To Rezekne in Winter

For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.
Psalm 91:11 The New King James Version, Copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.

By Charles Areson - HisHeartCry@gmail.com

It was the winter or 1992-93, Im not sure now of the exact month. Times and dates sometimes have a way of getting away from you after the years pass. I was living near Jelgava and had been for a few days in Ventspils, Latvia, ministering with a home church group, in a school, and anywhere else God gave opportunity. I had been invited to come to Rezekne and Vilani for ministry over a weekend. I would travel that Saturday by train to Riga, and change trains there for the train that would take me to Rezekne, arriving there late in the afternoon. I was not sure of the final destination of the train and I had no translator with me to help. The pastor in Rezekne would be my translator there. I had purchased the ticket in Ventspils the day before and it had the train numbers on it, so I wasnt worried. I had traveled on that train before, but always with someone with me. Something seemed to tell me all was not right, but I couldnt put my finger on it. I knew the approximate departure time, and sure enough, the train number was there on the departure board just a few minutes away from what I had remembered the departure time was. It had the track and platform numbers on it, and my ticket had the car and seat number, so it would be no problem. When I went to get on the train, the conductor looked at my ticket a little strange, but confirmed the train number and allowed me to board. I found my seat in the open-compartment train and in a few minutes it pulled out of the station on its way. The conductor came around checking our tickets again and took orders for coffee, tea, or other refreshments that were available. That time of year it gets dark early, and not long after we were out of Riga it was dark. Looking out the window at what I could see things looked different than I remembered from the previous trips. No big deal! I thought. But I was wrong. It was over an hour or two later that I began to notice I was not familiar with any of the names of the stops we were making. No one around me spoke much of any English and my knowledge of the Latvian and Russian languages were too little to be of any help. Finally I started to ask people around me as best I could what time we should be getting into Rezekne. I didnt understand peoples responses. They just kept shaking their heads no! Finally the conductor came through and I asked her. She, too, shook her head no. Then I showed her my ticket. She looked at it and then took it and went away. Finally she returned and said to me in broken English, Train no go to Rezekne. Wrong train. A bit of panic began to rise within me. Here I was heading for I dont know where in on a winter night and it was beginning to snow outside. All I could say was, God, help me! Suddenly a young man sitting near me said in broken

English, You get off with me and go to my sister. She speak English. What could I do? I had no real other recourse. I had some money with me, but not a lot. Certainly not enough for a hotel and meals, etc., and people in Rezekne were waiting for me. The next stop was Gulbene, and that is where we got off. I had only one small suitcase with me so baggage was not a real problem. I followed the young man several blocks to an apartment building and went with him up to the fifth floor to his home. His sister was at home, but she panicked when she heard me speak. She went out the door, not saying where she was going. They asked me to sit down and wait a few minutes. What else could I do? Again I called out to the Lord for help, and had a strange reassuring peace come over me. What was going to happen I had no idea, but I was sure things would somehow work out okay. In a few minutes she returned and asked me to follow her downstairs to the neighbors where there was a telephone. She would call to her English teacher who would then relay the message to her. So I went. In a minute they handed me the telephone and I was talking to the lady who was her English teacher. I explained the situation of how the train people had put the wrong train number on my ticket and how I had ended up in Gulbene instead of Rezekne, 100 kilometers (61 miles) away from where I needed to be. She relayed the message to the girl, and then the girl and her brother and parents, along with the neighbors, tried to figure out how I could get to Rezekne by the next morning, Sunday, when I had ministry there. The only way to get there, it seemed, would be by bus. A bus would leave Gulbene within a couple of hours, but it would require making two bus changes, arriving in Rezekne around 8:30 the next morning. It would also require waiting several hours standing outside at night in a snowstorm at bus stops, waiting for busses that might be delayed or not even running because of the intense snow. There was already more than 15 cm (6) of snow on the ground and it was still coming down heavily with no end in sight, and the temperature, already below freezing, was dropping. Suddenly the neighbor spoke up. I couldnt understand but it seemed as if he might have some idea. People seemed to be in agreement about something and they picked up the phone again and called the English teacher. They handed the telephone to me and the English teacher told me the neighbor would take me to Rezekne by car. Did I have the name and telephone number of anyone in Rezekne that they called call and leave a message? All I had was the name and address of the family of one of the young children that I had been especially close to during my first trip to Rezekne in November 1991. That would be enough, it seemed. After a few minutes of intensive telephone conversations, all in Russian, they told me to sit down and have something to eat while all was being prepared. The neighbor went out to get his car prepared and the rest of us sat down and had a small meal. Some 30 minutes or so later the neighbor came back and we prepared to leave. There would be six of us going, the neighbor and I in the front and the young man from the train, his sister, and two others in the back seat. The car was very

small, a Russian made Lada if I remember correctly, and the squeeze in the back was tight. Everyone was going, it seemed, so that they could push the car out of the ditch in case it got stuck. People were talking, laughing, and singing as we started out our 100 kilometer trip around 8:00 or so that Saturday evening. The snow was almost blizzard conditions, and all we could see of the road were the little markers on the shoulders. Snow was around 30 cm. (12) deep and still coming, and the wind was blowing quite hard, causing the snow to drift much deeper in places. They had brought shovels as well just in case they were needed. Travel was extremely slow and a couple of places we had to stop to clear drifts so we could get through. Visibility was extremely poor at best, and many times I wondered how the driver could even see where the road was. Finally, after over four hours, the lights of Rezekne came into sight. The driver had little problem finding the apartment building where the family lived, and we parked right outside the door where we would enter. In a few moments, a little past midnight, we were knocking on the door of the fifth-floor apartment. It had taken four and one-half hours to cover that 100 kilometers. The family recognized me and talked briefly with the people who had brought me while the children took me into the room where I would sleep. I heard the door close and immediately went back to try and catch the people to say thanks and offer them some money for fuel. We opened the door and they were already out of sight. I thought it was strange that they had gotten down five flights of steps rather quickly, but we went to the window to look down and tell them good-bye. That is when the real surprise came. There was no car outside, and there were no tracks where the car had even been in the heavy snow. How could they have gotten away so fast, especially not leaving any trace of where they had been? We couldnt understand. Strange When I related the story to the Pastor the next morning the only miracle that he could see was that anyone would be willing to bring a total stranger 100 kilometers from Gulbene to Rezekne at night in a snowstorm and not ask for any money for fuel. To him that was the miracle. To me, everything that previous evening seemed as a miracle. Where could those people have gone so quickly? How could they have left not even leaving any tracks in the very heavy snow outside? Only God knows. Were they angels? I believe now they were. An angel is a special messenger from God sent to minister to the needs of man. And in that sense they were angels, whether angelic hosts or men sent by God. But whichever was the case, God worked nearly impossible miracles that night and showed me again, as he had so many times before in my life, that He has given His angels charge over me, to protect me in all my ways. Psalm 91:11
Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

Charles W. Areson