I Believe In Angels 

Yes.  I do believe in angels.  I believe they are the way God blesses our lives.  I believe in them literally and I believe in them figuratively.  I believe in them even though I have never actually seen one.  I believe I've been helped by them in the past and I expect I will be helped by them in the future.  Last night was one of those times when an angel came to my rescue.  T More to come about her and her angelic help to me.  But first some background.

Electricity.  Who needs it.

One of the many experiences in settling into a new country has been understanding how to handle every-day matters.  I've previously alluded to the various ways Vivian and I get around the city of Kyiv (Kiev); walk, trams, trains, taxi's, metro (New York subway/SF BART).  We've become pretty adept in navigating these waters.  We've also previously spoken about hot water and the lack of it in the summer and fall.  Now I can add to the list another item...electricity.  We pretty much expect that when we flip a switch a light will come on; both in the United States and here in Ukraine.  Yes, I remember the blackouts of yesteryear when we all overloaded PG&E in the summer time heat; and how PG&E required us to only use certain appliances during certain times of days/nights.  It all worked out and we were all pretty well aware of what to expect.

Well, guess what we learned yesterday morning.  When you flip the switch the lights do come on.  However, how long they stay on is a question.  At 8:00 am yesterday the power went out in our building.  No lights, no stove/toaster/refrigerator, no Internet.  All of this is pretty important to us since our apartment is not only our primary residence but also doubles as our office.  Most of my work here in Ukraine is done by phone and/or email and the use of an audit application accessed through the Internet.  So you get the picture.

  Fortunately we had already planned to meet someone in the mission office (7 kilometers from our apartment) to do some work.  So Vivian and I packed up our laptops and other electronic devices and decided to work from the mission office all day.  Before we left the building I wanted to talk to our building concierge.  A concierge in Kyiv is kind of like a doorman who sits in a booth all day.  In our case an older woman who sits in a booth in the lobby of the building and opens the door and monitors people coming and going.  I was going to use by best Russian to let her know we had no electricity in the building and when do they think it would be fixed.  We had to walk down 5 flights of stairs.  As I approached her booth she put up both hands in the air and shooed me away.  There was a man in the booth talking very seriously on the phone.  I think he was the building manager however I never got close enough to ask.  

So Vivian and I got in our taxi and went to the mission office.  We spent the whole day there working from the break area, walking to a local market to get a pizza for lunch and then going to our district meeting with the young missionaries (elders and sisters).  A pair of the missionaries in our building arrived for the 2 pm meeting.  They live 8 floors above us  and said the power had not yet been restored.  So I sat through the meeting trying to figure out what to do when we got back to our apartment in case there was no power.

Let me say this, I do believe we were being watch over.  We had set the meeting later last week to be in the mission office yesterday (Tuesday).  I don't believe in coincidences.  I do believe the Lord helped us out and we had a productive day...up until we returned to our apartment at 5:00 pm.

Hacked!!!  

No. No. It's not what you think.  I wasn't hacked off because we still didn't have electricity.  We got to the apartment and we had full electrical power...lights, refrigerator, stove/oven and...computer and other electronic devices.  I was so excited.

Until I logged on my computer and immediately started receiving messages informing me that an email was sent on behalf of  "Elder Foley" who was in Manila and lost his credit card and needed cash immediately.  I was mortified, terrified and stupefied!  My email had been HACKED!  This has never happened to me before.  I'm comfortable around technology for the most part.  But when this type of thing happens I am totally useless.  I didn't know what to do first.  I asked one of my friends who notified me about the problem and they provided some info but I still was lost and whole lot of confused.  I started googling for help, looking at the AT&T website and other places to get a clue of what to do and how to fix it.  All the while I continued to receive messages from many of my Facebook friends letting me know I had a problem.  My blood pressure, anxiety and stress levels were increasing and most of all...fear.  How was I going to find someone who could help me sort out this mess.  

Oh, did I mention that at 6:00 pm Vivian and I had a scheduled Zoom session with our language coach from Provo, Utah?  Of course there was no way I was going to get this fixed before then and the last thing on my mind was trying to improve my Russian language skills.

I finally took a big breath, tried to calm myself as much as I could and sat and waited for the Zoom session to begin.

Sarah the Angel 

If you have hung on this long in reading this posting here is the payoff for you.

Promptly at 6 pm Sarah, our language coach, showed up on my laptop screen.  She sensed something was wrong.  I shared with her what was going on and how I felt.  Her response was both a welcome and relief:  "Well, it is clear we don't need to worry about Russian today.  Let me cancel the session with the volunteer you were going to meet with to practice your Russian and then let me help you sort this mess out."

Then for the next two hours she was my tech support, troubleshooter and fixer.   I shared my screen with her as she talked with AT&T, Microsoft, Linked In (hugely affected by the hack job).  She went back and forth with them all.  In the end she stayed with me as we changed passwords on many of my critical sites, fixed issues with my email account at AT&T (Yahoo) and provided me with steps I could follow in completing the task of securing my email.  

My point is that she didn't need to do this; this was not her job.  But she saw a fellow human being in trouble and not only threw me a lifeline she jumped in to be with me until she could get me to shore, dry me off, fill me up and send me on my way.

Is this not the work of an angel?  No one will ever be able to convince me otherwise.  I will be forever grateful for her kindness and love.  She personified our Savior Jesus Christ in providing this relief.  Thank you Sarah.  Someday we will meet in person and you've got a big hug coming.

Meet Sarah, our angel