“Olga, you have a choice. You either do it, or you quit,” she said.

“I need a job. It is a good job with good income and benefits. I have no choice as to keep the job and learn my new duties,” upset, I answered.

It is amazing what you can accomplish, if you put your mind to improving your skills. Two years later, in addition to my previous duties, I began teaching pregnant women about breastfeeding and helping them after delivery.

…….

In 2007, ten years into our marriage, Oleg changed to another auto body shop. Our income and benefits dramatically increased. Our house was on a busy street and not safe for our children, so we decided to buy a bigger house in a better neighborhood. We also bought two new cars on credit. Our life was good. We thought the money would always flow and we would be fine forever.

Raising our children was fun, but it also required lots of work to assure that our children were getting the best that we could provide them. I even volunteered in our church to teach Russian language to a class, which David attended. I understood the importance of our children knowing two languages, so I taught them how to read, write and speak Russian.

We were involved parents, trying to provide every opportunity for our children, and especially those opportunities we had not had as children. David was growing up as a serious and neat boy. Happy Kristina always helped me in the kitchen and took a good care of her younger brother, Michael. She loved doing his hair and dressing him up. And Michael was growing as a happy and patient baby. It was like he understood that I had to care for his brother and sister as well. With straight hair and blue eyes, Michael looked a lot like me. When Michael was growing up, we noticed that he was a very brave kid. At the age of four, he started riding his bike without training wheels, and two weeks later he rode a real dirt bike! We loved our children and provided what we could for them. Life with three children was so busy, but worth every moment of it!

Our third child, Michael

…….

As a family, we regularly attended church and read the Bible. Serving God and being close to Him was important to us. Oleg and I often discussed what our parents taught us, what we saw in church, and what we hoped to have in our life. We were a little dissatisfied that we were Christians, but didn’t experience God’s big power in our life. In the Bible, the book of Revelation 3:15-17, we read that God preferred for people to be either “cold” or “hot”, but not “lukewarm”. It is better to be a non-believer, than to claim that you know God and profane His name with your bad deeds.

Up to this point in our marriage we were Christians, but we took being Christians for granted. For example, reading the Bible and attending church was something we did, but we weren’t fully engaged. We didn’t do it with joy or excitement, because we felt that we were obligated to do it. We never questioned the relationship of ourselves to our faith. We just accepted what we were told. But now Oleg and I wanted to experience more of God’s love, power and presence in our life. So here, as I already said in the beginning of the book, our journey began…

One evening, when we knelt to pray to God, I heard Oleg pray, “God, I am so tired of being a lukewarm Christian. I want to have a personal relationship with You! I want to experience more of Your love, more of Your power and more of Your presence in my life. Please send a situation into my life that will show me WHO YOU REALLY ARE!”