Chapter 6 -- "The Birth of Hristos (Christ)"
"He has grown up to be a big boy," said Masha, watching Nikolai run up the ramp into the modern Boeing 707 intercontinental jetliner.
"You can see how excited he is about going to America," said Ivan, running to catch up with the little sprinter.
"Don't let him get too far ahead," called Masha. She watched her husband pursue young Nikolai. She wobbled slowly behind, trying to carry the new load that was forming inside her. It was five years since she had Nikolai, and she was due to have another baby within several months.
"Kolya, stay with us," said Masha, reprimanding her boy for running ahead. "Hold him by the hand, Ivan," she said to her husband.
Together the family of three boarded the plane and took their assigned seats. They buckled their seat belts and crossed themselves with a silent prayer to the Bogoroditsa (Mother of God) for protection. Then the jet plane lifted its wings and soared over the clouds into the bright blue sky.
"We're finally going to America," said Masha excitedly. Her heartbeat slowed down and her tightened muscles relaxed as the jet airliner reached the cruising altitude of 33,000 feet.
"We waited long enough for this moment," answered Ivan. He let go of Masha's relaxed hand, and then he leaned over Nikolai's shoulder to watch the scenery below.
"Shto ti vigyesh?" (What do you see?) asked Ivan as his bushy beard brushed against Nikolai's ear. Nikolai had his eyes glued to the small oval window during the entire take-off and flight through the clouds. Now, as the clouds started to thin out, he was excitedly calling out some of the geographical landmarks that he was observing.
"There's a big river down there and a lot of green trees," exclaimed Nikolai, who had never seen anything from such a height before.
"That must be the jungle you're seeing," responded Ivan. "Do you see any mountains?"
"Not yet," answered Nikolai, who was crowding for position at the window with his dad.
"We should be in America by midnight," interjected Masha, who was beginning to show signs of weariness. "I think I'll take a nap."
Masha pushed the button to put the reclining seat into a comfortable sleeping position and soon she was fast asleep. Her mind fantasized several images of what America would be like before the screen of her mind flickered and went blank. She felt more at ease now that their wilderness experience in Brazil was over.
Ivan sat back in his chair and thought of the friends he had left behind in Brazil. Vasily and his family had stayed until they could pay off some of their debts to the bank and be free to go. Ivan's other friend, Antip Svyatogorov, had been more fortunate; Antip had saved his rice during the surplus season and sold it to the market when the demand and the price went back up. In such a manner Antip was able to accumulate more wealth than his fellow Old Believers and competitors. He was one of the first to head for the state called Oregon, which was the name on the lips of a boatload of Old Believers who had come via Los Angeles back in 1959 and who had been told by Russian Molokans in the Los Angeles area that Oregon was the place to get rich in farming berries.
"Tyatya," (Daddy) abruptly said Nikolai, snapping Ivan out of his reverie. "What is America like?"
"It has a lot of big cities, like Sao Paulo," answered Ivan. He was amazed at his son's sophisticated question. "People in American have a lot of money. They have their own house and car, and they get to go anywhere they want to."
"Will we have our own car, too?" asked Nikolai, whose starry-blue eyes lit up with the thought of speeding down the road in a fast car.
"Yes, we will," answered Ivan confidently.
Nikolai's face beamed, and he threw his arms around his dad's neck as if to say "thank you." He had heard what he wanted to hear, and that made him the happiest boy in the world. He imagined himself sitting tall beside his father and zooming down the highway and around curves.
"But you have to learn your Azbuka (Primer) first before you can ride in the car," said Ivan with a smile on his face. He knew his son was ready to learn to read the holy books like he had when he was a boy. Now he had something to motivate him with--the thought of riding in a car.
"How much of the Azbuka (Primer) do I have to learn before I can ride in the car?" bargained Nikolai.
"As soon as you learn all the letters of the alphabet and you memorize special church words for each letter of the alphabet," said Ivan. He made the deal and then added, "As soon as you finish that, then I'll buy a car and take you for a ride. But then you'll have to promise to learn to read all the prayers in the Azbuka (Primer)."
