Susan May Warren

Life…it gets in the way of my blogging! So, like I promised, I wanted to give you a glimpse at My Life in Russia. Here’s the thing…unlike Josey from Everything’s Coming up Josey, I never went to Russia SINGLE. I always toted baggage, as in small children and diaper bags. Six months after I arrived in Khabarovsk (look on your map, about a finger’s width west of Japan), we flew to Alaska to have son #2, Peter.

Here’s what happened… (And bear in mind, I wrote this about 12 years ago…before I had done alot of writing, so be gentle.)

Escape from Alaska

(Author’s note: Three weeks after we had our son Peter, we had our bags packed and were ready to step on the plane the next morning when we got a late night call that our visas would not be ready. We changed our tickets and sat tight for another week, waiting. Due to the Thanksgiving holiday, our visas were still held up with red tape the day of our next departure date. But we had high hopes, and again packed our bags. Below is the journal entry I wrote after that eventful day, November 1994).

I am going to write a screenplay entitled, “Escape from Alaska”, about a young family who try everything they can to leave the city, to no avail. They eventually end up living in a cave on the outskirts of town, shooting and eating rabbits and clothing themselves with the skins (so as to not waste any part) while they assemble a dogsled in order to mush towards Russia at night. It will be a true
story, with the names changed to protect the innocent (if there are any).

Here is an excerpt of the screenplay:

10:00 a.m. The scene opens in a crowded, one bedroom hotel room. There are scantily clad children running from the kitchen to the bedroom. dropping wet Cheerios on the carpet as they eat with their hands. A young woman, also scantily clad, is furiously cramming odd articles of clothing and baby equipment into a small bag. The bag is fraying at the seams. Enter a fully dressed man, stage left, from the unkempt bedroom. The audience glimpses an unmade bed with unused pink diapers thrown around the room.
Man: “Darling, are we ready to leave, yet?”
Women: (In a sweet, submissive kind of cooperative voice), “Yes dear, just a moment.”
She zips closed the last bag. The man grabs the bags, loads them into a waiting vehicle, (which is upstairs and outside in the parking lot in -15 degree weather) and heads to the airport, without his wife and children.

(Meanwhile, scene stays on the wife, who alternates from picking wet Cheerios off her feet and carpet to catching a wild child and forcing a piece of clothing on them.) Finally, they are all dressed, and sitting calmly watching a Barney episode. The wife is now searching for a lost earring and trying to calm a hungry baby. Not finding the earring, she settles down to feed the baby. Suddenly, her young daughter runs up….
Daughter: “Yucky, Mommy!” (She is holding a bottle and has a string of goo connecting her hands and mouth.)

Mother takes ones look and gasps. The young daughter has eaten super glue! She puts her starving baby on the bed and grabs her daughter, rushing her to the sink and prying dried superglue from her teeth and mouth. Meanwhile, the son, who was quietly watching Barney, decides to entertain the baby, and bounces him enough to dislodge the few ounces of milk previous swallowed.
After scraping the daughter’s teeth and face clean, and satisfied that none was swallowed, the mother returns to feeding the baby.

11:50 am. Father returns to find Mother packing carry-on bags. Misc. blankets and toys stick out from the unzipped bags.
Father: “I’ve checked our bags through to Khabarovsk. Have the visas arrived yet?”
Mother: “No”.
Father: “Maybe I’ll just call Fed. Express…” (Ominous music fills the back¬
ground as he walks to the phone and dials.)
Father speaks briefly and then hangs up.
Father: “We have to call the travel agent and get the tracking number.”
He again dials the phone. (Ominous music continues to increase in volume.)
Father: “Hello, Kathy? How about those visas?” He listens in silence, then gasps. (All music stops as the wife turns in horror and stares at him.) He nods gravely then looks at his wife. He slowly places his hand over the voice pad.
Father: (quietly) “The visas are in Los Angeles. They were mistakenly put in a 2nd day air box, even though they were marked priority, and now they are
in LA. We have to stay another 2 weeks.”
Wife gasps and sits down. Scene fades on women’s horrified stare.

