Victoria Doroshenko
[photo: UBS/Dag Smemo WR413/6 MOL07DJ-26]
Victoria Doroshenko has worked for the Bible Society for six years. This is her story of the striking way in which God shaped the course of action she her and her parents took in a life-threatening situation
It was 1998. I had been a Christian for two years by then and had a contract-based job with the accountancy firm Price Waterhouse. It was very well paid. At a time when the average monthly salary in Moldova was US$40 a month, I was earning between US$600 and US$800! Furthermore I could choose the method of payment and as the US dollar was such a desirable currency in Moldova I had opted to be paid in dollars.
Heart operation
My father was seriously ill, though, and the doctors said that he needed a major heart operation. Hospitals in Moldova weren’t up to performing operations like that, and the nearest ones that could do it were either in Moscow, St Petersburg or Tallin, in Estonia. Furthermore, the total cost would be around US$16,000! With both my parents having retired some time ago and each receiving only a small pension, for my father to have the operation that would save his life seemed an impossible dream. Nevertheless, in order to try and meet the cost my mother and I started saving. The question was where could we put it? At that time the banks in Moldova were not a good place to put money. A national financial crisis some years earlier had caused a lot of them to go bankrupt and many people – my parents included – feared something similar might happen again, so my mother decided that putting our precious savings in the bank was too risky.
In the garage
On the other hand, crime was rife in Chisinau, too – robberies and burglaries were common – so my mother didn’t want to keep the money in the house either. Instead, she decided to hide it in the garage, wrapped up in newspaper somewhere low down, where a burglar would never think of looking. So that was what she did. We lived on part of what I gave her and she hid the rest away in the garage. But my father’s worsening condition meant that he kept having to visit the local hospital and that in turn meant expense as we had to buy medicine. Meanwhile, in my Bible readings one day I came across the passage in Matthew where Jesus says, “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth ….” (Mt 6:19 NIV). My Bible was the Synodal Russian translation. This was originally published in 1876 and uses very old fashioned Russian language. So although I could understand the words it used for “moth” and “thieves” in the verse from Matthew, there was another word there that I couldn’t understand at all. The same day that I read that passage, my mother came in crying. When I asked her what was wrong she said that the money that was hidden in the garage was ruined! By then we had saved up US$3,000 but the place where she had hidden it must have been damp because, as she showed me, the metal strips in the dollar bills had gone to rust! American dollar bills were a desirable currency but if one were worn or showed the slightest sign of damage, nobody would accept it as valid. No wonder my mother was so upset. How would we ever be able to pay for my father’s operation?
Word for ‘rust’
But my own thoughts had taken a quite different turn. As soon as my mother told me what had happened to the dollar bills, I realised what that difficult word in the passage from Matthew had meant. It was the old word for rust: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal.” God had shown me the meaning! And at the same time he had shown me much more. Not long before that I had been completely atheist. But my mother, who had only been converted herself in 1987, had been praying for me and urging me to read the Bible. I scoffed! At that time, as far as I was concerned, God was dead! Christians believed in something that did not exist! But, then in 1996 I was converted and, the following year, baptised. Now I was hearing God speak directly to me and I was so happy! While my mother was crying about the money, I was overjoyed! “Don’t worry about the rust,” I told her. “God is saying that we shouldn’t keep the money. If we do it will be in vain.” And I showed her the passage from Matthew’s Gospel. I just had a feeling of peace about my sick father. It was at this time that I felt God calling me to work with deaf people. At first I resisted. I hadn’t been a Christian long and although I had known sign language well enough to sign some of the services at my Baptist church in Chisinau for deaf worshippers, I certainly didn’t know my Bible well enough to teach them about it. But over a couple of years, as I continued reading the Bible, as pastors spoke to me and as I talked more to the deaf people at church, I came to understand that that was what God wanted me to do. My flat became the place where a number of them met on Tuesday evenings for a lesson with a Bible teacher, while I served tea and biscuits for them.
Help the deaf
Because of the very limited educational and work opportunities available, deaf people here are very poor – even by Moldovan standards. So I asked my mother if the money we had been setting aside for my father’s operation could be used to help the deaf instead. The ‘disaster’ in our garage had meant that we lost 10 per cent of the money, but what was left would still go a long way to helping my friends buy food and medicine. To my great surprise, my mother agreed. I think she was swayed by the fact that the deaf also needed help in practical situations such as visits to doctors and dentists, school authorities and solicitors. Around 1999 my well paid job at Price Waterhouse came to an end. I decided to put my energy into a part-time course at theology college. The fees were nominal, I took a series of temporary low-paid jobs and we managed. But when I graduated two years later, almost all the money we had saved had gone and, still without any prospect of an operation, my father was dying. By now my mother, too, was having serious health problems. She used to cry about it all and I prayed for my parents’ health – yet I still had a strange peace about their situation, especially when I started working part-time with the Bible Society of Moldova.
Didn’t have to pay
In an answer to my prayers, in 2000 God opened a door for my mother and father to emigrate to the United States. “I’m going there to die!” my father announced. He really meant it. On arrival they set up home in California. Not long afterwards my father underwent a successful operation. The cost was US$140,000 but they didn’t have to pay a penny. Within six months of their arrival, doctors also told my mother the cause of her health problems: she was suffering from cancer. She, too, underwent surgery and is now well again. They live in Chicago, very close to my younger sister. If, at the end of the 1990s, I had continued with my own way of doing things, my parents would now be dead. Instead they are well and I understand, in the words of Isaiah 55: 8, that “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways…”
(WR 413/6 - 07.07)[2 photos]