Missing Commandment

By Andrew Mcchesney, Adventist Mission

Valentina Shlee was astounded when her older sister, Galina, announced that they were not keeping all Ten Commandments in their hometown in northern Kazakhstan.

Image © Pacific Press

Valentina opened her Bible and read through the commandments. When she reached the fourth, she stopped.

“Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy,” she read in Exodus 20:8-11. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (NKJV).

She and Galina resolved to find a church that observed the seventh-day Sabbath. But where should they look? “Let’s do it like this,” Valentina told Galina. “If the Bible is really the true Word of God, there must be a church that follows all Ten Commandments. Let’s pray about it.”

The sisters prayed for three months. “If there is a church that keeps all the commandments, please lead us to it,” Valentina prayed.

One day, Valentina felt an irresistible urge to visit Nelly, a relative. She didn’t know what came over her. Usually she stayed at home all day with her 2-year-old son. At Nelly’s house, Valentina and Nelly were talking when another relative, Olga, rang the doorbell. Olga was not a close friend. In fact, Valentina had heard that she had joined a dangerous sect called the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

In the house, Olga didn’t mince words.

“What do you think about God?” she asked Valentina.

Valentina ignored the question and asked one of her own.

“Do you keep all the commandments?” she said. “Do you keep the seventh-day Sabbath?”

Hours later Valentina informed Galina that the Seventh-day Adventist Church observes all ten commandments. Several months later, the sisters were baptized together.

“Through the Holy Word, God led us to the church that keeps all ten commandments,” Valentina said.

Part of a 2017 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering helped open of the first Seventh-day Adventist preschool in Valentina’s hometown, Pavlodar, Kazakhstan.

Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission.
Find more mission stories at adventistmission[dot]org

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