12:10 pm. Scene opens on wife washing dishes in the kitchen of the hotel room. Children run wildly in the background. The phone rings and women hastily dries her hands and answers it. The screen turns into a split screen featuring the wife, and in the other, a pretty young women with a wide grin on her face.
Wife: “Oh, hello Kathy.”
Kathy: “Good news! The Fed Express computers were malfunctioning and your
Visas are in Anchorage and will be there in ten minutes!”
Wife: “YOU’RE KIDDING! My husband has already left for the airport to retrieve our checked bags! This is horrible!”
Kathy: (slightly miffed at the mother’s response). “Well, you’d better catch him because you’re going to Russia today!”
The camera surveys the room, now unpacked carry-on bags (unpacked by the wild children) and half-eaten food litter the room. Unwashed dishes are piled on the counter. The scene again closes on the horrified stare of the wife.

12:30 pm. Hotel room. The children are sitting, quietly with nervous looks on their faces, watching with interest the wild antics of their mother. The mother is again cramming clothes in a carry-on bag, while she cradles a phone in one hand.
Mother: “Please, you must get a message to my husband, who is at the Alaska Airlines counter right now retrieving our checked bags. He MUST BE STOPPED! Tell him to wait there, that his wife and family are coming!!!! (pause…)”Okay then transfer me to the correct desk!”
The scene fades on this conversation being played three more times.

1:00 pm. Hotel room. Husband walks in the door. Nervous children greet him with joy.
Father: “I got our suitcases – hey, what’s going on?”
Mother: “We got the Visas and we leave in an hour!”
Father quickly grasps the situation and enters the bathroom. He grabs the carry-on bags and with a single bound or two, runs them to the waiting vehicle. His children are close behind, leaving the frantic mother to look for the lost earring. With a discouraged humph, she puts on her shoes and grabs the sleeping baby.
The scene goes black as she shuts the door behind her.

1:45 pm: Outside the Airport. The Family is greeted by a good friend and owner of the vehicle they have been driving for the last 6 weeks. They quickly unload the bags and shuttle the family inside. The wife quickly cleans out the car, then, bundling up the baby, she carefully locks the car…leaving the only set of keys inside.

2:00 pm: Departure Gate. After a 5 mile hike to the gate, the little family sits down to rest. Think¬ing that it is strange that their flight, due to leave at 2:05 is not boarding yet, the husband gets up to inquire at the ticket counter. Suddenly, a voice is heard over the loudspeaker.
Voice: “Flight 201 is delayed due to poor weather. Please wait for further updates.”
The scene fades out on the horrified look of the Father.

5:00 pm: Departure Gate. The scene opens on the family, coats off and carry-ons halfway un¬packed. Father is sipping a soda and mother is rocking a sleeping baby. Children are terrorizing other passengers. Father sits up as a voice comes over the loudspeaker.
Voice: “Due to weather, Flight 201 is rescheduled for tomorrow.”
The scene fades out on Mother and Father’s horrified stares.

7:01 pm. Different hotel room. The scene opens on two of the children, pizza and pop stains down the front of their shirts sitting scantily clad in front of “Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.” Mother is scanning the TV highlights for the evening.
Mother: “Oh, look honey, the movie “Planes, Trains and Automobiles” is on
tonight!” The scene closes with the theme from “Twilight Zone”.

(Author’s note: The next day, after waiting seven hours, they Warren family was finally on the plane, and safely in the air, eating a hot meal of chicken Kiev when they suddenly felt the airplane do a severe 180 turn. Within an hour of Russia, the plane had turned around due to bad weather and again the family found themselves in the Anchorage airport. After staying with a very gracious family for a week, the Warrens finally made it all the way to Khabarovsk on their fourth try, Dec. 8.)

I receive a lot of letters from readers asking where I got my ideas and how I did my research…here’s a little glimpse into that answer…

Tea with the KGB

Valentina met us at the door with a bit of a stern look, as if we were late. Andrew seemed oblivious as he pulled off the kids’ valenki (Russian boots). Valentina stood aside and held out her hand, ushering me in. Stout, with a wizened face and sharp eyes, she looked me up and down carefully, barely a hint of smile on her face. Her long gray hair, dyed cranberry on the ends was tied back in a severe bun, and she hustled about the kitchen with a no-nonsense about her that would have made my grandmother proud. She wore a shapeless gray polyester dress over her barrel body with an antique topaz pin fastened to her collar and she looked every inch like the matrons I’d seen in old Communist Party pictures.

She was a former KGB Colonel.

Of course Andrew didn’t tell me her lifelong profession until after we’d sat down to tea with pickles, which had been soaked in vodka, boiled potatoes, tomatoes and brown bread. She even sliced up some cheese and sausage. It was quite a spread for a pensioner.

