Traugot Frantsevich

However, the nature of this fact would be interesting to figure out as well. Why do we need to sleep? Why on earth when the night comes, people can’t keep their eyes open and after some time completely disconnect from reality? Why can’t we just relax, sit for a while, lie down, read something useful, take our minds off things and go back to business in a few hours? Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way. If people don’t sleep for a long time, they can fall asleep not only sitting down or standing, but even walking.

But let’s take this question off the table. There’s no point discussing it, because people have slept, sleep and will sleep. No matter how long you will explain to them the economic benefit of insomnia – as soon as it gets dark, people will yawn, look at the clock, lock the door tightly and bury themselves in the cloud of their beds.

The question I want to discuss today is not about sleeping, it’s about dreams. How do they happen? After falling asleep, we miraculously find ourselves in a different world, where we see some events, people, animals, houses, streets, cities, nature, we go somewhere, do something, get excited, or worry about some problems. In their dreams, people can fly like birds, or fall from heights, run after or from someone… Dreams can be kind and bright, putting you in a good mood for the whole day, or the other way around: it can take us a long time to calm down after a nightmare. There are so many different things you can see, falling into a fantastic and mysterious world of dreams!

And indeed, dreaming is an issue shrouded by numerous mysteries. They say, there was an Institute of Dreams in the USSR, that studied this phenomenon, but for obvious reasons was kept in secret.

From history we can see that ancient people actively studied this matter. In court of every self-respecting king there was a whole staff of fortune-tellers, clairvoyants, dream-interpreters, that were often referred to with a generic word “wisemen”. We must admit, that in our knowledgeable 21st century, despite big steps made in science, we can’t brag about any special achievements in this area. There are still a lot of blank spots in the study of dreams, that help plenty of modern “wisemen” make a living, the same as thousands of years ago.

               But as they say, there is no smoke without fire. Dreams are definitely not as simple as they may seem. In the eternal Bible we find evidence that in many cases God did use dreams as a means of delivering information to people. He also helped His prophets interpret them. Suffice it to mention Daniel and Nebuchadonosor, Joseph and Pharaoh and many other stories. Therefore, we have reason to believe that some dreams are not just fantastical creations of our tired brain, but are in fact prophetic.

         I happened to hear a lot of incredible stories about dreams, and I think, any person can recall something similar from their own experiences. Even the Soviet press, that, as you may know, was very reluctant to publish something on such topics, occasionally mentioned mysterious dreams.

         Anyway, about twenty years ago, I myself came across the story of an amazing dream that I want to tell you about.

         It all started when in the very prime of my life I got married. Then it turned out, that from her childhood, my wife had been dreaming about a first-born daughter. Maybe because she was the first-born in her family and knew very well how much easier it is for the mother, when there is an older daughter to help her around the house. Or she just wanted our family to be like her mom and dad’s – I’m not sure. All I know is that she really wanted our first baby to be a girl.

         Things worked out exactly like she wanted – but exactly the opposite. Our first baby was a son Nikolay. In any case, the first child is a special kind of joy for parents. And my wife Lyuba, immersed in activities for new moms, cheered up quickly from the disappointment of her first born not being a girl, saying to herself: okay, we’ll wait, the second child will definitely be a girl. The name for her had already been chosen – Sveta.

Unfortunately, that time too fate intended otherwise. After a while, our son Sergey was born (to this day, his aunts on occasion call him Sveta). And again, it didn’t come as a shock, and everything promptly went back to normal. A mother will always be a mother, plus our second baby turned out to be wonderful as well. Lyuba started looking at me with pride: “So? Are you happy with my work? Two sons in a row, it’s not a walk in the park. It’s a serious achievement!”

The story of our third child’s birth took an even more interesting turn. That time, Lyuba decided not to let things take their own course, but to achieve her coveted goal with faith. So she started preparing various children’s accessories in advance and of exclusively pink color with lace, flowers, cats, butterflies, all kinds of little hang-down decorations and other baby girl attributes. Without a shadow of a doubt, Lyuba told everyone around that we were expecting a girl Christine (at that time Sveta already turned into Christine).

The outcome of these efforts was as one unwritten rule goes: butter toast always lands buttered side down. We had a boy again! And what a boy he was! Over 11 pounds and with the most masculine features! He was big, swarthy, loud, with a large nose, full Paul Robeson’s lips, husky voice and puffy eyelids surrounding small slits of eyes. We named him Valera.

Try to picture this astounding image. His frowning masculine face with a big pink pacifier, drowning in pink and white foam of lace, peeping out of a baby carriage, decorated with pink flowers. It was too late to change anything. In those “good old days” it was rather expensive and very difficult to get baby products in the Soviet Union; most of them, moms had to sew themselves. So Valera was growing up in pink crawlers and undershirts, surrounded by pink rattles, pacifiers and bottles, etc.

At first, our friends and acquaintances, seeing the girlish color of our baby’s clothes, asked innocently: “What’s her name?” And having heard the name, they would stand for a long time with a Mona Lisa smile frozen on their faces, perplexedly looking from the baby’s frowning eyebrows to his delicate pink and white overalls.

After Valera was born, we didn’t have kids for a long six years. And then one day, I found out that we were expecting a baby. This time there were no efforts on Lyuba’s part to achieve any particular result. Perhaps, the previous unsuccessful attempts made her resign herself to her fate, or maybe she just hadn’t made a new battle plan yet, but soon I had an amazing dream that once again obliterated her hopes.

I dreamed about a woman with a baby of about six months sitting on her lap. At this age, babies already have distinct facial features. Personally, I still don’t understand how you can see individual features in babies that are just a few days old. When delighted mothers, aunts and grandmothers crowd around a newborn and talking over each other say that he has his father’s nose, his mother’s eyebrows, his grandfather’s ears and his grandmother’s lips, I can’t see any of that for the life of me. They look all the same to me, as do Koreans. But when a child approaches six months of age, that’s another story. It all becomes clear as day.

The baby in my dream was not a newborn, and already had a recognizable face. The woman was sitting with her back to me, and the child was facing me sitting on her lap. Looking over her shoulder and holding on to her dress, the baby looked me in the eye. I couldn’t see the woman’s face, so I’m not sure if it was my wife, but I definitely remember the baby’s face. I had never seen it before, but due to some sixth sense I knew it was my child.

On the following morning, recalling my wife’s efforts to give birth to a girl, resulting in Valery, and to prevent unnecessary excitement, I decided to deliver the news immediately.

-        Lyuba, I want to tell you something. We are going to have another boy. I dreamed about him last night.

               Deep down, I was a little afraid that it would make Lyuba upset, but, to my surprise, she took it very calmly. By that time, we hadn’t had children for six years, so we really wanted a child.

         I told her my dream in detail. She only asked:

-        Who did he look like?

-        You know, Lyuba, he will have unusual features, but more than others he is similar to our Nikolay.

I wish to point out here that as children our sons were very different from each other. It was impossible to confuse them. Therefore, the fact that the baby from my dream resembled Nikolay already spoke volumes.

Looking ahead, I want to say that after all, following this child we did have a daughter. We named her Victoria, which means “victory”. By that time, having filled my quiver with sons, I was feeling complacent and already started wondering how it could happen that some people have daughters. Thus, when Victoria was born we brought to life a famous Russian saying “four sons and a sweet daughter” and calmed down.

               The remaining months flew by quickly, and on March 9, Roman was born. Honestly, having seen this dream, I didn’t attach much importance to it. It was just a dream. I thought having a son would be as good as having a daughter. This issue didn’t particularly bother me, as long as the child was all right. But as Roman approached the age of six months, I started to recognize the baby I saw in my dream.

         A huge question mark appeared in my soul every time I remembered the scene from my dream: a woman and a baby peeking over her shoulder. This very baby I’m holding now in my hands! And the more time passed, the more often I recalled that amazing dream, again and again making me more and more astonished. How come? How could I see this face a year before, if it hadn’t even existed yet? A year before he had been a three months old embryo and only much later he started looking the way I saw him. Who showed me his face in my dream?

         This remarkable fact reminds us that there is another world somewhere nearby, outside of time, and we sometimes, by some mysterious will, receive messages from it. Apparently, during sleep our material flesh, confined in the framework of matter, loses consciousness, the soul is set free and gets an opportunity to receive signals from the invisible spiritual world, a part of which we all constitute. I think if we made a compilation of all the cases in the world when people had prophetic dreams, they would make a whole library of 35-pound small print books.

Scientists also have started to speak more frequently about the invisible, but real world, located in another dimension. Several studies show that our visible world is closely monitored by invisible forces of the Universe. Even though sometimes it may seem to people that we live here independently and do whatever we want, at the right time and the right place every person does as Providence would have it.