"All right," said Nikolai somewhat reluctantly. He turned his face back to the oval window and kept his eyes on the shifting terrain below. He thought about all the hard work he would have to do before he could ride in the car. That thought made him feel kind of sad. With that thought on his mind he too drifted off to sleep.
By midnight the plane arrived at the Portland Airport as scheduled. The sleepy family walked down the ramp and out to the terminal. Ivan had been given a phone number to call when he arrived, and so he phoned Antip's number and waited.
"Kto govorit?" (Who's speaking?) asked a sleepy masculine voice.
"This is me, Ivan," responded Ivan.
"Ivan Bogolubov?" asked the surprised voice.
"Da (Yes), it is I," answered Ivan.
"Where are you?" asked the voice.
"At the airport, waiting for you," said Ivan, who had by now recognized Antip's voice. It sounded so different over the telephone.
"I'll be right there in about an hour," said Antip. "You wait by the front door and I'll drive up for you. I have a surprise for you. Bog bud' s toboy. (God be with you.)"
Ivan was surprised to hear that his friend was already driving a car. It was only a year ago that Antip had made the move to America. He wondered what the surprise was that Antip had hurriedly mentioned before he hung up the telephone. Ivan thought it might be a new car that Antip wanted to show-off.
Within an hour Antip drove up in a 1957 blue Chevrolet. Antip honked the horn and Ivan picked up his two big bags of luggage and headed for the car with Masha and Nikolai trailing behind. In the car with Antip was an old friend of Ivan's from China.
"Andrey Ribrov!" exclaimed Ivan when he finally got close enough to the car to make out his old friend's face.
"Ivan Bogolubov! My dear friend!" exclaimed Andrey as he opened the car door and stepped out to embrace his friend in the Russian style. The circle of friendship had been reestablished once again.
"How did you get to America?" asked Ivan. "And when did you come here?"
Antip loaded the luggage in the trunk while Masha and Nikolai climbed in the back seat with Ivan. Ivan sat behind Andrey as Andrey began his story.
"Did you hear of the group that landed in Los Angeles on the way to Brazil?" asked Andrey.
"Yes, we did," answered Ivan. "That's the group that told us about Woodburn, Oregon. They built their own village not too far from ours."
"Well," continued Andrey. "When I talked with a Molokan man named Moisey Bogdanov, who happened to be visiting his relatives in Los Angeles, he told me that he would take me to Oregon and he would sign sponsorship papers for me if I agreed to help him work on his berry farm for the summer. I told him I'd be glad to. So we stayed with Moisey, and he took me and my family to the immigration office to file all the necessary papers."
"Did Paraskeva have some children?" asked Masha when she heard Andrey mention the word family. The last time Masha saw Paraskeva was back in Harbin, and Paraskeva was still childless.
"Oh, excuse me, I forgot to tell you," apologized Andrey, turning his attention to Masha and her son Nikolai. "I've got one daughter named Haritina, who was born in china less than a year after you left. And I have two fine boys a few years younger than your boy. The older one is called Prokopy; he was born in Hong Kong while we were waiting for a ship. The younger one is called Nestor. Nestor was born in Woodburn in 1961."
"So he's the first Old Believer born in America," commented Masha.
"I believe so," remarked Andrey. "I haven't heard of any other Old Believers that had children here, yet. In fact, besides myself, Antip was one of the first of our Old Believers to come to Oregon. He came last year about this same time."
"That's right," affirmed Antip, who had been busy driving through the city of Portland and now was making a turn to enter Interstate Highway 5. "That's when he helped me find a small berry farm with a small house on it. It had three small bedrooms and a nice kitchen for my wife. I added a small tool shack to the side of the house by the one car garage. It was a lot better than that hut on stilts that we had in Brazil."
