Christian Life In Communist Russia

Day 5

            Marco isn't totally well in the morning, but he gets up and goes to work anyway. He works at picking the wheat and trying not to be whipped for going too slow. He sadly glances when one of his friends are being whipped and he can't help but cry. He doesn't stop for lunch, but he keeps working until the end of the day; then he walks home.

            As he walks he sees a young couple being pulled from their home. The woman has her baby in her arms and she is dragged into a cart along with the young man. As the cart drives off with the young couple crying, the woman drops her baby onto the dirt ground. Marco rushes forward and picks up the baby and sees that luckily it wasn't hurt. He hurries home with the baby in his arms.

            Marco pushes through the door and lays the baby onto the table. He runs down the street to a neighbor that he is sure that hasn't been taken away yet. Marco pleads with the neighbor for some spare milk and luckily the neighbor gives him a bowlful. Marco carefully carries this as he travels in the shadows. He hopes that no secret police discover him as he ran along the streets.

            He pushes back through his house door and quickly took a cup from the cabinet. He filled the cup with milk and gently held it to the baby's lips. The baby drank and drank; even though, a lot of milk spilled onto it. Sarah then washes the baby and wrapped it into a blanket; then she feed it some of the mash, while they all ate.

            “How did you find this baby?” Sarah whispers after she sends Robi into the other room.

            “A young couple down the road were taken to the prison camp today and I saw them pulled from their house. The young woman dropped her baby onto the ground and I picked it up and brought it home,” Marco whispers.

            “We should name her,” Sarah replies as she lays the baby into her lap.

            “I think we should name her Hope,” Marco comments and Sarah nods in agreement.

            They hurry into the bedroom and Marco pulls the Bible from under the plank. He begins to read Genesis 9:1-17.

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.  The fear and dread of you will fall on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds in the sky, on every creature that moves along the ground, and on all the fish in the sea; they are given into your hands.  Everything that lives and moves about will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.

 “But you must not eat meat that has its lifeblood still in it.  And for your lifeblood I will surely demand an accounting. I will demand an accounting from every animal. And from each human being, too, I will demand an accounting for the life of another human being.

 “Whoever sheds human blood,

by humans shall their blood be shed;

for in the image of God

has God made mankind.

 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”

 Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “I now establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you  and with every living creature that was with you—the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you—every living creature on earth.  I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be destroyed by the waters of a flood; never again will there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

 And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.  Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”

 So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”

            Marco finishes and he smiles at Hope. Sarah lies down with Hope in her arms and they all fall asleep.