Once I had a chance to witness how true it is. I want to tell you a story that took place thanks to a complete stranger’s dream, living 100 miles away from me. Till the very last moment I had no idea about this dream or who these people were. But an invisible prophetic force brought me to the right place at the right time when I had to be there to become an involuntary participant in certain events, not even suspecting that all that time I had been an obedient chess piece in the Universal Grandmaster’s hands.

About a year after Valery was born, Lyuba started having twinges of severe pain in the solar plexus region, which radiated down to her right forearm. At first, we didn’t attach much importance to it and tried to use traditional medicine. We made herb tinctures, she went on diets, we found a special band aid, so famous among all Baptist Tashkent, but nothing seemed to help. Despite all efforts, twinges continued and it came to calling the ambulance. We had to go to the hospital. After numerous visits to different clinics, we got the diagnosis: acute cholecystitis. As a rule, such diagnosis brings people to the operating table. Naturally, we weren’t happy about the news, but nothing could be done: the intervals between twinges were becoming shorter and shorter, and after some hesitation we decided to have her gallbladder removed.

Such operations were performed by the city’s famous surgeon Mikhail Semenovich Gorodetsky, head of the surgical ward of Tashkent city hospital. This old one-storey complex with thick lime-washed brick walls consisted of a large main building that was adjoined by various support facilities, an X-ray room, an emergency room and a small lobby. There was a wide corridor in the middle of the building with patient and treatment rooms on both sides.

To be honest, the location of the hospital was not ideal. Perhaps, when it was being built, the place used to be quieter, but over time, on one side of it, they built a reinforced concrete plant, and on the other, some kind of commodity warehouse with trucks constantly coming and going. The fact that the hospital yard, surrounded by a fence of concrete slabs, literally drowned in the shade from old branchy plane trees made it a little better.

The preparation for the operation and postoperative recovery took about two weeks. At the hospital, Lyuba met an amazing woman, named Ksenia, who was admitted and put in the same room on the following day. She lived somewhere in Ukraine, but her two sisters lived in Tashkent, so she came there specifically to undergo a goiter removal operation by Gorodetsky.

She was a really pretty, cultured and intelligent woman of about forty. Brown-eyed, energetic, outgoing, with long black hair arranged in a tight knot at the back of her head. Ksenia got acquainted with everybody in the room in a couple of hours, igniting them with her genuine optimism and cheerful personality. By the evening of that day, the whole room knew that Ksenia believed in God and went to the Orthodox Church.

Ksenia’s and Lyuba’s beds were next to each other, separated only by a narrow aisle. In the evening, when the visitors had already left, Lyuba and Ksenia were talking about something while sitting on their beds. Wanting to change her position, Ksenia crossed one leg over the other, and the old hospital robe opened, slightly baring her leg. Lyuba’s gaze involuntarily slid down her knee and she couldn’t help crying out in surprise.

-        Ksenia, what’s with your leg?

Not at all embarrassed, Ksenia opened her robe and showed Lyuba her bare knees. What she saw was rather unusual. There was a huge callus the size of a tea cup on each of Ksenia’s knees.

Lyuba was born and raised in Turkmenistan, so she was used to seeing similar calluses on camels’ knees, many of which roamed around their village. It is normal for a camel, because they have to go down on their knees to lie down or stand up. But how could a woman end up with such calluses? At first, Lyuba thought, it was some kind of chronic skin disease, but the next moment Ksenia said:

-        Lyuba, this is from prayers. I love to pray so much that I can’t wait for the evening to come so that I could kneel and start praying. You know, Lyuba, when I pray, time ceases to exist for me. It is such a pleasure, talking to God, my soul feels so good that sometimes, I stand up from my knees and it’s already dawn. That’s why I have calluses here.

She touched her bent knees with her palms and laughed.

-        I don’t even pay attention to them anymore. At first, I tried to put different creams on them, but then gave up, nothing helped anyway. I just have to wear longer dresses, that’s it.

All people in the room liked Ksenia. The incredible thing about this Ukrainian woman was that her soul was always reaching to God. Whatever you started talking to her about, she changed the subject in any conversation to God, Who she could talk about endlessly. Her brown eyes lit up with some special inner light and radiated such sincere joy that you yourself were carried away with her enthusiasm without knowing it.

         Ksenia’s husband was an army officer. She had traveled with him around half of the Soviet Union and wherever they came, in a few days, the entire military town knew that Ksenia was a Christian. It greatly interfered with his officer career, so he had fought with her “missionary” activities for a long time using all existing methods of warfare, but, eventually, laid down his arms and surrendered. Apparently, he didn’t divorce her only because of her beauty.

Once Lyuba asked her:

-        Ksenia, how did you become a believer?

She started talking about it with pleasure:

“I was born the eldest child in a family of five daughters. There was no church in our village, but as far as I can remember, I’ve always wanted to pray. I had never read the Bible and all my knowledge about God was limited to reproductions of paintings with the faces of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, Mary and saints, that I found in magazines. I cut them out, put into frames and decorated with flowers, so soon I had several homemade icons.

Every evening I took my treasures out of my dresser, placed them on the table and, surrounded by their faces, began to pray. Back then I didn’t know any prayers, so I prayed how I could. Lyuba, I can’t explain to you how good I felt when I was praying. The whole day I waited for the evening, so that I could arrange my lovely pictures and pray again.”

Lyuba asked:

-        Ksenia, don’t you understand that the reproductions that you used to make icons are just pieces of paper? They don’t see or hear and can’t help you.

-        Yes, I understand it very well, - Ksenia agreed. – I know that it’s paper, and I pray not to the paper, but to God. My pictures just helped me pray. It was a pleasure for me to see their faces, and it felt like we were praying to God all together.

When Ksenia grew up, she began to attend an Orthodox church in the district center and hand-copied all the religious texts she could find. She brought to the hospital a whole bag of thick notebooks with various prayers, extracts from the Gospel and Lives of Saints. She carefully kept them all and carried them with her.

Lyuba asked her:

-        Ksenia, have you read the Bible or the Gospel?

She answered sadly:

-        No, Lyuba. I still haven’t found them. I looked for them everywhere, but still can’t get my hands on these books.

On the following day, Lyuba introduced me to Ksenia and asked me to find at least the Gospel for her. It was not an easy task in 1982. Even though the separated Baptists occasionally managed to print Bibles and some spiritual literature, nevertheless, finding them was incredibly difficult.

To start with, I decided to turn to Boris Nikolayevich Serin. He was the second presbyter in our church and the deputy senior presbyter for Central Asia. Due to his position, he often went to Moscow and brought spiritual literature and the Brotherly Herald magazines for the Central Asian community. Formally, Boris Nikolayevich and I were even considered relatives, because my aunt was married to his elder brother.

When I described the situation to Boris Nikolayevich, he was deeply moved by the story.

- What can we do? – he said excitedly, straightening his long wavy hair. – Vladimir, believe it or not, we don’t have any Gospels. At all. Last week we gave the last three Gospels to the Bukhara church, and they must give one of them to the Zarafshan group. What should we do? We definitely have to give her the Gospel, since God sent us a meeting with such a thirsty soul.

He walked back and forth in his spacious living room several times, then stopped, looked at me and said:

-        Wait a minute.

Saying this, he disappeared into another room. A minute later he returned, holding a small, palm-sized pocket Gospel.

-        Well, that’s what we’ll do. This is an outstanding situation, and we just don’t have the right to ignore it. I’ll give her my personal Gospel, that I take to church meetings. There are a lot of notes, many verses are underlined and my first and last names are written on the cover. But it’s okay, she should read it, I’ll be all right. I have the Bible, I can take it to the meetings.

In the hallway, Boris Nikolaevich prayed for Ksenia, for Lyuba, for successful outcomes of the operations, asked for blessings for my upcoming meeting, and we headed to the gate. I thanked him once again and ran to the hospital.

I got to the place at about seven in the evening. It was a perfect time for visits: afternoon procedures were finishing, hospital authorities and doctors, except the ones working a night shift, were going home, and patients had free time.

I found Ksenia in her room. Lyuba, Ksenia and two more women were having a lively discussion. Seeing me, they stopped talking and turned to me. I apologized, asked Ksenia for permission to distract her for a moment and, taking the book out of my bag, said:

-        Ksenia, God set our friend’s heart to give you his personal Gospel. There’s his name on the cover. Now you can read this book any time you want.

For a few moments the room was dead quiet. Everybody watched Ksenia with interest, while she seemed to have become speechless. Holding the Gospel, as if not yet believing that it was really happening, Ksenia opened it and having randomly turned a few pages, was reading the lines. And then a storm of delight, showing all her temperament, burst out.