She told me she’d been a translator. I was trying to make conversation, so I asked her what kind of things she translated. There was a pregnant pause…then she said, “Let’s not talk about it.” That was the moment Andrew realized that I had no idea who I was talking to. I was drinking tea with someone who ten years ago would have had me under bright lights, maybe inserting painful objects under my fingernails, for asking such a question. “What did you expect her to say?” he teased me later, “that she had translated the wire taps in President Kennedy’s office?” Oops.

But the realization that we were in the home of a former KGB Colonel made drinking tea with her like old friends and talking openly about who we were and why we were in Russia, that much more profound. She asked why we had come to Russia and I told her plainly, “To tell the Russians that God loves them.” Amazingly, she looked interested.

My children sang a song for her, recited a poem and David told her about Christmas. As we were leaving, she pulled me aside and asked where and when we were having Bible studies. She said she wanted to send her granddaughter, but I wondered if she wanted to send herself.

Since then, Valentina has invited us back. This is only significant in that, to her, this is a complete embracing of the enemy. She told me that although she could speak fluent English she was never allowed contact with foreigners. Ten years into Perestroika, we are the first. I would suspect her to be wary. Instead, she is welcoming.

My friendship with Valentina taught me much about God, and His grace. By the world’s standards, Valentina doesn’t “deserve” heaven. She has spent her lifetime denying its existence. But God doesn’t operate that way. Although none of us deserve it, His grace is available to everyone.

And, I don’t know about you, but that gives me a great sigh of relief.

Living in Russia offered me the priviledge of many unique and crazy circumstances to draw from for writing material. This scene is the real event that sparked the premise for my first published story – The Measure of a Man novella in Tyndale’s, Chance Encounters of the Heart Anthology.

~~

It’s been a brutal fall. Somehow, the reality of Russian life has snuck up to us, and from stolen headlights on our cars, to an unfortunate mugging, our normally forgiving hearts have been crusting over. Russia is a difficult place to live, with the crumbling cement buildings, the glass-covered, weedy yards, the broken streets and the cold smack of the wind from the North.

Russian Friendships, however, are warm, run deep and more than compensate for these trials…usually.

With the death of our friend Costia, the mishaps of muggings and thefts and the advent of the holiday season, the joy of working in Russia began to flicker and cynicism sneaked into our conversations.

God must have known I needed a fresh perspective. But He sure delivers in strange ways.

One frosty November evening, I decided to pop over to my girlfriend’s house to chat, and learn how to cut up a chicken. (Okay, I know, this is something I should have learned in Missionary 101–I skipped that class).

Throwing on my jacket, I sent the kids down the elevator ahead of me and told them to head over to her house, just across the yard. (When I say house, I mean 9-story apartment building, in which she has a 3 BR apt on the 10th floor. I have a 4 BR apt on the 9th floor.) We had some Japanese folks living with us, and they decided to join me, so we called the elevator and hopped in. I did take note of the fact the lift seemed to behave oddly, not quite meeting up with the ninth floor when the doors opened.

But this is Russia. Things are often off-kilter.

We rode down the nine flights, landed on the first floor and waited for the doors to open. Nothing. We went to the second floor. Again nothing. We visited all the floors, a few times. Nothing. Panic began to seep into the tiny one-meter by one-meter compartment. The word claustrophobia wasn’t mentioned, but considered. We were three adults and a child in a box the size of a phone booth.

We returned to the first floor. Hearing a group of teenagers, I pounded on the door and asked for help. They laughed at us. We tried to pry the doors open. Hercules couldn’t have exerted more force than three slightly desperate adults. Unless we were worms, however, we weren’t getting out of that elevator.

I kept pounding. The teenagers began to mimic my pleas for help. One suggested we pass out dollars and they would help us. We decided to pray instead.

Another group of potential good Samaritans shuffled up to the lift and pressed the button. I called to them and guessed, from their voices, they were about nine years old. Giggling, the boys ran off, saying they would call the “Liftor” (the Russian translation for the lift operator). We have a Liftor who works an area about as big as ten city blocks, with approximately twenty nine-story buildings–nearly 100 elevators.

We never heard from the boys again.

