Tumbling back into the account, I summarized the rest of my story for Sue. “Deborah and I drove across Czechoslovakia and connected with our underground contact in a small town on the Polish border. He told us it wouldn’t be safe to continue on to Kiev since the contact there recently had been questioned by the KGB and was now under surveillance.”
I swallowed as I remembered for the first time in such a long time the humility of the older man who was our contact in Czechoslovakia. “At great risk to himself, the contact in Czechoslovakia took all of the Bibles from us. We unloaded them late at night in a …” I still couldn’t bring myself to disclose specific locations so I just said, “We helped him hide them in a safe place. Then Deborah and I drove back to Germany. We were detained at the border and questioned, but our guard was distracted, and he let us go through.”
“You could have gone to prison for two years if you had been caught,” Sergei said.
“Yes, I know. But we weren’t caught. I always thought we had it easy. The hard task was for the dozens of brave believers in Czechoslovakia. They risked imprisonment by transporting the Russian Bibles on to Kiev.”
“Two of them were found out,” Sergei said.
I paused. “Did they go to prison?”
“Yes.”
An overwhelming sadness came over me. “What about the underground contact in Kiev? He was the one most at risk. Do you know what happened to him?”
Sergei looked down at his hands.
I turned to Sue and explained, “There was only one contact in all of Western Russia at that time who was willing to work with the mission and to receive such a large shipment of Bibles. I never found out what happened to him.”
“He is well,” Sergei said quietly.
I leaned forward. “Do you know him?”
Sergei looked up at me with an uncomfortable expression. “Yes, I know him. I know him too well.”
Sue blinked away her stunned expression, and in a reverent whisper, she said, “Sergei, it was you, wasn’t it? You were the underground contact in Kiev.”
Fifteen
Sergei’s humble expression told Sue and me the obvious answer that had eluded me as I was caught up in telling my side of the story.
“Yes,” he said. “I was the contact in Kiev.”
“Sergei,” I said in a half-whisper. Now I was the one who couldn’t speak.
“And you, Jenna,” Sue said, now that she had found her voice, “you never told anyone, did you? Jack doesn’t know this, does he?”
I shook my head.
“Why not?”
“Because the borders were closed for so many years after I came home. I didn’t want to jeopardize the safety of any of the believers by giving out information that might somehow reach the wrong people.”
“Thank you.” Sergei was visibly moved. “Thank you for thinking of what was best for me and others like me for all these years. If you had told people what you did, you could have been a hero in America.”
“No, not a hero.” I almost laughed. “Sergei, you’re the one who risked everything, not me.”
“Sweet peaches, Jenna!” Sue blurted out. “Did you not hear yourself just tell how the Bibles got through the Czechoslovakian border? If you and Deborah hadn’t done your part, then Sergei wouldn’t have been able to do his.”
I ignored her statement and focused on Sergei. “How did you manage to receive all the Bibles?”
He gave a concealing sort of grin. He still wasn’t telling after all these years either.
“I will tell you one piece of information I think you will find interesting. I waited sixteen months for the signal that the Bibles had gotten through. When at last they came, a rumor had it that two women managed to accomplish what a dozen men were unable to do. I told the Lord I wanted one day to find a way to say thank you to the two women.”
He nodded his head in a firm gesture of satisfaction. “And here you are. And here I am. And so I can tell you face-to-face what I thought I would not be able to say until I met you in heaven. Thank you, Jenna.”
Sue dabbed at the tears on her face. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
I teared up but couldn’t speak. It took me a moment before I could say, “I hope you get to meet Deborah one day, Sergei. I know you will in heaven, like you said, but I wish …”
Sergei grinned. “I know where Deborah is. I found her.”
“You did?”
“Yes. When I had an opportunity many years ago, I traveled to Germany. I went to the mission office where Deborah still was working and …”
Sue and I waited for him to explain why his mouth was curling up in such a funny expression.
“I married her,” Sergei said simply.
I laughed with the merriest heart ever. In the other room, our convalescing bird began to chirp madly.
Sue was still wiping tears from her cheeks. She looked like she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry some more. “I can’t believe this. I just can’t believe it. I mean, I can believe it. I do believe y’all are both telling the truth. It’s just amazing. That’s what it is: truly amazing.”
Sue and I didn’t make it to Murano that day. As it was, we barely had the main meal ready for the returning band of brothers at noon. We sat at the dining room table for several hours talking with Sergei. We heard more about Deborah and all the work the two of them did for the mission now. We saw pictures of their two children and heard a few sparse details about what Sergei’s life had been like during the Soviet years.
When the others returned from San Giorgio Maggiore, a few of them joined us at the dining room table and told us about their experience at morning worship. One of the Benedictine monks who spoke English offered to give them a tour of the facilities. Fikret especially appreciated the behind-the-scenes tour. He said it was time well spent.
Sergei and I kept quiet with the others about our time well spent. My mind was still wrapping itself around the extraordinary experience of meeting Sergei and comparing our stories. In an odd way, the event was so amazing that it felt funny trying to talk about it. Almost as if no one would believe us.
