3 Warnings Save Pastor’s Wife From Death in Abkhazia

Valentina turned around to see who had spoken. No one was there.

By Andrew McChesney, adventistmission.org

Valentina Dmitrienko, intent on finding corn to bake lepyoshka flatbread for her family, hurried to the central outdoor market in Abkhazia, a breakaway region in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

She didn’t have much money, and a months-long armed struggle in her hometown, Sukhumi, had caused a severe food shortage.

At the outdoor market, Valentina found a woman selling dried corn kernels from a cloth bag. Hearing the cost, Valentina realized that she didn’t have enough money for the needed half kilogram (1 pound) of corn.

Valentina stood silently and thought, “What should I do? How can I feed my family?”

Suddenly, she felt someone tap her on the left shoulder and address her with a friendly but firm voice, “Valya, get out now!”

Startled, Valentina turned around to see who had spoken. No one was there.

Valentina stood puzzled for a moment, but her thoughts quickly returned to her husband, Pavel, who worked as a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, and their 16-year-old daughter, Natasha. She looked at the woman with the precious corn and wondered how she would feed her loved ones.

Again, she felt someone tap her shoulder.

“Valya, get out now!” the voice said.

Valentina turned around but again saw no one. Realizing that this wasn’t a normal tap on the shoulder, she ran toward the market’s exit.

At the exit, she paused to greet two of her neighbors, a married couple named Yury and Taisia, who were just arriving. Then she saw a woman selling straw brooms nearby and asked, “How much for a broom?”

At that moment, she felt a tap on her shoulder for the third time and heard the voice say, “Valya, get out now!”

Three Artillery Shells

Valentina fled. Two minutes later, she heard the terrifying whistle of an artillery shell flying over her head. Two more shells followed in quick succession.

Valentina stopped dead in her tracks several hundred meters (yards) from the market. Her feet felt as if they were glued to the street. A loud boom reverberated across the city center. Valentina turned and saw a huge cloud of smoke and dust rising from the market. Panicked people ran from the devastation.

Only then did Valentina realize what had happened. God miraculously had saved her life. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she ran toward her home, praying, “God, thank you for saving me! But who am I? So many people were there, and why did You protect me?”

Valentina’s husband and daughter, Pavel and Natasha, were waiting anxiously outside the house when she arrived.

“Don’t ever go out by yourself again,” Natasha said. “If we are going to die, we are going to die together.”

“Let’s go inside,” Valentina replied. “I’ll tell you what happened.”

When Pavel and Natasha heard the full story, they immediately knelt and thanked God for His kindness and mercy.

An hour later, a loud cry pierced the air. Running outside, Valentina saw a car pull up with Taisia, the neighbor whom she had seen at the market. Taisia wailed as men unloaded the body of her husband from the car.

Several days later, Taisia asked Valentina, “Why? You left the market just before the shells struck and lived. But my husband died.”

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A Hard Question

It’s a question that many people ask: Why do some people live and others die? Valentina has pondered the question many times since the market attack in 1993. She believes that God didn’t spare her life alone but the lives of others as well. The Holy Spirit might have prompted other people to also avoid the market that day, she said.

“God loves all people, but we must give God the right to protect us,” Valentina, now 65, said in an interview in her home in the Russian city of Belgorod.

Valentina’s eyes grew sad as she remembered her neighbors.

“We were good friends with that family,” she said. “I invited them many times to church and spoke to them often about God. But they refused.” Quoting Jesus in Matthew 23:37, she added, softly, “‘How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’” (NKJV).

Valentina often thinks about Isaiah 43:2, where the Lord says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, nor shall the flame scorch you.”

“The artillery shell is like the fire that scorches people, but God promises, ‘I will be with you,’” Valentina said. “We gave God the right to protect us by walking with Him and living with Him. Our whole life has been a life of service. Why did Christ come into this world? To serve, as Ellen White says. This has been the goal of our life — to serve.”

Shortly after the shelling, Valentina returned to the market and saw craters left by the blasts. Two craters marked the exact spots where she had stood and looked longingly at the corn and brooms.

When the 13-month conflict between Georgian and Abkhaz forces ended in September 1993, the city published a special newspaper with the names of slain residents. Valentina found the name of her late neighbor, Yury.

“I understood that my name should have been written there, too,” she said. “But God in a miraculous way spared my life. My husband and I continued to serve God for 20 years after that, until Pavel turned 70 five years ago. But even in retirement, we serve God.”