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The Puzzle of Elijah. Olga Anischenko
Читать онлайн.Название The Puzzle of Elijah
Год выпуска 2023
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Автор произведения Olga Anischenko
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When we brought Michael home, at first David and Kristina were happy to see him, but then they started acting up, crying and being jealous. Oleg was at work, and I thought, “What is going on?” Then I understood that they needed more of my attention, and I had to learn how to be a mother of three children.
Being parents of three is vastly different than being parents of two. I wanted to stay home to breastfeed Michael. WIC, my employer, supported my choice to combine maternity leave, saved sick and vacation leave, and time off without pay to enable me to be off work for eleven months.
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When I returned to work, there were some changes at the WIC program due to budget constraints. This required all clerks to also be cross-trained as Nutrition Assistants. Thus, in addition to scheduling appointments, issuing WIC vouchers, and answering a multiple-lined phone, my new duties included diet and weight assessments, checking hemoglobin and teaching the nutrition classes.
This offered several challenges. I was scared of blood. To do a hemoglobin test, I had to poke a client’s finger and deal with the blood. I also had to speak in front of people, but had no confidence to do so. How do you get up in front of a group of people when you have an accent and have no confidence in your ability to speak? I expressed these and other concerns to my boss.
“Olga, you have a choice. You either do it, or you quit,” she said.
“I need a job. It is a good job with good income and benefits. I have no choice as to keep the job and learn my new duties,” upset, I answered.
It is amazing what you can accomplish, if you put your mind to improving your skills. Two years later, in addition to my previous duties, I began teaching pregnant women about breastfeeding and helping them after delivery.
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In 2007, ten years into our marriage, Oleg changed to another auto body shop. Our income and benefits dramatically increased. Our house was on a busy street and not safe for our children, so we decided to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood. We also bought two new cars on credit. Our life was good. We thought the money would always flow and we would be fine forever.
Raising our children was fun, but it also required lots of work to assure that our children were getting the best that we could provide them. I even volunteered in our church to teach Russian language to a class, which David attended. I understood the importance of our children knowing two languages, so I taught them how to read, write and speak Russian.
We were involved parents, trying to provide every opportunity for our children, and especially those opportunities we had not had as children. David was growing up as a serious and neat boy. Happy Kristina always helped me in the kitchen and took a good care of her younger brother, Michael. She loved doing his hair and dressing him up. And Michael was growing as a happy and patient baby. It was like he understood that I had to care for his brother and sister as well. With straight hair and blue eyes, Michael looked a lot like me. When Michael was growing up, we noticed that he was a very brave kid. At the age of four, he started riding his bike without training wheels, and two weeks later he rode a real dirt bike! We loved our children and provided what we could for them. Life with three children was so busy, but worth every moment of it!
Our third child, Michael
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As a family, we regularly attended church and read the Bible. Serving God and being close to Him was important to us. Oleg and I often discussed what our parents taught us, what we saw in church, and what we hoped to have in our life. We were a little dissatisfied that we were Christians, but didn’t experience God’s big power in our life. In the Bible, the book of Revelation 3:15-17, we read that God preferred for people to be either “cold” or “hot”, but not “lukewarm”. It is better to be a non-believer, than to claim that you know God and profane His name with your bad deeds.
Up to this point in our marriage we were Christians, but we took being Christians for granted. For example, reading the Bible and attending church was something we did, but we weren’t fully engaged. We didn’t do it with joy or excitement, because we felt that we were obligated to do it. We never questioned the relationship of ourselves to our faith. We just accepted what we were told. But now Oleg and I wanted to experience more of God’s love, power and presence in our life. So here, as I already said in the beginning of the book, our journey began…
One evening, when we knelt to pray to God, I heard Oleg pray, “God, I am so tired of being a lukewarm Christian. I want to have a personal relationship with You! I want to experience more of Your love, more of Your power and more of Your presence in my life. Please send a situation into my life that will show me WHO YOU REALLY ARE!” For a moment, I felt scared and wondered what Oleg was talking about. “How would this change our family and our life?” I thought. But I loved Oleg and trusted him. I thought he must know what he is asking for, but I had no idea what this would mean for our family. It struck me – it was an important moment in our lives.
From that day, Oleg totally changed. He began reading the Bible daily, sharing what he learned with us, and seeking answers for questions he had. It was like he was driven and wanted to know more. After he finished reading the book of Romans in the Bible, he did not understand it and had lots of questions. He wanted to know who the Apostle Paul wrote the book of Romans to, what he meant, and did it apply to us? We had been taught that certain parts of the Bible applied only to Gentiles, while other parts applied to Jews.
One day Oleg told me, “You know, Olga, if I want to know more about God, I probably have to learn more about the days of Moses, Jesus and His Apostles.”
I wondered what information he will be able to find. Oleg used the internet for research and was excited to share with me daily what new insights he learned. His love and interest in the truth about God grew. He simply had to know more. As we discussed and thought about what he learned, we began to have questions about what we were taught and prayed to God to reveal us the Truth. I also read the Bible, but hearing what Oleg shared with me was very interesting and unknown to me before. We began to question what God actually required of us, and what was the purpose of our life. Each question would lead us to other questions, like an unwinding spool of yarn. As a family, we studied and grew together in our faith.
……..
At the same time, significant changes happened in our life. Oleg’s job with a good salary was an hour drive each way. He decided to switch to a closer location, to be able to spend more time with the family. Unfortunately, his new location was not as busy. Oleg’s income decreased because there was less work and he was paid on a piece rate.
At about the same time, Oleg’s Father passed away at the age of 54. It was a big hit for Oleg’s whole family. It took them a while to accept it and move on.
Soon after, I injured my shoulders, which led to pain for the next few years and frequent doctor visits. Also, the economy took a downfall and our WIC department received a layoff notice due to lack of funding. I was going to lose my job in a year.
Between the house payment, car payments, our credit cards and other expenses, I wondered if we would ever be able to pay off our debt. I often cried out to God that we didn’t have the strength to handle this.
One day, my friend invited me to a prayer group, where God spoke to me, “My daughter, give your worry to Me and I will help you. All I need from you is PRAISE!” So, every time I worried, I praised God and His peace would come. It was such a wonderful feeling! Inside my heart I knew that God would help us.
The downturn in the economy also impacted my brothers and sisters. At that time, our parents started a family prayer time on Wednesday evenings at their house. Together with our children, we worshiped God and prayed for our needs and for needs of others.
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