Surviving our worst fears

God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging. Psalm 46:1-3

This is going to be pretty short--Marc and I are headed out to a breakfast date this morning, and then I'm going to the world's most notorious prison (well, the metro stop near the world's most notorious prison) to buy some index cards. (The metro stop and prison are Lubyanka...look it up if you don't believe me about its notoriety.) We're looking forward to a cup of coffee and croissant together--thanks to the folks from FBC Allen, Texas, who are providing breakfast through a nice gift certificate they gave us when they were here!

Yesterday was Russian Easter, and because it was Sunday, we were running late. Plus, we had no idea how many people (including lots of police) would be out on the roads, so we were doubly late because of the traffic and lack of busses, etc. Get the idea? We were running late. At the bus stop, we decided we would take a mashrutka, which is a van that functions like a taxi. Thankfully, one showed up pretty quickly, and we piled in and it took off. About fifty feet from the bus stop, I heard Sarah Beth suck in her breath so loudly that I knew something was wrong. When I looked at her, she said, "Where's John?" in English (we try to keep the English to a minimum in public, so I knew something was really wrong when she started talking in English). We looked around, at to our horror discovered that John was not in the mashrutka with us.

When we came to the field, especially because Moscow is a big city with lots of traffic, people, etc., our biggest concern (and the concern of the medical folks at the IMB) was John. Many of you know that John is clinically hyperactive. He is not the kind of kid who you don't know he's hyperactive and you're shocked when his parents tell you. All you have to do to know John is hyperactive is be in the room with him for about two seconds. That's not to say he isn't sweet and wonderful, because he is, but hyperactivity comes with a complete lack of impulse control. Hence the worries about his safety--he doesn't have the thing in his brain that tells the rest of us not to step out into the street because the driver isn't going to stop and the bus will likely hit us. We have worked really hard with John to be able to be here and function, and it's really been a miraculous success. He is quiet in the metro. He stays with me when we walk to school. He notices cross walks and knows that he must wait for someone to cross with him. For the most part, we have been really astonished at how well he's done here. Of course, he also likes to "flolic" on the sidewalks sometimes, but we try to keep that to a minimum.

Along with the lack of impulse control, John's hyperactivity also manifests itself in extreme distractability. He doesn't always notice the people he's about to run into when he's "flolicking." He can miss watching for a bus because he's crouched on his haunches watching his "little guys." (He's the only kid I've ever known who loves ants as much as he does.) And that's what happened yesterday. He was staring at the ants at the bus stop and didn't notice that we were leaving. I thought Marc had him--Marc thought I had him. You get the idea.

When we realized he was not with us, Marc yelled for the driver to stop. (Thank God that the word for stop is stop in Russian.) The van slowed down, but Marc couldn't wait for it to stop and jumped out while it was still moving at a pretty good clip. The driver asked me what had happened, and, in my utter panic, I lost all semblance of knowing the Russian language. I told them that I didn't know how to say it in Russian, but that we had left my son. Luckily, someone knew English and explained what happened. The driver looked horrified. He asked me if I wanted to get off or if he needed to wait. I told him we would get off. Then, feeling like I needed to say something to the horrified passengers we were leaving behind, and lacking any Russian at that particular moment, I said the only thing that came to mind in Russian--the Easter greeting I had been practicing all week for church. So I kind of spat out, "Christos Voskress!" and jumped out of the van, followed by my two horrified girls. I'm sure I startled everyone involved with my sudden testimony to the resurrection of Christ. Not my proudest moment, my friends. Not my proudest moment.

Of course, John was crying, but other than that was fine. The wonderful thing about Russians, and this is one of their most endearing qualities, is that they love children and would never let anything bad happen to a child, so we weren't concerned that someone would take him or hurt him. But it was still pretty scary. It still took my heart a while to slow down. But we survived the thing we feared the most on the field. And all of our lecturing about what to do in that situation--stay where you are, and we'll come back for you--worked, because that's exactly what he did. And my shouted testimony at our fellow passengers provided quite a giggle for the whole family. Even though something bad happened, we survived. And hopefully, this will be enough of a scare (he was alone for about 30 seconds) to make John pay attention to where we are.

Well, I'm off to my breakfast date with the good-looking fella I came here with. Wherever you are in the world, I pray that you know that you can survive just about anything, and that you have shouted "Christ resurrected!" at a van full of really startled people recently. Blessings to you and yours!

His,
Kellye