She closed the Gospel and, in front of everyone, began to cover it with countless kisses, stopping for a moment only to press it to her chest, and then starting to kiss it again. One second she burst with happy laughter, the next she loudly talked to the Gospel tenderly as if it was a person, with a torrent of words of joy and thanks to God. At that moment Ksenia reminded me of the merchant from Jesus’ parable, who was so happy that he had found a precious pearl of great value, that he sold everything he had, so that he could afford to buy it.

It was an amazing sight to see. Patients in hospital rooms for the seriously ill don’t usually have smiles on their faces. As a rule, you would see sadness and vexation of spirit there, a reflection of the sufferings people experience, the fear of expectation and a dreary realization that they are sick, resulting in a question in their eyes: “Why me? Why did I get sick?”

From patient rooms, the reality of life is seen in a completely different way. Till you go to the hospital, you forget about the existence of diseases and sick people. Only when inside the hospital walls, you begin to understand how many unhappy people there are in the world, and how happy you used to be, when you were healthy.

But all of a sudden, a fountain of unexpected joy played out in this room. For the first time in my life I had seen a person to be this happy about finding the Word of God. Her joy was inadvertently passed on to the others. Women, dressed in hospital robes, each having her own health problem, couldn’t help smiling, their eyes brightened and without envy, they tenderly watched her unexpected happiness.

It was a wonderful testimony to everyone around. When a few days later, Lyuba was getting ready for her operation, Ksenia supported her with parting words from the Book of Psalms and said: “Lyuba, don’t be afraid. When we have such power with us, we have nothing to fear.”

After the operation, Lyuba spent two days in the intensive care unit. During that time, Ksenia was operated on. A few days later Lyuba was released from the hospital and we went our separate ways from Ksenia. Even though her two sisters lived in Tashkent, it was the first time she had come to Uzbekistan. I don’t know how her sisters managed to persuade her to have the operation there, but I’m deeply convinced: it wasn’t just a coincidence that Lyuba and Ksenia ended up in the same patient room at the same time.

This story reminded me of another meeting I had had two years before that. Back then I was in my third year of music college. My major was taught by the head of the vocal department Igor Petrovich Bryzgalov. An excellent specialist and a sincerely friendly man, he had sung in the opera theatre for more than twenty years, before embarking on a teaching career. Despite being older than sixty, he kept working, and his students adored him. I was very lucky to be in his class.

In the seventies, Tashkent was fairly developed in terms of music culture. The city had several theatres, a conservatory, a theatre institute, an institute of arts, a teacher training institute, a music college and a special music school named after Uspensky, graduating from which one could immediately enter the conservatory, and other musical institutions.

Each district of the city had several music schools for children with a staff of highly-qualified teachers. It is interesting that to a certain extent Tashkent owes its high level of musical culture to… Hitler! Let me reassure you, during World War II, the Kiev Conservatory, with its top teachers, was evacuated to Tashkent. After the war, most of the teachers stayed there.

Igor Petrovich had a very interesting friend, an Uzbek man named Takhir. Cultured, educated, polite, with a nice and agreeable personality, Takhir worked as the head of Tashkent Pharmacy Department. All medicines in the city with two million inhabitants and its environs arrived at his warehouses.

People, who lived in the Soviet Union at that time, understand that in those conditions, such a position was no less than “a gold mine”. As Okudzhava sang: “Everyone brought him gifts and said thanks…” The person in charge of this organization had an opportunity to make a great deal of money, skillfully distributing medicines between pharmacies and hospitals.

But Takhir was like an alien from a different world. Bribes or exchanging favors couldn’t even be mentioned when he was around. He rejected them decisively and irrevocably. I still fail to understand how such a pious and absolutely honest person could have gotten such a job.

Takhir lived very modestly, in a regular apartment building, in the huge residential area Yunus-Abad, in the north-eastern district of Tashkent. A person, who had such a job, lived as a simple worker, in hardly a prestigious apartment, in a neighborhood that was also far from prestigious. It was unbelievable, but didn’t bother Takhir.

The reason why Igor Petrovich introduced me to Takhir was Lyuba’s health problem. One doctor recommended that we should take foreign “LIV-52” tablets that were in dire shortage at the time. It was impossible to find them the usual way. Buying from the black market presented a real possibility of getting an ineffective counterfeit and there wouldn’t be any point in such treatment. That’s why, writing a prescription, the doctor warned us that it was very difficult to find the medication, but we had to buy it only in a pharmacy or hospital.

When I met Takhir, just like when I met Ksenia, I was amazed by his extraordinary love for God. We hadn’t been in Takhir’s apartment for ten minutes, when he already started showing us some spiritual books, quoting Eastern thinkers, giving examples from history and modern life, thus making the conversation constantly revolve around God.

Takhir seemed to have no other topics to talk about. He learned Arabic on his own in order to read the Quran as it was written in its original form. He also had a very rare edition of the Quran, translated into Russian. By some miracle, Takhir even managed to visit Mecca.

Speaking about God transformed him. There was a special sincerity and kindness in his conversation and behavior, there was something that would attract you to this person. We spent whole evenings talking about religion, salvation, Christians, Muslims, eternity…

Citing the Quran and other sources, he asked me how certain issues were understood by Christians, what the Bible said about them, and it turned out that Takhir didn’t have a Bible and had long dreamed of finding one. He tried to get one from second-hand booksellers, from Christians, he ordered a Bible from somewhere in Russia through his friends, but all to no avail. When I found out about this problem, I told him that I would try to help.

When Protestant denominations separated in the early sixties, one Baptist church in Tashkent turned into three: registered, autonomous and separated. One special thing about the separated church was that they broke all contacts with the authorities and started intensively printing spiritual literature. They did it clandestinely and with great risk, since such activity guaranteed a jail sentence.

My father was a member of the separated church, as well as many of our relatives and friends, who from time to time supplied me with some spiritual literature. Unlike with Ksenia, I was not pressed for time in this situation, and after a while, I succeeded in finding a complete Bible for Takhir.

Igor Petrovich accompanied me to present it to Takhir. And then we beheld a scene very similar to the one that took place when I gave the Bible to Ksenia. If you could see Takhir’s face at the moment we handed over the Bible, you would think it was the face of the happiest man on earth. He took it, kissed it several times and tears flowed from his eyes. Not paying attention to it, he pressed the Bible to his chest and started giving warm thanks to God for such a gift, in excitement mixing Russian, Uzbek and Arabic words. In a fit of irrepressible joy, he began to hug us, shake our hands, not knowing how to express his gratitude.

After meeting Takhir and Ksenia, I started noticing that there are special people in the world, that simply can’t live without God. God is in every tiny detail of their lives, and they love Him so much, that talking about Him is the greatest pleasure and a life necessity for their hearts. Apparently, you can find such people in any nation and every country. I think these are the people the Apostle Paul had in mind, when he wrote in the Epistle to the Romans, that in every nation he who works righteousness is acceptable to God.

About one year later, life got back on track, Lyuba recovered and little by little we started to forget about the problems we had experienced. But suddenly, the twinges came back. It was the same kind of pain in the same place. In the beginning it happened rarely, but then more and more often and more severe. We had to call the ambulance again. Depressed and upset, we decided to make an appointment with Gorodetsky.

Having listened to us, he shook his head and said:

-        Lyuba, you will always have this problem. I removed as much of the gallbladder as I could, cleansed the liver ducts, but the problem is that your liver is literally filled with stones.

He hung a colored poster with a cross-section of the liver on the wall and pointed at the diagram of the ducts:

-        Look, large ducts can be cleansed during an operation, but there’s no way to access the countless small ones, and this is the problem of all gallstone sufferers. I don’t know the cause of your condition, it might be bad water, or unhealthy diet, or something else, but you obviously have a metabolic disorder and you need to get used to this pain. Find a suitable painkiller and the right diet, but you should know that your ducts are clogged with stones again. And that’s the real cause of your twinges. If you want, I can cut you open and cleanse you one more time, but it won’t last long.

Naturally, we refused to undergo another operation, and came back home frustrated. After this gloomy conversation we felt particularly conscious of our helplessness and loneliness. The best surgeon in the city had just admitted to being powerless and it looked like our future didn’t hold great promise. What could we expect?

Like soil for plants, grief and worries often become fertile ground for prayers. These circumstances prompted us to seek help from God, since help from people could no longer be hoped for.

We got a response from the least expected place. Some time later, Lyuba flew to Dushanbe to visit her parents. We quite frequently exchanged such visits. Apart from Lyuba, the Rybins had six other children, for whom visiting her in Tashkent was a great pleasure. We also returned the favors, sending Nikolay, or Sergey to grandma Alla and grandpa Sasha, but it was Valery, who spent more time than the others at the Rybins. There he picked up his well-known nickname “Cereal-eater”. We still recall it while looking at the photos taken in those days.

