. I was slipping in and out of consciousness (in a jet lagged way), but I jolted awake when I heard these words spoken to the group...

"Congratulations, you have just ruined your life!"

I was confused at first as my foggy brain tried to process this.

They went on to explain that now that we were here, that we would never be the same. That God would imprint this place and these people onto our hearts in an eternal way. We were now and forevermore knitted together with a place, people, language, and culture that was not our own.

I smiled as I realized the truth of this statement in my own life. How God had taken a small town southern girl and awakened in me a fierce love for His people in another nation. In a way this didn't just happen overnight, but in a way it did.

It all started innocently enough. Hubby and I had been married only 6 months (we were in our senior year of college) and the director of our campus ministry and his wife invited us to their house for dinner. I was so excited to spend some time with their family and Hubby was probably just excited to eat a dinner that wasn't burned or made up largely of Campbell's cream of something soup.

They fed us a yummy dinner with their sweet family. They told us they were going to live in Russia for a year (we already knew this through the grapevine). We told them we were really going to miss them (still clueless as to what was coming). Then after dessert, they dropped the bombshell. 

Then they asked us to COME with them!

I politely listened (smile and nod) while wondering if they're crazy to think that I would be good for this. I look over at Hubby and he is almost foaming at the mouth with excitement (big smiling, big nodding). Hold.the.phone. What? We had never considered this. Not even in the "back of your mind, but knowing it probably won't happen" considered.

The rest of that evening was a compete blur. I think I remember giving the old "I'll pray about it" response. My translation- "heck no, I would never in a million years think this was a good idea, but since I'm a Christian I guess I have to pray, but unless I see it spelled out in the night sky I'm thinking this can't be God's will for my life."

Fast forward three months and the "I'll pray about it" turned into "okay, I'll go for a week and see what I think".

The circumstances surrounding this week long trip were something that should only happen in a movie. The postal service lost our passports with our Russian visas (to this day they have never been found) just two days before we were supposed to leave on our transcontinental flight.

We contacted our senator, since we figured it would be pretty tough to get into another country legally without this key item. He pulled some strings (but really it was the Lord's work, lets give credit where it's due) and got us an appointment with the special issuance passport agency in Washington DC (conveniently also where our flight was leaving the country), and the Russian embassy in one day.

We left Columbia at 6 am for DC and when we arrived we were picked up by our campus director's friend (on what happened to be her first day off in months) who whisked us all around DC on this crazy adventure. We were in and out of the passport office (passports in hand) in one hour! This is where diplomats get their passports y'all! We had no business being there. Our passports say "Special Issuance Passport Agency" under place where they were issued.

At that point, it was lunchtime and we begin to think this crazy thing may actually work. But, we still had a flight leaving Dulles at 5 pm, and had to make it to the Russian embassy, through rush hour traffic, to the airport in time to go through security for an international flight, etc.

Then, we arrived all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the Russian embassy only to explain our situation to a stone-faced Russian man (I call him Boris in my mind) who quickly informed us that, "things must be done in the RIGHT way!" And we were getting the distinct impression that evidently the way we were going about it was not "the right way".

I had never experienced Russian culture before, but let me tell you, we were on Russian soil and they made sure we knew it. They took our passports, closed the window in our faces (wanted to say slammed the door, but it was actually a window) and told us very gruffly, "come back at 3:00".

So, we did all that we knew to do. Being good southerners, we went to eat.

We ate, prayed, made phone calls, and had some choice words for Boris that we shared with each other.

At 3:00, we went back to face the music. Buzzing the intercom beside the locked gate with a mixture of hope and dread, we heard nothing but static on the other end.

After what seemed like an eternity, we heard a Russian voice. They unlocked the gate and Hubby went into the building. I waited in the car praying because I knew that the Lord was truly our only hope for making this happen.

Hubby comes running out in a full sprint waving something in his hands. Our passports! I can tell by his expression that they also contain Russian visas!

We race to the airport, and are invited (by airport workers) to cut in front of the security line that wraps around the entire interior of the airport. We sprint from there to our gate and make it on board just before the plane doors are closed. Whew! It makes me tired just remembering it!

We though the adventure was over.

Then we have been in the air for about 14 total hours. We can see the light of our destination city in the distance. Finally. 

But, what's that, the pilot comes over the p.a. system and says that we won' t be able to land in our city because it is too icy and snowy on the runway. (I am thinking that with it being wintertime in Russia, I felt like they would have known this and had some sort of a plan!)

The plane turns around and heads to another city.

We arrive in Nishny- Novgorod and are put up by the airline in a hotel. I am starving by the time we finally get there from the airport.

I walk into the restaurant in the hotel and they serve me up a big slimy squid "salad". A pile of squid tentacles on a lettuce leaf really.

I was holding it together, until this moment.

I am so done with this trip.

I vow to myself that I will never EVER come back to Russia.

(I ugly cry into my squid salad.)


To be continued...