Some questions of yours have encouraged me to make this posting that might be helpful for the purposes of helping you get to know more about myself and about the process for anyone else who might be trying to discerning how they themselves might be able to serve the mission field in the future by the gifts that God has given them along with the circumstances He has allowed them to experience.
One of my greatest motivations for serving in the mission field revolves around my travels that took place at the end of my two combat tours in Afghanistan eight years ago. In fact, this is where my first encounter with the Orthodox faith took place. I suppose that this experience has gone hand in hand with my becoming an Orthodox Christian! Thanks be to God!
Afghanistan confronted me with many things. One of these confrontations was the damage that was committed by the Soviets on the Afghan people as well as the entire countryside throughout the course of the 1970’s and throughout the early 1990’s. I was also given the opportunity to travel back and forth from the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan during this time. When I think about the damage that was done to those two countries as a result of the abuses of the former Soviet Union, it’s impossible to not sympathize with people who have struggled to regain their Christian identity after the fall of communism throughout eastern Europe.
In my own experience, it seems that the need for outreach may not as recognized in countries such as Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan on account that they do not share the fame and notariety of Afghanistan. Yet, these countries clearly have their own share of problems that include everything from ethnic violence, abusive governments, the Russian Mafia, landscapes that are littered with chemical bunkers, and fields of unexploded ordinances.
The whole ordeal at the airport was a very surreal experience for me. Originally I was wandering through an empty airport terminal at the crack of dawn to stay awake on my way back from a war zone. When I suddenly looked to my left hand side to see the the Mother of God and our Lord looking right at me, there is nothing that I can say now other than it was and still is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.
Having been in a very harsh environment for longer than I had ever wanted to, seeing such a thing reaching out to me was like having my family reaching out to comfort me when I didn't expect them to. I had never experienced anything like this in my twenty-one years of life.
I almost missed my connection flight to Germany on account that I had such a difficult time leaving this icon. I thought I would miss something if I would have left. Maybe I did? At any rate, after pacing back and forth from the terminal about seven or eight times, I did my final cross (I knew how to do this because I was raised Catholic!), I snapped the last picture with my cheap CVS wind-up camera and I left to make it on time for my flight.
The complete significance of my encounter with the Mother of God that day didn’t actually occur to me until about seven years later when I was listening to a sermon by a priest who was on a furlough from his mission in Kyrgyzstan. He was speaking at the Chapel at Holy Cross this past year during the OCMC missions week. While I have no doubt that God does as he pleases and could have placed the icon there by his own direct intervention had he chosen to do so was the fact that an entire process of labor and witness of a group of people had actually taken place for a specific reason before I wandered up to it.
What occurred to me was that perhaps the most important aspect of my experience in the airport was that the icon of our Holy Mother was placed there to reach out to me and to everyone else who would have been fortunate enough to walk by her. The icon was not hidden in an airport chapel or behind some desk, her presence and that of our Lord was a window to heaven, it was and still is a truly evangelistic witness to the life and Glory of God!
It may sound strange, but I actually spent days and nights completelly fascinated with how incredible it must have been for whoever put that icon on the wall of the airport terminal in the middle of the airport before I wandered up to it! I thank God to this day that I was able to take a picture of our Holy Mother with the last picture of my cheap wind-up camera. This photograph that hangs on the wall of my home today always serves as a reminder to me that Christ is always in our midst, and that the Mother of God is always comforting and interceding for us when we least expect her to be.
I can’t help but feel that as a soldier returning home from the war in Afghanistan that I may very well have been converted to the Faith by the fruits of the missionary efforts that resurrected the Church in the former Soviet Union. For this reason, I feel so much love for all people who under communist oppression.
This is one of the things that motivates for me in my love for the mission of the Church, and by God's grace I pray that I will be able to serve Him and his people in whatever capacity I can.
To God belongs the Glory. Amen.
♥ the miracles!
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