The nickname seemed to have been coined by itself. The Rybins, like many other Christian families, had a private farm in their yard. Salaries were not enough, and people did what they could to get by. That included keeping bees, pigs or coypus, running a paint shop, growing flowers and other things in greenhouses. Everyone did their own thing, trying to make extra money for the family.

The Rybins kept pigs, and to feed the piglets, every day grandma Alla made a big aluminum saucepan of millet cereal, which was also to all the children’s liking. Back then Valery was two years old, and whatever was for breakfast, when the cereal was ready, he stood guard in the kitchen with a bowl in his hands, patiently waiting for his serving. As soon as the cereal was ready, the first ladle went to Valery’s bowl. For Valery and the other children she put a little butter on it, the rest of the cereal was left to cool down and given to the piglets.

In fact, cereal had been Valery’s priority since he was born. He just couldn’t live without it. He loved it so much, that his first word was… “cereal”. Not “mom” or “dad”, “grandma” or “grandpa”, but “cereal”.

Many now refer to that time as “the communism we didn’t notice”. Indeed, life was not very expensive, and more importantly, stable. Prices didn’t change for decades. For a little money you could buy a whole gunny sack of good millet, like the one that grandma Alla made her cereal from.

Today many people get nostalgic about the “good old days”, when for three cents you could take a streetcar from one side of town to the other, and for sixteen buy a loaf of bread. This time is gone forever, just like many other things that have been left in the past.

Chatting with her neighbors, Alla Ivanovna simply shared our misfortune with them, as it often happened in those days, so many people on their street knew about Lyuba’s problem. Once, going home from the bus stop, Lyuba met Aunt Olya. Aunt Olya lived on the corner of the street, three houses away from the Rybins and also heard what had happened. After asking Lyuba about her health, she was upset for not knowing about her surgery earlier.

-        My dear girl, - she said, - if I had known about your problem, the surgery wouldn’t have been necessary. I know a wonderful remedy that removes stones from the liver and bile in one day. Let’s go to my place for a minute and I will tell you what to do.

They sat down at the table, covered with PVC tablecloth, on her veranda, and while Lyuba was copying the recipe for the cure, Aunt Olya told her its story.

It turned out that she had relatives somewhere in Novosibirsk. Their father was a professor of medicine and headed a department in the medical institute. There he developed this method and successfully applied it as a non-surgical treatment for gallstones in his clinic.

-        Lyuba, I tried it myself and gave this recipe to some other people and in every case the problem was solved. Some people repeat this procedure in several years, as required. It happens. Oh, dear Lord, - Aunt Olya lamented again, - how could we not know what suffering you have been going through?

They talked some more about less important things and then Lyuba thanked her and went home.

In the evening, the Rybins called a family meeting to discuss this recipe. Eventually, they came to the conclusion that if people are being treated with this method at the Novosibirsk Medical Institute, then why shouldn’t they give it a try, especially as the twinges continued and no remedy against them had yet been found.

They decided that the procedure must be performed in Tashkent, since in Dushanbe it was difficult to find olive oil, which was necessary for it, and in Tashkent I could get anything that I needed. But, most importantly, we wanted to hedge against any possible complications. After all, there was a doctor in Tashkent, who knew about our problem.

Upon Lyuba’s return, we decided to do the procedure as soon as possible, not putting it on the back burner. I managed to procure a bottle of Greek olive oil through a restaurant, atropine was brought by a nurse I knew, and all other ingredients were at hand. Since the procedure required two days, we decided to start on Friday, so that we had an extra day on Sunday and in case something went wrong, Lyuba could recover by the beginning of the work week.

On the coming Friday, we got down to the implementation of our plan. Everything went surprisingly smoothly. I gave Lyuba a shot of atropine myself. The only problem we faced was that she had great difficulty making herself drink a whole glass of olive oil.

On the following day, starting at eight in the morning, we witnessed a real miracle. Indeed, stones started to be expelled. In a few hours we nearly filled a 250-gram glass with them. We could hardly believe our eyes, inspecting them through the glass and, just in case, we put them in the fridge.

Fortunately, our fears of possible complications were not confirmed. Lyuba endured the procedure quite easily and was even able to go to a morning church meeting on Sunday. She felt slightly weak, but it went away on its own in a couple of days.

On Monday we decided to show the stones to Gorodetsky and ask his opinion on the recipe. Lyuba put the stones in a half-liter glass jar and at about nine in the morning we already were in his office.

Mikhail Semenovich was sitting at his table across from the door. Lyuba and I sat at the other side of the table facing him. On the right side of the table, by the window, was his associate, a presentable and pretty blond woman, named Svetlana. She was a surgeon as well. In fact, she was Lyuba’s attending doctor, but the operation was performed by Gorodetsky himself.

We met like old friends.

-        Lyuba, how are you? How are you feeling? What’s the news? Have you had any more twinges? – Gorodetsky asked her.

-        Thank God, Mikhail Semenovich, I feel very well. And we want to know your opinion on one matter, - saying this, she took out the jar, filled with our Saturday’s treasure. She took the lid off the jar and gave it to Gorodetsky.

Having put the jar on the table in front of him, the doctor silently looked at it for a long time. Finally, he said:

-        Lyuba, these are gallstones. Where did you get them? I have seen such stones only on the operating table, for thirty years now.

After listening to our story, Gorodetsky and Svetlana started writing down the details of the procedure. He looked very excited and still hadn’t calmed down by the time we left:

-        It’s unbelievable! Lyuba, you can’t even imagine the miracle that happened to you. It’s true, God rewarded you for your effort.

Having said goodbye to Mikhail Semenovich and Svetlana, we left them the jar of stones and, elated, rushed home. Receiving such a testimony from a doctor made us rejoice at this healing like children.

During the conversation, Gorodetsky drew our attention to the fact that the stones were of different sizes, and explaining the structure of the liver, he said:

-        These large stones (some of them were the size of a thumbnail) are from the main ducts, and the small ones, the size of a pea or less, are from the small ducts, and can’t be removed surgically. Lyuba, your liver is now as clean as a baby’s.

Two more years passed. The first part of the 1980s was a very busy time. Apart from having to do my job as a construction site manager, which brought me my daily bread, our team was responsible for the finishing of the Central House of Prayer, the construction of which was started in 1980 by the Tashkent church.

When I look today at American builders, at their equipment, cell phones, computers, their huge selection of tools and building materials, I want to cry, remembering the conditions in which we had to work. In our days, literally every little thing had to be obtained. Americans will never understand how much sense is put into the simple Russian word “dostat” (to get, to obtain). Practically no enterprise in the Soviet Union could function without this word.

In the morning, when I left home, I had a long list of construction sites and things that needed to be done during the day on the passenger seat of my car. Everything had to be foreseen in advance, I was supposed to discuss the amount of work for the day, take into account all details of the order, and prepare materials. I couldn’t make a mistake or forget something. Any error forced me to, once again, travel all around the city, since there was no telephone connection at the job sites. And it took time, gasoline and nerves.

Paint shop businesses in Tashkent flourished. They started to develop, very intensely, in the 1970s and within a few years, the city had a lot of Baptist teams, that were quite good at doing finishing work. We were experienced in working with moldings, we made formoplast, and knew where to get ingredients for it, made artificial marble out of paper and gypsum, widely used different techniques of texturing stucco walls, stencils, combined wall colors and much more.

On that memorable Saturday I finished work earlier than usual and the only thing I had to do was go to the Chilanzar district at eight or nine in the evening to see Volodya, the foreman of the cabinet-makers, nicknamed “Beard”. His team did woodwork for us. They made cabinets, window frames, doors, ceilings and walls out of good wood covered with varnish.

Back then we lived in Bulgarka, a small neighborhood in Tashkent on the Kuibyshev highway. Very few people now remember why it was called that. Old-timers say that in the post-war period there were agricultural plantations, cultivated by Bulgarian people. Whether it was “exchange of experience” or they ended up there for some other reason, our generation had no idea.

We only remembered that when the bus stopped, the conductor announcing the stop said: “Bulgarian gardens”. However, the bus stop was situated right next to the wall of the women’s prison. On the other side of the prison, there were streetcar tracks, with new apartment buildings behind them. In one of the buildings, we managed to get a cooperative apartment for ourselves.

Anyway, I was free to spend the rest of my Saturday at home. A few hours later, getting ready to visit “Beard”, I offered Lyuba to come with me. She needed no persuasion when it came to such trips, and soon we set out. It was around eight, and I expected to easily get there before dark.

When we were passing the airport (which was the shortest route from Bulgarka to Chilanzar), I suddenly had an idea: “Why don’t we look in on our friend who lives nearby?”