We kept pounding, prying, praying and pleading. The teenagers’ voices drifted off as they scattered to smoke cigarettes in some other hallway. The frosty nip of a Siberian November seeped through the cracks of the lift and my toes began to feel fat. Occasionally, after we would attack the door, the dim light overhead would flicker off and bathe us in darkness. I head the Japanese folks praying in a strange tongue. (Which I supposed was Japanese). When I checked my watch, an hour had ticked by. I hoped my children had made it to my girlfriend’s house safely.

Since it was 5pm, a steady flow of people entered the building. Most of them called the elevator, and we responded by calling out, “help.” Our hearts sunk lower every time silence answered and we heard feet trudge up the stairs.

Anger started to simmer in my soul. Here I was, a servant in their country, showing them the path to salvation, and they couldn’t even stop to call the lift operator? The frustrations of the past three months roiled through me and I fought tears. Thoughts of hopping the next plane filled my mind. Fury fueled my emotions. I slammed my fist into the door, wrenched at it with all my might, and earned a few bruises.

Then I remember that is EXACTLY what Satan wanted me to do. God doesn’t hold us accountable for what happens, but rather how we react. God expected me to react with patience and forgiveness, despite my hurt. In the quiet pitch of darkness, I battled to forgive a country that seemed so cold and uncaring. I battled to obey God’s will for my life, and love in the face of callousness. I battled to turn the other cheek.

An older gentleman trotted up to the door. We called out, again, and miraculously, he answered, then said, “I’ll call the liftor!”

We heard his footsteps scamper out the door and hope lit inside me. I felt the first tingling of forgiveness in my heart. He returned shortly, said he’d made the call, and that they’d be here shortly. Grateful tears pricked my eyes. We heard him ascend the stairs.

Forty-five minutes later we were still waiting, now frozen and ready to devour the raw chicken in my bag. I didn’t need to learn how to cut apart a chicken — I could rip it asunder with my bare, nearly numb hands! Please God, I prayed, send us someone who cares.

We again attacked the door, cracked it open and saw twilight had descended, bathing the corridor in shadows. Suddenly, an elderly woman, dressed in a thick wool coat and a fuzzy rabbit shopka, poked her eye into the crack.

“Are you stuck in there?” she asked.

No, I just thought I’d sleep in the lift tonight, I wanted to retort, then glad I didn’t have the Russian to pull it off. Deliriously grateful to see a friendly face I said, “We’ve been in here nearly two hours! Can you help us?”

Then she spoke the most wonderful words in history. “I’ll get an axe.”

I didn’t care if Russia fined me for destroying public property; I’d buy
the entire building a new elevator if I could just sleep in my bed for the night!

She reappeared with lethal instruments — a long rod which she passed through and we wedged into the crack, and an axe, which she wielded herself. She began to pry the door open. Fresh air flooded into the box and hope was palpable.

We grabbed the rod and attacked the door. It began to slide open.

“What are you doing? Why are you breaking the door?” The Liftor’s face popped into view and he grabbed the pole, like it personally offended him. Russian anger usually intimidates me. Not this time.

“We’ve been in here for two hours! Didn’t you get the call?”

He shrugged. It’s a good thing the door wasn’t wedged open wide enough for me to grab his wrinkled collar and give him the what-for.

“Stand back,” he ordered. Three minutes later, we were out. (He used a long wire, stuck it between the doors from the outside and flipped an invisible switch).

I hugged the Babushka like a long lost friend. Shocked, she stared at me. “What was that for?”

“For listening to us and caring,” I replied.

The liftor turned the lift off for the night, which was fine because I won’t be using it anytime short of eternity. The Babushka smiled at me and ascended the stairs home. I ran to collect my kids, freedom adding a spring to my step.

It occurred to me later that God used this Babushka to bolster my deflating spirit, and remind me He loved me. She cared after dozens of others had turned away, and God used her to scrape away a bit of my cynical crust and help me forgive.

This is still a hard country, and during the Christmas season, longing for home roars through my heart. Then I am reminded of Mary, giving birth in a dirty barn, and Jesus, entering a cruel world, leaving paradise behind. He came for the lowly shepherds, who ran to welcome him, for wise men, who knew to search for Him, and for people like me, who need His grace. Though the world be dark and cold, He is light, He is warmth and He cares. Cares enough to soften a calloused heart, cares enough to send salvation to a dying world.

I pray that today, you see God’s love for you. Keep your eyes open — it may be dressed in wool and carrying a big axe.