Inside Story: Moldova
Hope in a Plane Crash
By Andrew McChesney, Adventist Mission
The world watched in horror when a midair plane collision killed 71 people in Germany in 2002 and, two years later, a grieving father retaliated.
Image © Pacific Press
Vladimir Shevil, who was mourning the death of his own daughter to cancer, found hope amid the tragedy. He found Jesus.
Vladimir remembers Nadezhda, whose name means “hope” in Russian, joyfully coming home with a new Bible that someone had given to her at school in their hometown in Moldova. The 15-year-old girl spent hours reading the book, often staying up late at night. Vladimir, an occasional churchgoer, didn’t like his daughter’s interest in the Bible. He accused her of wasting her time and said she would be more productive working in the family’s vegetable garden.
“We don’t need the Bible,” he told her. “We have church.”
Nadezhda didn’t argue and obediently went outdoors to tend to the garden.
Two years later, doctors diagnosed Nadezhda with bone cancer. She spent months in the hospital, and one leg was amputated from the hip. She died in 2001 at the age of 18. Vladimir was devastated, and he pleaded with God for answers. “I don’t think that I was such a bad father,” he prayed.
Amid his sorrow, he heard the news in July 2002 that a DHL cargo plane had collided with a Russian airliner flying 45 Russian schoolchildren to a vacation in Spain, killing everyone on both aircraft. Then in 2004 a Russian father who had lost his wife and two children in the crash tracked down and killed the air traffic controller responsible for monitoring the German airspace where the collision occurred. Watching television news, Vladimir saw a journalist ask the father of a girl who had died in the crash whether he also wanted revenge. “No,” the man said. “I have hope that I will meet my daughter again.”
The words touched Vladimir’s heart. He longed for the same hope.
Shortly afterward, he come home to find his wife waiting with Nadezhda’s Bible. Opening it, she read, “But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (1 Thess. 4:13-14).
“Here is our hope,” his wife said. “If we believe in God, we will meet our daughter again.”
Today Vladimir is a church deacon, and he joyfully talks about his hope in Jesus’ return. “Thanks to my daughter, we found God,” he said. “We have hope that I will meet my daughter again.”
Part of a 2017 Thirteenth Sabbath Offering helped renovate a retreat center for camp meetings, Pathfinders, and other church activities in Moldova.
Produced by the General Conference Office of Adventist Mission.
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This hope is the one that sustains me and my wife. We lost our 19 years old daughter in a car accident, and our 51 years old son to a stroke. We look forward to the day we can embrace both of them when Jesus returns to this earth.
So sorry to hear of your loss of two children. We lost our 14 year old son to a motorbike accident, and we are also looking forward to that happy reunions on resurrection morning!
God is great, and greatly to be praised. I have so many family members who died and knew about acquaintances who had laid to rest. But their is hope in the resurrection for the living.
When people lose loved ones, whatever the cause it is more difficult if they don’t know the hope of Jesus’ love. We need to look for ways to share this hope with families who have lost loved ones.
Glory to God who gives us hope thru Christ Jesus. Amen.
May God continually preserve us. Amen.