-        Lyuba, we are very close to Traugot Frantsevich, - I told my wife. – Let’s drop by for a couple of minutes, I’ve been meaning to discuss something with him for a long time.

Lyuba didn’t mind and a couple of minutes later we were already parking at his gate.

The owner himself opened the door and cordially invited us into the house. They were relatively new in Tashkent. A couple of years before, Traugot and Aunt Katya had moved there from Dushanbe, where they had lived for a long time and he had served as the second presbyter of the Dushanbe church. When the senior presbyter for Central Asia Mikhail Markovich Samotugin retired, Traugot Frantsevich Kviring was elected to take his place.

Due to this new position, he had to relocate to Tashkent, where the center of the Asian region was situated (the region consisted of three Soviet republics: Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan). Every republic had its churches and groups of believers, its needs and problems, so Traugot Frantsevich had a large scope of work.

It would be fair to say that Traugot Frantsevich was the right man for the job. He was about fifty, of average height, slightly overweight, well-read, cultured, always neatly dressed, organized and immediately made a good impression.

Lyuba eagerly supported my sudden decision to stop by Traugot Frantsevich. Before we got married, she lived in Dushanbe, and therefore, treated Traugot and Katya almost like relatives. My relationship with him was also special for two reasons.

               When Traugot Frantsevich took up the duties of the senior presbyter, he purchased a house in Tashkent, in which our team did the finishing. Traugot and Katya were happy with our work, and always generously expressed their gratitude.

         Soon after finishing my military service, I had to leave Tashkent for Dushanbe, where I lived for a year at my uncle Pyotr Andreevich Semeryuk’s place. There, in the Dushanbe church, I became a Christian and was baptized. Thus, the Dushanbe church was very close to my heart, and it was Traugot Frantsevich who personally baptized me in June 1975. For this reason, I sometimes called him my “godfather”.

         I remember the day of my baptism very well. It was early Sunday morning, the crystal waters of the Kafirnigan river were carried from the sky-high ridges of the gray-haired Pamir Mountains.

         In spite of the early hour the entire river bank was filled with people. Those to be baptized, dressed in white robes, baptismal ministers, the choir, young people, and children. Most of the church gathered to witness this exciting ministry. Several short sermons were said, choral hymns were sung, people sang in congregations, recited poems and prayed…

               It was a real holiday under the blue dome of the immense heavenly temple. In a beautiful disorder, pink and white clouds, painted by the gentle color of sunrise glow, were flocking on the edges of the azure sky and curiously looking from above at the people standing along the river bank. The rays of the rising sun, filling the universe with warm morning light, illuminated the mountain tops and decorated with bright gold the contours of the ancient giant Tian Shan, for many centuries motionlessly towering over the valleys.

The beautiful and clean city of Dushanbe is located at its foot. On the one side it climbs on the foot of the Varzob gorge mountains, rushes down and, like a large river, overflows widely across the valley. Nowhere else have I seen such magnificent mountains as in Dushanbe.

         The majestic view of this temple of nature filled the hearts of those present with awe. With singing and the words of the eternal Gospel and prayers in the air, it seemed that I was physically feeling God’s presence in this place.

         Baptism was usually performed by Traugot Frantsevich and the first presbyter of the Dushanbe church, Joseph Dmitrievich. In the mid-seventies Dushanbe had a fairly big community of Evangelical Christian Baptists, composed of more than 700 members, about eighty percent of whom were of German descent. That’s why, Traugor Frantsevich, being a German, enjoyed great authority in the church and for many years had been invariably elected to the presbyter ministry.

               The Dushanbe church was greatly disappointed to receive the news that Traugot Frantsevich was elected the senior presbyter for Central Asia and had to leave Dushanbe. Being well-read and hard-working, he truly fed the church with spiritual bread, and brothers that came from All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and Baptists had to put a lot of effort in persuading the church to let Traugot Frantsevich leave for this ministry peacefully. Some old ladies loved him so much that it sometimes led to ridiculous situations.

         Once, a curious incident took place during a baptism.

         As usual, after a short service, Traugot Frantsevich and Joseph Dmitrievich went into the water, and having prayed, started baptizing new believers. Every plunge into the water was accompanied by singing. The choir was standing at the very edge of the water and during the break in singing, my mother-in-law, Alla Ivanovna took off her shoes and came into the water to get a better view of what was happening there. At that moment, an old woman came up to her and, giving her a 3-liter bottle, said:

-        Alla Ivanovna, dear, scoop up some water for me, please.

Alla Ivanovna bent over, filled the bottle with water and gave it back to the old lady.

I must say that the Kafirnigan water was excellent. It was crystal clear and tasty, the kind of water that most inhabitants of the Earth can only dream about, and that is sold here in the US stores for good money. It flowed down from the Varzob glaciers, so drinking from the river was safe. Therefore, to Alla Ivanovna, the request didn’t seem strange. The old lady just wanted to quench her thirst with clear mountain water, so what? She could have gotten thirsty early in the morning, nothing out of the ordinary…

But the old lady suddenly poured the water out on the pebbles and said with irritation:

-        Not like this. Go a little further and scoop the water from near Traugot for me, from around Traugot…

Seeing what was going on, my mother-in-law was speechless for a few seconds. After recovering from the shock, she went as far out into the water as she could and filled the bottle again. Satisfactorily muttering something to herself, the old woman put the bottle in her purse and disappeared into the crowd. This is the kind of authority our ministers had. We still recall this incident with a smile…

Upon entering Traugot Frantsevich’s house, we found that he had guests. We weren’t at all surprised, due to his job, people used to come to him all the time. We greeted everyone and Traugot introduced us to his visitors. Their names were Gerta and Pavel. They were a married couple from the city of Abai-Bazar, a pretty big regional center in South Kazakhstan, situated about 60 miles away from Tashkent. They looked like they were in their early thirties and we saw them for the first time.

         Geographical location of Tashkent is somewhat original. Uzbekistan has a fairly large territory, but its capital, Tashkent, is situated right on the Kazakhstan border. The Shymkent region of Kazakhstan starts about 10 miles away from the city.

         This becomes clear when you travel down the highway from Shymkent to Tashkent in summer. On the road going through Kazakhstan you can see yellow, burnt out steppe with occasional rare settlements. No trees or bushes. But as soon as you enter Uzbekistan, the picture changes as if with a wave of a magic wand.

         On both sides of the road you are greeted by the riot of greenery, huge gardens, vegetable plantations, roadside trees, whose crowns join and create green tunnels over the road, villages, sunk in the green of vineyards and fruit trees, cotton fields and irrigation ditches. This change in the face of nature is absolutely amazing!

         Uzbeks noticeably differ from other nations of Central Asia first of all due to their hard work and love for agriculture. The famous Mirzachul melons, grapes and cotton are well-known far beyond the borders of Uzbekistan. Not a single piece of land in the Uzbek yard will stay empty, they will certainly till it and plant something.

         During Stalin’s repressions, the Volga Germans were evicted to remote republics, predominantly to Siberia and Central Asia. Since then quite a lot of Germans had lived in South Kazakhstan. The city of Abai had a community of Evangelical Christian Baptists, that was for the most part made up of Germans. Many Germans lived in the Tashkent region and the surrounding area.

         They would often visit Traugot Frantsevich as their compatriot to discuss various issues. Therefore, seeing another pair of visitors from the German community seemed rather natural to us. Traugot and his guests were sitting on a small veranda, which also served as a dining room, prepared to have dinner. He invited us to join in on the meal and a minute later we were already having a lively conversation, enjoying Aunt Katya’s pies and tea.

         I began to ask Pavel about the Abai church and its ministry, about the choir, told them a little about our construction work and asked him about his job. When Pavel said he was doing some construction, I offered him my help finding the necessary tools and finishing materials.

         But Pavel looked at his wife in a sort of awkward way, then raised his blue eyes to me and said:

-        You know, Vladimir, we came to Traugot Frantsevich with a problem, and we honestly don’t know what to do now. The thing is Gerta is having an operation on Monday. She is about to have her gallbladder removed, and we…

It felt like an electric shock, and I, interrupting Pavel in mid-sentence, jumped up from my seat:

-        What?! Gerta is going to have her gallbladder removed? Pavel, under no circumstances agree to the operation! We were probably sent here by God Himself. (I still don’t know why I said this.) Pavel, we know a very effective way to get rid of stones in the liver and gallbladder without any operations.

I told my wife:

-        Lyuba, please, go to the next room with Gerta and tell her how to do this, and we’ll talk about business here.