I knew that wasn’t true, but I had so much to process. Sergei had taken me back to a place in my heart and mind that I hadn’t visited in a long time.
Sue seemed to understand instinctively, and she respected my somber contemplations.
After lunch the men decided to take some free time and change their last group strategy meeting to that evening. Right away, four of them began discussing a visit to the museum with the Tintoretto paintings that Marcos had so highly recommended the night before.
Eduardo invited Sue and me to go with them.
“I’m going to stay here,” I said, without offering an explanation.
Sue provided one for me. “She has had an unusually full morning. But I would love to go with y’all. When are you leaving?”
The art enthusiasts departed in a cluster, with Sue, her map, and her guidebook as their guiding light. I knew they would appreciate her directional skills, and she would enjoy being with them.
Sergei was one of the men who stayed back at the apartment. He called home and invited me to say hello to Deborah. We spoke for several minutes. It was a sweet yet clumsy sort of conversation. The best part was that she and I were reconnected. Living now as we did, in a world of global cell phones and e-mails, I knew we could stay connected easily.
When I hung up, Sergei asked if I would please tell Sam about our tandem history. We went looking for Sam and found him on the narrow balcony off the princess bedroom. Pulling two more chairs out into the fresh air, we talked while small boats floated down the canal below us.
Sam took in our story with a steady smile and nodded his head. “This certainly explains why your name kept coming to mind when we pulled the details together for this retreat. Now I know why. Clearly you needed to be here for something more than stirring spaghetti sauce.”
I smiled.
“I’m beginning to t
hink that 90 percent of what we should be doing as believers is just to show up,” Sam said. “God’s Spirit takes it from there. I’m glad you showed up this week, Jenna.”
“And I’m glad you showed up all those years ago in Czechoslovakia,” Sergei added.
I looked down at my hands. Now I was the one who had nibbled off two of her fingernails since breakfast. “To be honest, the main reason I agreed to come on this trip was because I thought it would be good for Sue. She needed a break.” I told them briefly about Jack’s car accident and what the past few years had been like for my sister-in-law.
“I wouldn’t have guessed she had gone through so much,” Sergei said.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” Sam spun his gold band around his finger, as he looked down at the canal and contemplated aloud. I could remember watching him twist that same wedding ring around his finger all those years ago when we sat at a table talking after meals in Austria. His familiar little habit was somehow comforting to me in the midst of all the tumbling thoughts of the day.
“It’s so easy for us to make assumptions about people,” Sam went on. “We need to tell each other our stories. We need to be heard, and we need to hear ourselves.” He looked at me over the top rim of his glasses. “I would like to hear your story, Jenna. What happened after you left Europe that summer?”
I didn’t feel as if Sam were putting me on the spot to divulge my entire personal history. Rather I felt an invitation had been extended. An invitation simply to tell my story. For some reason that was different than launching into a confession of a long series of life choices.
I drew in a clarifying breath of warm afternoon air. “Three significant experiences happened to me since I last saw you. I married, I had a daughter, and I divorced.”
The telling of my story was brief. It was humbling and at the same time liberating to tell both these men about how I returned to Minnesota at the age of twenty-two, ready to take on the world. I intended to return to Europe to work full-time with the same ministry Sergei now headed. But then I met Gerry. I made an impulsive decision and married him right away. We had two rough years together before Callie was born. Our daughter was only three months old when Gerry moved in with his long-time girlfriend. They had had a child together before I met Gerry, but I didn’t know that at the time. I fought the divorce. I fasted and prayed. But when Gerry and his girlfriend were expecting their second child, I finally signed the divorce papers. I was twenty-six years old, and nothing during that intense season of my life had gone the way I had thought it would.
To my surprise, neither of the men changed expressions during the telling of my story. Neither of them appeared to judge me. I was met with acceptance and understanding. I couldn’t remember feeling that way before whenever I’d talked about my past.
The sensation that washed over me in the afternoon sunlight was, So this is what grace feels like.
I don’t think I had ever felt I had been shown grace before. Now I knew grace was being extended to me. What made it different this time was that I was ready to reach out and take hold of the grace being offered.
“And here you are,” Sam said.
“Yes, here I am.” I felt new. I felt absolved and free. Unshackled. The shame was off me. I can’t explain how it happened, but the shame was off, and the grace was on.
“So, Jenna,” Sam said, “I have a question for you. What is the Lord asking you to do now?”
“I honestly don’t know.” I looked at Sergei and then back at Sam. Both of them seemed attentive to my response.
“All I know is that I’m in a new season. A time of beginnings. I’m available. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”
Sam looked at me and said, “Feed His lambs, Jenna.”
“Yes,” Sergei immediately agreed. “Feed His sheep.”
They popped out their admonitions so quickly and in sync that it seemed they had practiced the lines ahead of time. I could tell they hadn’t premeditated their words, though, by the way they turned to each other with mutual looks of surprise.
“Do you see how much you have to offer to so many women?” Sam asked.
