Part VI
What should I ask my Lord to provide these poor people? I'm paralyzed and overwhelmed. All I can do is ask that God surround them in His will because it is only there that they will find hope and direction. I pray that their eyes and hearts would be opened so that they might receive Jesus and, through Him, the strength to change the direction of their lives. For I know that their entire perspective must change for them to heal. They first must receive hope before they can awaken from their poverty-stricken, vodka-induced stupor to change. Why should they abandon their escape into drunkenness when there is nothing but hopelessness to greet them in their sober reality? There's no work and, where there is labor to be done, there is no pay to compensate for the sweat of their brow. What's the point? Only God knows. So I place them in His hands and beg Him to do what only He can do to save them.
Anatoli comes in from the front porch and he too talks with Natasha � or more to the point, Natasha talks to him. I can understand her telling him that God loves him. She tells him that she loves him and his family too. He gestures broadly and nearly spits his replies at her. She is not moved but continues to firmly assure him of Christ's love. Later she tells me that Anatoli said he could not accept Jesus as his Lord because his friends would laugh at him. I supposed he referred to the friends he drank with, or the friend that gave him the black eye he is now sporting. Or perhaps it's the friend from whom he contracted this foul disease he has so freely shared with his crippled, starving family.
Finally, after a short reluctant prayer, it is time to go. I quietly take my coat and smile down at my little friend. I say goodbye in my halting Russian and lift a final, desperate prayer toward heaven before rushing out their front door so that they won't see the tears forming in my eyes.
Natasha and I walk slowly and soberly toward the car waiting to take us to our final stop. I breathe a sigh of relief when we arrive at Baba Anna's house. Anna is 81 years old. She lives alone in one of the wooden houses, this one in good repair and lovingly decorated and cared for. At our urgent request, Anna escorts us to the outhouse in the back yard � it too is clean and in good repair. Returning to her little cottage, Anna provides us with soap and a basin of warm water in which we can wash our hands. She then gives us a much-welcomed cup of hot tea and home made piroshki. She also gives us each a boiled egg, colored with onion skin extract in honor of Easter.