When they left, we began our “important” conversation, which made me drop by Traugot Frantsevich for a minute that day. Today, I don’t even remember what we talked about, and what important problems we were trying to resolve. All I remember is that it was very important, so important that I sent Lyuba and Gerta to the next room, so that they wouldn’t prevent us from “tackling some global issues”, that left absolutely no trace in my memory.

About twenty minutes later, Lyuba and Gerta joined us again. By that time, we exhausted the subject, Aunt Katya poured us some more tea and we switched to the problem that had brought our new friends there.

We told them what we had to go through during the previous several years, about Lyuba’s operation and Ksenia, about the recipe, how Gorodetsky was shocked to see the gallstones on his table, how both he and Svetlana immediately started copying this recipe…

We continued our animated discussion, like old friends, not noticing the passing of time. This is how members of close-knit families socialize at family gatherings, or friends who trust each other – freely, without the fear of being misunderstood, or having your words interpreted in different and unexpected ways. Filling a small pause, Pavel exchanged glances with Gerta and said:

-        Do you know that an amazing dream Gerta had two days ago has just happened in real life?

This statement caused a real ruckus between us.

-        What? What dream? What was it about? – we started to ask interrupting each other.

Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Pavel. After a little hesitation, he put a bowl of tea on the table and started his bewildering story:

“A couple of years ago, Gerta began to get twinges from gallbladder disease. Lyuba and Vladimir here, know what it is like. At first, we didn’t understand what was causing the pain. We tried to cure the gastritis, she drank mineral water and all kinds of tinctures. We did pretty much everything we could… But you know yourselves, how it happens – the pain seemed to subside for a while, but then she got another twinge. We even had to call the ambulance on several occasions. Doctors prescribed her a ton of different medications and procedures, but they didn’t do us much good, the twinges continued.

Three months ago, Gerta was sent to the Shymkent regional hospital for an examination. There they made a precise diagnosis and told us that an operation was absolutely necessary. The news upset us a lot. You know, Gerta has never been on the surgical table and is terrified of this operation. Not only of this one, of operations in general.”

Listening to Pavel, Gerta was shaking her head and shrugged her shoulders in embarrassment:

-        I don’t know why, but I’m terribly afraid. You can’t even imagine how terrified I am of this operation. My blood runs cold as I imagine myself on the surgical table. It’s just awful. I’m so afraid, it’s killing me. I seem to understand that it’s not as difficult of a procedure as others, but I can’t help myself for the life of me.

Pavel poured some more tea for himself and carried on:

“It’s all true. But on the other hand, the twinges continued, and it became clear that the problem had gone too far and there was no hope for non invasive therapeutic treatment. We weighed our odds this way and that way, but what options did we have? At this point, afraid or not, the operation had to be done.

Well then. A couple of days ago, they put Gerta in the surgical ward and started preparing her for the operation that was scheduled for Monday. In the morning I drove her to the hospital and in the evening after work came to visit. My poor Gerta, I felt so sorry for her. She went out to the hospital yard, dressed in this washed out hospital robe, slippers, so tiny and miserable. We sat down on the bench away from people and I tried to console her as best as I could. But you probably understand, it’s difficult to comfort a person who is in pain. We sat there till dark, prayed and I went home.

On the following day the kids and I came to visit their mom. We have five kids. We stayed with her all evening, talked, the kids played with their mom, treated her to fruit, prayed all together… We spent the next evening the same way.

Yesterday morning, Friday, I came to work at eight, as usual. Twenty minutes later, they suddenly called me into the office. Well, I thought, it could be anything, some problems with paperwork or many other things, who knows? I came and they said: “You have an urgent call from the hospital.” At first, I was even a little scared. Maybe, something happened at night, some problem, or maybe it was the doctor calling. Anyway, I grabbed the phone and Gerta told me excitedly: “Pavel, I don’t know how to tell you this, but you need to come to the hospital right away, please. Something very unusual has happened here.”

And then I got really scared.

-        Gerta, - I was nearly shouting into the phone, - what happened? A problem? Do you feel worse? Do you need me to bring you something?

-        No, no, Pavel, don’t worry, I’m fine. But something happened last night and I don’t know what I should do now. We need to talk immediately.

-        All right, got it. I’ll try to be there as soon as I can. In about thirty minutes, wait for me in the lobby, so that I won’t have to go through the trouble of having you informed that I am there. Okay?

Having heard such words, I ran to the site manager, asked for a couple of hours off and rushed to the hospital. Gerta was waiting for me in the yard, at the checkpoint. She was very excited.

-        Pavel, - she ran up to me, - come this way.

There were no visitors at this early hour, so the hospital yard was empty and we sat down on the closest bench.

-        OK, listen. You know how afraid I am of the operation. Do you remember how long we prayed to the Lord, asking Him to help me?

-        Of course, I remember, and? – I asked.

-        And here’s what. Last night I…”

At this moment Pavel stopped, looked at Gerta and said:

- Actually, let Gerta tell you herself what happened to her.

Gerta, being shy, waved her hands in objection:

-        Oh, no, Pavel, you’ll tell it better. If you started the story, you should finish it.

We all together backed up Pavel.

-        Gerta, don’t be shy. We’re all friends here.

Blushing, Gerta straightened her blond hair with a habitual movement of her hand, and continued this extraordinary story:

“We did pray a lot to the Lord, asking Him to help me get rid of this problem. We left notes in church, our relatives and friends prayed for me, and indeed, this concern was a priority in all our family prayers.

         On Thursday evening, when Pavel and the kids went home after visiting me, it was already dark. I walked them to the checkpoint, watched them as they were walking away a little, and went back to my room. And all of a sudden, anguish took hold of me, just like mortal horror. As if everything inside me just froze. Neither alive, nor dead, I was walking, hardly able to move my legs, with only one thought in my head: “Lord, if only I didn’t fall somewhere on the way, if only I had enough strength to get to my room...”

         With great difficulty I reached my bed, pulled the blanket over my head, turned to the wall and began to cry. My soul grieved and I felt so sorry for myself, I can’t even describe it. I started talking to God. I cried and spoke to God without ceasing. It wasn’t a prayer, in the traditional sense, I simply said in my soul everything that had burdened my heart all that time. I felt sorry for the kids, and Pavel, and myself, and my friends, and the church, I spoke about the operation, recalled my relatives, and the more I thought about them all, the harder I cried.

         - Lord, - I said, - You are my Father. Your words are written in the Gospel: if children ask their father for bread, he won’t give them a stone, and if they ask for a fish, he won’t give them a snake instead, and how much more your Father in heaven will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him… Lord, as it is written, he who touches you touches the apple of Your eye. And now, Lord, such anguish, such grief has touched me. This is so hard to bear, that I don’t have the strength to go on.

         I have no more hope, Lord, it’s only You that I have left, and if You can’t help me, I don’t know what will happen to me… Lord, You can do everything. Do not pass by Your servant. You are the enemy of all human diseases and ailments. When You lived on earth, You healed all diseases, returning health and joy to people…

How You, Lord, had mercy on the crucified thief at the last moment, have mercy on me… Have mercy on me, Lord, carry this cup past me. My soul is grieving and terrified, just like yours, Lord, in the Garden of Gethsemane. Save me from the operation, Lord, don’t give me a stone instead of bread, for I’m Your child, don’t give me a snake instead of a fish. The One, I’m knocking on the doors of Your mercy, open them for me… You see the pain I’m in, my Lord…

I don’t know how long I was lying like that. It could have been for two or three hours, or maybe more. I didn’t notice how my cries and prayers turned into sleep, I didn’t notice how I woke up, and when I woke up, it seemed to me I had been speaking to God all along. And suddenly I saw, I don’t remember, like in a very real dream, or in a dreamlike reality, that the door of our room opened and in walked a man. He was tall, dressed in white clothes, with gray hair and a beard, and at first I even thought that it was the doctor on duty.

         He came up to the headboard of my bed, looked at me and said:

-        Gerta, God has heard you. On Saturday go to Tashkent and visit Traugot Frantsevich, and there you’ll get an answer to your prayer.

He stood beside me a little longer, smiled and walked out the door.

It’s very difficult for me to explain to you what I managed to see in this person for the few moments I saw him. First of all, I want to say that he had a special, clear and kind look. There was something remarkably kind and simple in it. He seemed very important to me and at the same time incredibly simple and humane.

               His presence sort of permeated me through and through, and I felt: he knew everything about me, and not only did he know, but he also understood all my worries, all my crying and groans. At that moment, it felt like the walls of time had melted, as had problems, the hospital and doctors, and everything important in our lives and what we fuss about all of a sudden became minuscule, unimportant and fleeting...

Apart from this feeling I’m trying to tell you about, there was something else, and I know, no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to describe the feeling that overwhelmed my entire being. This is how we probably imagine our fathers in early childhood – he’s the best, the kindest, the strongest, the most handsome, the best of the best, who knows and can do everything.

