08/09/20 2005 MISSION TRIP TO CENTRAL ASIA #5 — One day we crossed the border into a neighboring country (both were formerly part of the USSR). Let’s just say it was a rough day. We left close to midnight, when the border officially closed. As the clock neared 12:00am and we got closer and closer to the border, lots of folks had pulled their vehicles off the road, apparently resigned to spending the night there. Amazingly we actually arrived at the first checkpoint about 11:59pm! Whew—I thought our troubles were over. The rest of our party, who could speak and write the language at least a little, quickly went through. But not me!

They jerked me over to the side into a small, closed room. There was a long table with several chairs on one side and one lonely chair on the other side—that’s where they seated me. Soon the other chairs filled up with unfriendly looking guys in military uniforms. I tried to gesture to them that they needed to alert my team about my whereabouts. They ignored me and took turns passing around my passport, pointing to me and laughing loudly and derisively. Finally the guy who seemed to be in charge sneered in (very) broken English, “Virginia, eh? Ahh… Governor Schwarzenegger!” I took one of the pencils and a blank visa form and tried to show them that California and Virginia were on opposite coasts. What a waste of time!

Suddenly they shoved me out the door. In seconds all the lights were off. I was all alone. Did I mention that the temperature had fallen to 19 degrees and I was wearing only a light jacket?! All of a sudden, there were two red taillights and my missionary friends were backing up as fast as they could. I was exhausted and nearly frozen, but I had survived, by the Grace of God! MORE TO COME…