"Anyway, getting back to my story," interjected Andrey, who turned his attention back to his friend Ivan. "You remember that house I had in China?" Ivan nodded his head affirmatively. "I sold it for a good price and I managed to take most of the money out of the country. So when the official in the immigration office saw that I was able to bring a substantial sum of money into the American economy and at the same time not be a hardship to a sponsor, she stamped my papers with the seal of approval and they accepted me into the United States."
"You sly businessman," remarked Ivan. "You always have a way of making money work for you."
"That's the only way to get ahead in this world," admitted Andrey. 
"Pered Bogom stav svechku, pered soodyoy--meshok.' (Before God you should place a candle, but before a judge--a bag). That's what our poslovitsa (proverb) says. And you know that a bag means a bag of money, and the judge is any government official."
"That's so true," concurred Antip. He was driving his sturdy and solid car 65 miles per hour down the freeway toward Woodburn. Nikolai was standing up in the back and looking over Antip's shoulder as the Chevrolet's eight-cylinder motor moved the car speedily down the road. He had never seen a car go so fast.
"And so my sponsor Moisey Bogdanov brought me to this rich Willamette River valley and showed me all the rich farm land," proceeded Andrey. "He helped me find a twenty acre berry farm with a beautiful home, and in the meantime I helped him on his farm. He was a good and friendly man. His children had grown up and had married, and he was starting to get bald. His children were hardly Russian anymore. They spoke more English than Russian, and they had forgotten many of the old Russian ways."
"Tell Ivan about the church they go to," said Antip. Andrey had told Antip about his experience in the Molokan church.
"Moisey invited me to come to his church one Sunday," began Andrey, obliging his friends. "He begged me to visit at least once. I told him our holy books warn us about listening to heretical teachings and about visiting heretical churches. He insisted, however, and I agreed to go just once. When I entered their church I was shocked. It didn't look like a church at all. There were no holy ikons and no candles burning to honor the saints, Hristos and the Bogoroditsa (Mother of God). Then the minister started talking about the Bible and reading: 
'Kak novorozhdyoniye mladyentsi, vozlyubitye chistoye slovesnoye moloko, dabi ot nego bozrasti vam vo spaseniye.' (As newborn babies, desire the sincere milk of the Word, that ye may grow thereby into salvation.) Then someone would come in the door and everyone would stand up. The minister would stop talking and everyone would say, 
"Spasi, Gospodi." (Save us, Lord.) This happened everytime someone walked through the door. I told myself that was the first and last time I was entering into their 'house of prayer'; that's what they call it."
"That's not all," said Antip. "One time this Moisey came to my house to get acquainted, and he started preaching to me about 
Iesous. I kindly showed him our holy books, where the name 
Isous was spelled differently than their Iesous. I explained to him that their Iesous was different than our Isous. 'What? Different? How can that be?' he asked me. 'Your Iesous is a different god, a Latinized god,' I told him, 'whereas our Isous is the saviour handed down to us from old Slavonic church books and chronicles.' 'But Iesous is taken from the Greek form Iesous, which means healer,' said Moisey, who seemed to be very knowledgeable in the Scriptures. 'We have proof from St. Dimitry of Rostov in his holybook "Rosisk" (Inquiry) that Isous and Iesous mean two different persons,' I told him. He said, 'You probably don't know that from antiquity the name of the savior had been figured by the number 888, which is summed up in the name Iesous.' 'We don't follow that teaching,' I said. 'And another thing,' said Moisey before we parted company, 'the first two letters of the name of Iesous have a sacred mystery hidden in them, for in the Greek I=10 and n=8.' That was the end of our discussion, for I wasn't about to hear any more of his heretical teachings."
"I think that's when Moisey found out for certain that he couldn't convert us to his belief," said Andrey, "and so he quit trying after that."
"So where do you hold your church services?" asked Ivan. He had wanted to ask that question ever since Andrey mentioned the Molokan church.
"In my house," answered Andrey. "That's how everyone used to do it in China--find the biggest house and have the church services there. This time I happen to have the biggest house with the largest living room you've ever seen. You'll see it tonight."