I shook my head. What did I have to offer? I didn’t do anything particularly well. I couldn’t play the piano or sing like Sue. I wasn’t a teacher. I’d never been told I was a good counselor. Or a good cook. Or a good anything, for that matter.
Truth be told, I didn’t know what my spiritual gift was. A year ago a woman at church asked if I wanted to take a spiritual gift test. I declined. I secretly was afraid I would flunk the test. The policy at our church already limited areas where I could serve because I was divorced. If I flunked a spiritual gift test, they really wouldn’t know what to do with me.
“I’m not sure how I can help other women.”
“Jenna, don’t you see how God has uniquely prepared you?” Sam asked. “You have been to dark places. You know what it is to lose hope. You know what it is to live with something you cannot change. Yet you have taken grace and filled your life with it. Now you have more than enough to give others.”
I still didn’t know how those attributes could benefit other women.
“You are a courier, Jenna,” Sergei added with one of his near-grins that seemed to slip through his teeth and press his lips upward. “You can now smuggle truth and hope into places where it has not been for a long time.”
“How?”
“Show up,” Sam said with a gleam in his eyes.
I remembered every word those two men spoke over me on that balcony. I’m sure I will remember every word for the rest of my life. They blessed me and empowered me to “go,” even though I still didn’t know where I was supposed to go or exactly what I was supposed to do.
The beautiful part was that I didn’t need to know those specifics yet. What I did know was that I was free. I, at long last, had put on the grace God had given me. It was real. Very real. And I had a feeling it looked even better on me than my swishy new skirt.
When the three of us finally came in from the balcony, I went to the kitchen to check on Netareena, as I had promised Sue I would. The eagerly chirping bird ruffled her feathers and tried to leave the confining box. Everything in me wanted to scoop her up and hold her out the open window and say, “Fly! Be free!” But she wasn’t quite ready.
I made sure she had more water and bread crumbs, and I whispered, “Almost, Netareena. Keep getting stronger. You’ll fly soon.”
At five o’clock that evening, the art club returned. They were weary but talkative about the wonders they had seen that day. Sue and I could have launched into a deep, long conversation; we had many things to discuss. Instead we spent what was left of the day pouring ourselves into cooking and organizing. A sweet peace covered us. It had been a good day.
It struck me, as I pulled my nightclothes out of my suitcase, that perhaps 90 percent of what a woman is supposed to do when she enters the next season of life is to simply “show up.” If she can do that without packing a lot of shame, regret, or guilt into her baggage, it certainly makes for a lighter, more liberating, and enjoyable journey.
When Sue and I retreated to our rooftop loft, she brought the bird with her in its cushy box. I told Sue I thought Netareena would be ready to fly away soon. I expected her to make an attempt once we got her up on the open rooftop.
Instead, she nested down in her waxed green bean box for the night. Sue and I followed her lead and got comfy.
“Tell me about the museum this afternoon,” I said.
“It was amazing. But before I tell you about it, we need to talk about something else.”
“Okay.”
“Jenna, I need to apologize to you.”
“For what?”
“I need to apologize for judging you.”
“Judging me? For what?”
“For being divorced.”
“Oh.”
“Jenna, I’m sorry. We lost so many years when we would have been close like we are now. I never gave you a chan
ce. I judged you wrongly.”
“It’s okay, Sue. Really. It’s all in the past.”
“I know, but I realized something today. When my life and Jack’s life went into what I guess you could call a ‘valley of the shadow of death,’ you came close to us. You weren’t afraid. I mean, you even moved to Dallas.”
“That was different. I moved to Dallas because I could. I had space in my life to do that. I wanted to be near you guys.”
“I know. And I’m so glad you came. I don’t know what I would have done without you. The thing is, when you went through your worst ‘valley of the shadow’ time all those years ago, I wasn’t there for you. I never was there for Callie.”
“Oh, Sue, you don’t have to go back there and blame yourself for anything.”
She propped herself up on an elbow and looked at me. “I just want to say I’m sorry, Jenna. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you. That was wrong of me.”
My sister-in-law’s honest words, spoken under the watchful eyes of the Venetian stars, were like fragrant, healing oil poured out over that painful season of my life. She had no idea how her loving apology covered all the snubbing I had received from so many others. “Sue—”
“I know what you’re going to say now. You’re going to say ‘shame off me,’ and you’re right. The shame is off me now that I told you. I just had to say it.”
“Actually, I was going to say something else.” I leaned closer. “Grace on you, Sue.”
She took it, smiled, and lay back down. “Grace on you, too, Jenna.”
“Yes,” I echoed. “Grace on both of us.”
Sixteen
Some nights in my life I have slept for ten hours and not dreamed at all. I’ve awakened from those nights exhausted and restless.
But that night in Venice, when Sue and I fell asleep under a blanket of grace, I slept for only four hours. However, I dreamed the whole night. I dreamed while staring at the stars, I dreamed while watching the moon rise with a fuller-lipped smile than the one she wore the night we arrived. I dreamed in whispers as I prayed. I dreamed in my sleep. And I woke refreshed and energized.