This news arrived on
Tuesday, September 12, 2000 9:47 PM
about: The Great Train Robbery

Janos and István were two members of our team from Oradea, Romania. They tell about their train ride home from Kiev (September 5).

Dear Friends,

Our train ride to Budapest was not uneventful like last year. Around two in the morning, hours before we were supposed to arrive to the border two Ukranian soldiers knocked on our compartment door, and asked for our passports.

They examined them and after a while they said, "Problem!" I asked, "what is the problem?" They said that the stamp we were given in Kiev was not proper because the signature on the stamp in Janos's looked different than the one in mine. (Weird? Isn't it?) They said we had to get off the train, or we could handle this in other ways. We had to pay them to release us. I was so tired and sleepy that I did not realized what is going on, so I gave them all my Hungarian an Ukrainian money, worth $6 US. They handed our passport and left. But afterwards I started to think, because I could not go to sleep again.

First of all I had to ask the Lord to forgive me for bribing them. Then I felt the Lord's peace. Second of all they were only soldiers that guard at the border and did not have the authority to make us to get off the train. They just wanted money, and I was weak enough to give it to them. Third of all, their remark about the difference of the signatures is so childish, that if I could have thought about it I would realize what was going on. They got on the train far before it was supposed to get to the border and asked the sleeping car attendant about those who were foreigners or about those who could not speak the language. We were both, and even more we were without experience. I was a bit upset, but I could speak from my heart: Lord, forgive them.

But the story was not over yet. After we arrived to the border, our passports were gathered together with everybody's on the car. Later an officer came up to us and said we have a problem with our passports. I said, "Oh no! Not again?" He showed us that the stamp we received when we entered the Ukraine was blurry, and they could not read the name of the town where we crossed the border into the Ukraine. But because we didn't really understand each other he sent for an officer who spoke Hungarian. I guess they wanted us to think that we entered Ukraine illegally and now we want to know how to get out. The second officer entered our compartment and asked where did we cross the border when we arrived in the Ukraine. I said I have no idea because it was night, I was sleepy, and I cannot read Cyrillic. He said, "this is a big problem, but we can resolve this in other ways." The Holy Spirit came upon me and I burst out, "No, you cannot do that to us again! I won't do that a second time!!!" I do not remember what else I said but it did convinced him. He gave our passports back to us and left the compartment. I said, "THANK YOU LORD!!!!! You are so good.

István

I (David) will add on this letter another situation that took place for this team that arrived in August 22 and left September 5.

Doctor Pat came in to the airport, and his medicines he was going to use to treat some of the children were taken away at customs. The customs people did not let us have them back while Dr. Pat was with us, but the Dr. saw about 40 children and wrote what they should be taking. When the medicine is released, I will give this to the doctor here, who is a full time worker along with Anchored in Zion. Our full time doctor expressed, "Working with the doctor and his team is the best thing, especially the praying we did for each child."