"Tonight?" asked Ivan in a surprised tone.
"I've arranged with my wife, Paraskeva, to take you and your family into our house until we can find you a place to live," stated Andrey. " She just had the house cleaned in preparation for 
Pozhdyestvo Hristovo (Christmas)."
"I don't know what to say," said Ivan as he tried to hold back the tears of joy and gratitude. "All I can say is, you're a great friend. 
'Spasi Hristos' (Save us Hristos)." He used the phrase Spasi Hristos (Save us Hristos) as a sign of gratitude instead of saying 
spasibo (thank you). [Spasibo is the shortened form of 
'Spasi Bog', which means 'Save us God.' Spasi Hristos is the form used because salvation is achieved through Hristos.]
Antip slowed down as he came to the Woodburn-St.Paul exit. Then he turned east towards Woodburn. He drove through the small town and headed towards the outskirts of town across highway 99E. Within three miles from the crossroads of 99E, the old Pacific highway, and connecting highway 214, the car came to a turn-off and drove down a dirt road to Andrey's house. It was dark and quiet as the car stopped outside the two-car garage.
Paraskeva turned on the porch light when she heard the car drive up. Ivan and Masha entered the house and bowed toward the east corner of the large living room where an ikon of the Bogoroditsa (Madonna) and Christ-child was adorned with surrounding embroidered curtains. The guests bowed toward the hosts with the greeting 
"Zdorov zhivyotye" (Live in good health), and the hosts bowed toward the guests with the response 
"Milosti prosim" (We ask for mercy).
The host, Andrey, brought in the luggage into the family room and showed Ivan the sofa-bed that was already set up for them to sleep on. The hide-away-bed was conveniently set up in the corner of the spacious family room, which was used as a guest room whenever the need arose. The hostess, Paraskeva, showed Masha the second bathroom and other features of the house so that Masha wouldn't get lost in the roomy house during the night. Then she left the tired Masha on her own.
Masha went to sleep with young Nikolai beside her while her husband Ivan talked with Andrey into the dewy hours of the new day.
It was the day before the Russian Christmas. In the evening there would be a service in preparation for the midnight service, which would celebrate the birth of Christ with candle lights. The midnight service would coincide with the old style Christmas, which would be on Tuesday, January the 7th (13 days later than the Christmas observed by the western world).
It was the year 1964, and to Masha and Ivan it meant the birth of a new life. For Masha it was a dream finally come true. America was all that she had ever imagined it would be. She wished for a house just like her friend Paraskeva had. Nikolai wished his dad would get a car just like Antip's. Ivan wished that America would be just as good to him as it had been to his friends.
At the midnight service, the three families that had been brought together by the will of God joined their voices together to chant the liturgy to the Blessed Virgin for having given birth to the Christ-child, who was to restore to mankind the original image of eternal life which existed before the fall of Adam. The liturgy to all the saints and heavenly hosts was chanted, and the petition 
"Molitye Boga o nas greshnikh" (Pray to God for us sinners) was intoned repeatedly as a refrain. The faithful prayed, "The Lord has sent redemption to His people." Then the candles were lit to celebrate the beginning of the feast of the Nativity of Christ and the end of the 40-day period of fasting.
The small group joyously chanted in the Gregorian-chant style as the light of day began to ascend on the eastern horizon: 
"Rozhdyestvo tvoyo Hristye Bozhe nash, vozsiya mirovi svet razuma: v nyom bo zvezdam sluzhashchiy zvezdoyu uchahucya, tebye klanyatisya solntsu pravdi, e tebye vedyeti s visoti vostoka: Gospodi slava tebye." (Thy Birth, O Christ our God, rose upon the world as the light of knowledge: for through it those who had adored the stars were taught by a star to worship thee, the sun of righteousness, and to know thee, the dayspring from on high. O Lord, glory to thee.)
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Chapter 7
Beginning - Chapter 1
Copyright 1982 by Paul John Wigowsky
