Russian Honeymooners

This is a story in the making of a young newly-married Russian couple whom we met when they walked-in to our church on a warm Tuesday morning about two months ago. The guy's name is Andrey and the girl's name is Alena. We thought it would be best to refer them to the Russian embassy. Andrey and Alena lost their credit cards and their plane tickets to Russia have expired. That's what they said. But they did not want us to contact the Russian embassy. We thought they were just asking money. But when we inspected their return tickets, they were already expired, consistent to what they said. They said they needed return tickets and a place to stay during the night until they have the tickets.

Anyway, it turned out that they stayed 4 nights and 5 days at the mission house which we have coordinated with some missionaries until we are sure we were going to give them the tickets. We had dinners with them and the most important of all, we had the opportunity to share with them the gospel.

I grabbed my Bible and listed some verses. Then I translated them to the Russian language using the free translator software. The last dinner we had with them was in a pizza house. While waiting for a hot pizza, my husband together with my daughter, began sharing the gospel. He said, "Jesus loves you." In Russian, Andrey said, "Bog lubit Tebya." We asked him to write all the things we were saying to him in Russian in piece of paper which the one I'm looking at the moment.

"Jesus died for you." He wrote, "Iesus umer dla tebya." When we took them to the airport, we said goodbye. The next day my husband received a text from him saying they did not have enough money for hotel and so they were staying at the airport in the country they flew to for stopover before they would fly to Russia. Anyway, to make the long story short, Alena, the wife, flew to Russia first and then asked helped from relatives and from Andrey's bank but the bank would not want to give her the money except send Andrey a ticketback to Russia. Andrey slept at the airport for 4 nights 'til he was able to get some money for the departure tax and after they sent him a ticket. We never heard from them.

Anyway,wherever they maybe, somewhere in Siberia, we are sure God's word will never return void. God bless you, beloved Russians! Jesus loves you!