I sat on the bed and looking around, couldn’t understand at first if I was sleeping or not. It was dark and quiet in the room, everyone was asleep, it was very late, or, should I say, very early. I didn’t look at the clock, but I think it was around four or five in the morning. At first, I wanted to rush after him to the corridor and ask him for more details, but I felt that he wasn’t there anymore.

I descended onto the pillow and didn’t close my eyes until dawn, I didn’t even try to sleep. I couldn’t think about anything else, there was the image of this man in white standing before my eyes, and I repeated his words to myself for the thousandth time, recalling the details over and over again. Every minute dragged on like an eternity and it seemed to me that the night would never end.

I could tell the news to Pavel only in the morning, when he would get to work. That was my only chance to contact him. We didn’t have a phone at home, he was supposed to come visit me only in the evening, and I definitely needed to let him know as soon as possible. I even thought of running away from the hospital.

The morning finally came, I started calling their office and Pavel, thank God, was there. When I told him what had happened, we decided that we had to go to Tashkent. Such an opportunity should not be missed. I didn’t know Traugot Frantsevich before this trip. Pavel met him a couple of times in Dushanbe, but we had never been to his house in Tashkent.

Of course, it wasn’t a problem, since we heard that Traugot Frantsevich had settled not far from the Central House of Prayer on Panchenko Street, and Pavel knew the road to the House of Prayer very well. There was a different problem. I was being prepared for the operation that was scheduled for Monday, and leaving the hospital during this period was strictly forbidden.

To solve this problem we had only a few hours at our disposal. Most importantly, we needed to persuade the doctor to let me leave the hospital. Having weighed all pros and cons, we came to the conclusion that there was no point in talking to the attending doctor, it was unlikely he would take such a responsibility, so we decided to go to the chief physician.

And then another question rose: what excuse could I make? We needed to somehow justify this trip. Maybe, we should try to invoke sympathy in the doctor or give him a gift. But what? Time flies, it was Friday, Pavel had to go back to work. If he went somewhere for the gift – it would take time and moreover, what can you buy in our Abai? Only if you go Shymkent or Tashkent, you can find a decent gift, but when he came back, the chief physician might not be still at work. Besides, there was no guarantee the gift would work.

After some hesitation, we decided that we wouldn’t look for roundabout ways, but would pray and go to the chief physician as we were and simply explain to him everything, like normal human beings do. This decision was also supported by the thought that if it came from God, He would help us win the chief physician’s heart.

Pavel prayed briefly and a few minutes later, we were already sitting in the hospital corridor. I was shaking like a leaf and it seemed to me that everyone around could see how I was shaking. In fact, I’m a terrible coward when it comes to authorities. In our family, such issues are usually handled by Pavel.

Several times the office door opened and closed, doctors, nurses and some other people came in and out, as I was sitting on pins and needles. “How should I say this? Where to begin?” Soon it was our turn.

The chief physician’s name was Gairat Alievich. He was a Kazakh of about sixty years old. Coming out of his office, he asked:

-        Are you waiting to see me?

We got up from the chairs and Pavel said:

-        Gairat Alievich, we were brought here by quite an unusual situation, and we are asking you to please give us a few minutes of your time.

           He nodded in agreement and invited us into his office. Having closed the door, he shook hands with us, invited us to sit down, sat himself down at the table and prepared to listen. I got a sick feeling inside my stomach. I thought: “Oh, if it weren’t for Pavel, I would be completely lost in here.” In this respect, Pavel has a certain gift: he can speak calmly and convincingly even in the most difficult situations. That’s how he started the conversation:

-        Gairat Alievich, I don’t want to beat around the bush: tomorrow Gerta and I need to go to Tashkent for one day. Tell me if there’s any chance you would allow us to make this trip. And I would drive her back here in the evening.

               Gairat Alievich silently looked at us with his smart, lively eyes and after a long pause asked:

- Pavel, are you out of your mind? Do you have any idea what you are asking for? Have you forgotten that Gerta has an operation scheduled for Monday? Just think about it: if something happens during the operation and the fact that Gerta left the hospital with my permission comes to light, do you understand that I will go to jail? Forgive me, but I won’t be able to start my life over. I will soon be retired, I have a wife, children, grandchildren, and do you want to say that you have a reason worth taking such a risk? I’m sorry, Pavel, but this is out of the question. If you are a decent person, you should be ashamed to ask for such a favor.

         Hearing these words got me down even more. Obviously, Gairat Alievich was one thousand percent right. A thought flashed through my mind: gifts wouldn’t help here, nobody wants to put their head in such a guillotine. Many people are probably after his job, and it truly is a shame to ask him for this sacrifice. Who are we to him?

         As I listened to him, all our arguments began to seem small and insignificant, all my hopes started to fall apart like a house of cards.

After a pause, Pavel said:

“Gairat Alievich, I really apologize for my selfish request, but you know, the situation that has brought us to your office, is in fact very unusual. Let me tell you how it is, and then you can decide what to do with us.

Gairat Alievich, we are believers. We believe that there is God in heaven, Who created the sky and earth, and everything on it. We believe that all people are the children of one father, no matter where they were born. You probably know that here in Abai we have a small church of Evangelical Christian Baptists, where we gather every Sunday, sing, read the Bible, pray and serve God.

When Gerta got sick, we prayed a lot, both in church and at home asking God to heal her. I will also tell you that Gerta is very frightened of this operation. She is timid as a hare, and the operation is something dreadful and terrifying for her…”

Then something happened that I’m embarrassed to recall. Tears suddenly flowed from my eyes. They didn’t just flow, they poured. I don’t know myself what happened, but apparently, all my fears, pain, anxiety, worries, hopes and prayers, my sleepless night, in a word, everything that had accumulated in my soul during the time I was sick, poured out with these irrepressible tears as if some dam had broken in my soul.

I think that’s when both Pavel and Gairat Alievich got scared. Pavel took me by my shoulders and slightly shook me, saying:

-        Gerta, Gerta, please, don’t… Gerta, calm down, I’m asking you, don’t cry. Everything will be all right, just please, calm down…

Gairat Aievich gave me some water, also saying something, as I was sobbing like a child. I don’t remember ever crying like that in my life.

Finally, I somehow managed to calm down and Pavel could continue his story about their evening visit, about how the kids and I prayed to God, asking Him to help us and save me from the operation.

As for me, I was so ashamed of my weakness, that I went bright red with shame. With my face burning, my eyes wet and my nose swollen to the size of a potato, I lowered my head and was listening to him. What a sight I was! I wasn’t crying anymore, just sniffled like a little girl, unable to help it, however hard I tried.

Meanwhile, Pavel got to the most important part of the story and started telling Gairat Alievich about my dream…”

Readers already know what happened to Gerta that night, and while Pavel is telling this story, I want to give a brief historic overview in order to facilitate a better understanding of the environment our new friends lived in.

In general, Asian people that lived on the territory of the USSR were quite devout compared to their European neighbors. And even though most of their rites were similar to traditions and legends of the elders, these customs had a huge impact on people in Central Asia. And this is not surprising. The East has been especially religious at all times, that is why after the Soviet Union collapsed, as soon as the first breeze of freedom flew through Central Asian republics, new mosques, Muslim schools and madrasas started popping up everywhere like mushrooms after a spring rain.

The indigenous population of the Asian republics always remembered that this was their land, which sometimes led to small conflicts. At a bazaar or in a store you could hear a contemptuous remark addressed to a Russian or Ukrainian expressing any dissatisfaction with a product or service: “If you don’t like it – go to your Ryazan.”

But here’s an interesting thing: believers were treated much better. The reason was that as well as other people in the USSR, Asian people also lived under the pressure of the communist regime, which didn’t differentiate between Slavs and Asians, Muslims and Christians. People still very well remembered the years of mass repressions, the millstones of which killed a lot of Christians and Muslims. Seeing that believers were persecuted by the authorities, the indigenous population reasonably assumed that these Russians were different, if they were persecuted by the KGB, the same as their own mullah. These Russians couldn’t be enemies to Uzbeks or Kazakhs, who for the most part were deeply pious, or at least believed in God.

“Gairat Alievich was listening to Pavel’s story with undisguised interest, and it was unclear what impression it made on him.

And Pavel was already talking about the morning call, how we were sitting in the hospital yard, agonizing about the present we could give to the chief physician, and how we, having thought of nothing, decided to pray to God and just come to him as we were.

After a short pause, Pavel said:

“Gairat Alievich, we understand the whole burden of responsibility that lies on your shoulders and we apologize for asking you for such a favor. We realize that the reasons that would convince you to make this decision probably don’t exist. Therefore, we told you everything like we would tell it to our father.

