Svetlana marks a passage in the Bible she bought from
the Interconfessional Bible Society of Moldova
[photo: UBS/Dag Smemo WR413/2 MOL07DJ-20]
MOLDOVA — Svetlana is a pale, nervous-looking girl of 21. The splitting-up of her family and its damaging consequences is a story repeated tens of thousands of times across Moldova. It is estimated that between one in ten and one in six adults have left Moldova to go and find abroad the work that they cannot find at home.
“When I was eight or nine some people invited me to go to a nearby Protestant church. My parents didn’t mind – they used to go to the Orthodox church occasionally – but they didn’t come with me. “I went several times but when we started having problems in the family it became difficult to go. My mother and father were fighting and it ended with my mother deciding to go abroad to work.”
Better life
Many Moldovan women, desperate to go abroad to seek a better life, have put themselves into the hands of people traffickers who have forced them into prostitution or begging. Unlike them, Svetlana’s mother was apparently fortunate. “She is in Istanbul,” says Svetlana. “She works as a housekeeper and nanny for well-off families. I have been to Istanbul to visit her and she has been back to Chisinau. We write to each other. She sends money from what she earns to my father and me.” But although her mother’s absence meant that more money came in, it was not good that Svetlana was left alone with her father. “He began drinking more and more…” she says. An electrician, in Soviet times he had regular employment. But these days the product which was his specialisation is no longer produced in Moldova and he only has temporary jobs. When things were at their worst between them, there were incidents (the word she uses translates literally as ‘scandals’) daily. “He was violent towards me,” she says. She doesn’t go into more detail.
God was calling
“I began to see that I couldn’t cope with the situation on my own and I felt that God was calling me to him. For example, when things were bad with him, there were times when I opened my Bible in tears and what I read made me understand that God was speaking to me about my situation. Reading it gave me special comfort. I remember that Psalm 146 struck me as powerful.” God also came into her life in the form of Aunt Ira, a woman with a ministry among many families who are experiencing difficulties. Aunt Ira receives free Bibles and other books from the Bible Society to give to the people she helps. Svetlana now goes to the same Baptist church as Ira, the large Bethel Church.
Wisdom
“We met in the street and started talking,” says Svetlana. “And when she heard about my family she started to pray for us. She told me that I could live with Christ and that my heart could be changed. This was between spring and autumn of 2005. I asked her to pray that I wouldn’t respond to my father’s aggression. Now God has given me the wisdom I needed to cope.” But as she brings out pieces of her earlier life, it seems that God has had his hand on Svetlana since long before she met Aunt Ira. Her first Bible was given to her by a family of Christians when she was a little girl. This was the famous blue-covered Children’s Bible that was a bestseller for so many years. After a few years, though, she felt hungry for more than Bible stories.
Complete Bible
“I bought my first proper Bible here at the Bible Society when I was 14 years old,” she recalls.“The complete Bible was difficult, though.” Perhaps her timing wasn’t right. At any rate, as a consequence of the difficulties in her life and of meeting Aunt Ira, in the spring of 2005 she began reading the Bible more purposefully. “I started at the beginning with Genesis but I failed with that and started again with the New Testament!”
God was there
She persisted, however, and came to Christ a year ago. Now she goes to a Saturday evening Bible study group. On taking up going to a church again, she felt that God was there, waiting for her. “At church with Aunt Ira, I felt the presence of God. People there were not like secular people – they were different.” Understandably, though, for this young woman of just 21 it is difficult to talk to people at church about her problems. Moldova is a country where a ready smile is not part of the tradition and it is not hard to imagine that Svetlana would be hesitant to open up to relative strangers. Nor does she feel able to invite friends to her home. “But I go to youth meetings at church; they are nice. And I talk to Aunt Ira!” Her acceptance of Christ prompted a change of some kind in her father; she doesn’t say exactly what it was, but one understands that he has softened in some way.
Not aggressive
“He is not aggressive any more and I am not afraid that he will beat me,” she says. “I feel God is protecting me. “My father hates being told that he is drinking too much. He has tried to give up several times but each time he has failed. Nowadays he is not always drunk, though he feels bad if he doesn’t drink for a few days and celebrations such as Easter provide an excuse.” Although she goes regularly to church twice on Sunday without opposition from him, he himself doesn’t go. “I talk to him about Jesus,” she sighs, “but he doesn’t really listen.” Svetlana’s ‘summer kitchen’ (a tiny brick outhouse, approximately three by six metres square, in the garden) is rented to a neighbouring family who lost their own flat. “I have been trying to witness to the family,” Svetlana says. “They are a house carpenter, his wife and their two girls of 11 and 12. I gave them a Bible but they couldn’t understand it, so I gave them a Children’s Bible and that worked better. The wife is not interested in spiritual things but the father and children seem to be.” The father has told her that when the family lost their flat, he felt like committing suicide – a feeling that has stayed with him ever since.
Afraid of Protestants
“I explained to him that suicide wasn’t the right way and that he needed God in his life,” she says. “His knowledge and experience of the church is limited to the Orthodox Church – he is rather afraid of the idea of Protestants.” It is moving to hear how this young woman who is still grappling with a difficult life of her own has nevertheless experienced enough of God to start telling others about his saving love and power.
(WR 413/2 - 07.07)[5 photos]