We believe that Gerta got an answer from God, we believe that God sent her salvation from the operation, and we just need to take it. By all means, we can write a note about having no claims against you, or anything else that you think would be necessary. Gairat Alievich, once again I’m asking you to forgive our indelicacy and do what your heart tells you.”

The room went silent. Gairat Alievich was looking at the table in front of him, slowly drawing something in his notebook. Several long seconds passed and Gairat Alievich raised his eyes, looked at us, sighed deeply, straightened his hair and said:

-        You know, Pavel, before I heard your story, I couldn’t imagine a reason that would make me agree to take such a step. But now, I can’t think of a reason to refuse. If your God is really sending you an answer to your prayers, then Gerta might not need the operation after all… Indeed, nobody knows what will happen in Tashkent tomorrow, but I think you should go. Tonight, after the evening procedures, take Gerta home, I will notify the doctor on duty, and in any case, try to come back to the ward on Saturday night. On Sunday morning I will check on Gerta and you’ll tell me about the result of your trip.

We could hardly believe our ears. Having jumped from our seats, interrupting each other, we began to thank Gairat Alievich. The most part of gratitude was expressed by Pavel, since having barely told him a couple of words, I burst into tears of joy again.

After leaving the office, we sat down on the same bench and holding hands, started to fervently thank God for His wonderful answer.

Last night, when it got dark, I was already home. In the meantime, Pavel asked his brothers how to find Traugot Frantsevich and we uneventfully got to the place.”

Here Traugot Frantsevich joined the conversation:

“Today, Katya and I got up early as usual. There was no hurry, I was reading the Bible, preparing for the Sunday service, and Katya always has some work around the house.

Suddenly, around eight o’clock the doorbell rang. Well, I opened the door and saw these two poor souls.” – Traugot laughed with his infectious tenor laugh. – I think, Pavel came to us in Dushanbe a couple of times with his brothers, but I had never met Gerta before.

We said hello, entered the house, and Pavel said: “Traugot Frantsevich, we came to you today for a specific purpose. God sent us to you!” You know, these are his exact words: “God sent us to you!” – Traugot laughed again and raised his eyebrows in surprise. – To be honest, I was a little taken aback by such a bold statement and said: “How come? Tell me what your reason for saying so is. And how did God send you specifically to me?”

Then Pavel said that they had prayed about something for a long time, and Gerta received a revelation last night, that they would get an answer for their need here. He didn’t tell me the operation had already been scheduled, or that Gerta had left the hospital to come here, he just said that Gerta had a problem with gallstones. After listening to them, I threw up my hands and said:

-        You know, so far I can’t tell you anything about it. But if the Lord sent you here, He will send a reply. Saturday has just started, let’s wait. Katya and I haven’t had breakfast yet, and you must be hungry after the journey, so let’s start with breakfast.

After finishing the meal, we talked, then Pavel and I did a little work in the garden. He was very helpful, while our wives were busy in the kitchen. We didn’t notice how lunch time came. After doing some godly work, we ate lunch with pleasure, and while drinking tea, discussed passages from Scripture about church work and brotherhood, and soon it was nearly evening.

Frankly speaking, I already started to worry about them. I was thinking, what if the day ended and nothing would happen? I started trying to extract something from my memory. Maybe I knew something about this condition, but forgot. I even quietly asked Katya if she remembered who had gotten rid of gallstones. Katya shrugged her shoulders and couldn’t remember anything as well…

Meanwhile, it was already evening. Katya and Gerta began to set the table for dinner. I was trying to entertain them with conversation on various subjects, but my thoughts kept returning to one thing: what should I tell them if nothing changes?

I saw that Pavel and Gerta’s spirits started to sink. I felt so sorry for them, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of something I should do. I couldn’t believe that Gerta had just had a regular dream. Inside, I kept praying constantly: “God, help them!” I had never been in such a situation before. It was getting dark outside. Katya and Gerta were making dinner and I didn’t know what to do with myself. “Lord, help them! – I kept praying. – Answer their prayers…”

Before the meal, we as usual started giving grace to our dinner, and I prayed for Pavel and Gerta: “Lord, Saturday has approached sunset, and we appeared before You in prayer at this evening hour. You see our dear Pavel and Gerta, you see with what great hope for Your revelation they came to our house, and we pray to You, Almighty and Righteous, Holy and Strong, Lord, fulfill the wish of Your children’s hearts, reveal Your will to us. May Your holy grace and love be with us throughout the earth, now and forever… Amen.”

After the prayer, we sat down to eat. The sun was almost set. Katya turned on the lights in the house, and here you came right in time with the business you wanted to discuss. That’s how amazingly the Lord answered Pavel and Gerta in their time of need. And how did you happen to come here on this very day? It’s just a miracle how things sometimes work out in life. Just amazing.”

For some time we kept silent, deeply bewildered by everything we heard. Then I said:

-        You know, Traugot Frantsevich, we didn’t plan to come to you today. Well, wait a second, I’ll be right back.

I jumped from my seat, ran to my car and came back with my to-do list.

“Look, I have fifteen things planned for today, and the last one is Volodya “Beard”, our cabinetmaker, who we were actually going to meet when we passed your house. Right before setting out I offered Lyuba to come with me, - It was good for us both, I wouldn’t be bored on the way, and she would have a change of scenery. She spends all day long home with the kids.

When we left home, we didn’t even think of visiting you, it was only when we reached the airport that it suddenly dawned on me: “Oh! We are right near Traugot Frantsevich, let’s stop by.” And you know, Lyuba doesn’t need any persuasion, she is always happy to meet people from Dushanbe, every single day. That’s how we, without thinking, ended up at your dinner.”

That was the end of the amazing story that happened in Traugot Frantsevich’s house. We said goodbye to Pavel and Gerta like to our old friends, thanked the hosts for their hospitality and continued our trip.

               For a while we drove in silence, indulging in our thoughts, then I said:

“ Lyuba, you know, Tashkent is two million people and when you run around the city all day, to construction sites, or warehouses, you see a ton of people and cars everywhere, everyone is in a hurry, busy or worried about something, everyone has their dreams, concerns, anxieties, and involuntarily, you begin to think that you are just a little ant in a large human anthill. Who can keep track of all the people’s movements? It seems that no one cares about you in this world.

But what an amazing testimony that God’s knowledge fills the earth we witnessed today! He truly considers all human affairs, as the thirty-third Psalm says: “From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place He watches all who live on earth—  He Who forms the hearts of all, Who considers everything they do… But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love.”

The night had already covered the city, tired of day-to-day hustle and bustle, with its dark velvet cloak and, lighting the yellow squares of windows, was filling the earth with peace. We were driving along the night avenues of the capital, overwhelmed by the sweet sensation of God’s presence, and felt most keenly that we were a part of this big world we lived in. Even the stars on that night seemed to twinkle with an especially pure light, a gentle reflection of the heavenly Eden, filling our hearts with peace. With all our souls we were happy for Pavel and Gerta and their answered prayer, we were happy that, without knowing it, we became a part of this amazing story.

P. S. Some time later, we learned from Traugot Frantsevich that Pavel and Gerta met Gairat Alievich on the following day and canceled the operation. After performing the procedure, Gerta was completely cured of the gallstones and is feeling great. They said hello and constantly thank God for His help.

P. P. S. In conclusion, I want to share with my readers this recipe, which once received a certification from above. Perhaps, some of you have the same health problems as did Lyuba and Gerta. Cheer up. Over the past years, a lot of our friends and acquaintances have used this method and got deliverance from their sickness.

Maybe you should consult your doctor before doing this procedure, because every person has individual body features and a specific course of disease. Decide for yourself.

God bless you and be healthy!

METHOD OF EXPELLING STONES FROM THE LIVER

Day 1

·       8 am: one glass of kefir

·       12 am: some liquid semolina without sugar

·       5 pm: a cleansing enema with warm water

·       5:45 pm: inject one cube of atropine (intramuscularly)

·       6 pm: drink one glass of olive oil (200–250 gr). Wash it down with a cup of black coffee without sugar. Lie down with your liver on a warm heating pad for 2-3 hours.

Day 2

·               8 am: a few spoonfuls of liquid oatmeal without sugar

·               9 am, 10 am, 11 am, 12 am, 1 pm: do cleansing enemas with warm water every hour till stones stop coming out

·               12 am: a cup of sweet tea with lemon

·               For a month after the procedure keep a diet as you would recovering from jaundice.

·               For a week after the procedure have one tablespoon of olive oil before meals

·               For a month after the procedure drink a glass of warm mineral water “Slavyanovskaya” or “Yessentuki # 17” 40 minutes before meals