A real-life account of a young evangelist's first day of many in Kyrgyzstan🇰🇬
By Mrs. Lorraine Cho

Disclaimer: In the following recount, I recreate events and conversations from memory to the best of my ability; I apologize in advance if I misremembered any details. Names of individuals have been changed to protect them by maintaining their anonymity.

I hugged my brother one last time and, not with a little difficulty, hauled my gargantuan backpack over my shoulders. I then waved goodbye to the throng of friends from church, who had gathered to send me off on my mission to save souls halfway around the world.

This was it.

I had been commissioned by God and His people to become an international hero.

No turning back now.

My parents had even deactivated my cell phone, since I wouldn’t be able to use it in Kyrgyzstan anyway. This was the proverbial point of no return.

Turning away from my family and friends, I took a step forward.

I was crossing the Rubicon.

Once I stepped onto that plane, I was going to be 11,355 kilometers away, and I had committed myself to being on the other side of the planet for two years or ten percent of my earthly life thus far – a tithe of sorts that I wanted to offer to my God and Savior Jesus Christ.

To the cacophonous soundtrack of my suitcase trundling along behind me, with my face set resolutely ahead, I marched on – on toward the resplendent glory of the mountains of Central Asia.

It was my turn at the check-in counter. Ever the courteous and cooperative passenger, inebriated by an emulous ambition to join the ranks of those working in the field of aviation one day, I intrepidly presented my passport, accompanied by a leaflet of boarding passes, to the Filipino man behind the counter. With some ceremony, the man licked his thumb and forefinger and proceeded to browse through my boarding passes.

Meanwhile, I glanced at my watch.

An hour to go.

Plenty of time to check in and get through security.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the man stopping on a certain page. The man narrowed his eyes to scrutinize something. Timorously, I looked up and peeked over the counter.

Abruptly, the man thrust the leaflet of boarding passes back at me.

“I cannot let you through,” he announced in a tone of finality.

My intrepidity morphed into veritable trepidation.

“Wh-why not?” I stuttered.

“Your boarding pass says you have a layover in Sheremetyevo. You are an American citizen. I cannot let you go to Moscow without a visa.”

I turned away from the counter, distressed and at a loss as to what to do. I rushed off with all my stuff to another queue and waited for my turn at the counter again. Surely, someone else would let me through.

I peeked at my watch.

Forty minutes to go ‘til takeoff.

After what seemed like an eternity, my turn came. I hastily produced my documents, spilling them all over the counter.

“What is your final destination?” The lady asked officiously.

Great. We’re skipping the layover in Russia.

“Kyrgyzstan,” I replied.

The lady behind the counter hesitantly made a series of keystrokes.

“Could you repeat that for me?” She asked.

“Kyr-gyz-stan,” I enunciated.

More assuredly this time, the lady began typing into her computer. Suddenly, she stopped.

“I’m sorry. What is it again?”

“KYR-GYZ-STAN,” I repeated, with some exasperation.

“I’m sorry, but that country’s not listed in our database.”

“I have friends who travel there all the time,” I informed her.

“Do you have a visa for Kyr, Kyr...”

“Kyrgyzstan?” I finished for her.

“Yes, to Kyrgyzstan?”

I shuffled my feet. “Well, no, not exactly…”

The lady glared at me reproachfully.

“But I was told that I could get one once I got there,” I quickly rejoined, “There’s supposed to be a visa window inside the airport in Kyrgyzstan.”

“If I let you through, you might get stuck at JFK, since Kyrgyzstan’s not listed in our database. Are you willing to risk that?”

I half-regretted deactivating my cell phone; I wanted to ask my parents what I should do. I envisioned going to New York and not being able to go on to Kyrgyzstan. Well, at least, it was on the East Coast. Getting back to my parents’ home in Chicago was a little easier from JFK than LAX.

“Yes,” I decided.

The lady nodded, and, for better or worse, she checked my bags.

I peeked at my watch again.

Twenty minutes ‘til boarding.

I scrambled for the security checkpoint, and as soon as I got through, I made a beeline for my gate.

Ten minutes left.

I broke out into a full-on run.

With five minutes to go, I made it to the gate and boarded my plane.

As I settled into my seat, I breathed a sigh of relief.

The 9:05 p.m. departure time rolled around.

The pilot’s voice came out over the PA system: “Sorry, folks, but we’re going to have to delay our departure a bit due to some technical difficulties. But we should be taking off shortly. We apologize for the inconvenience, and we do ask you to be patient with us.”

Fine by me. I was just glad to have made it onto the plane. Contented, I closed my eyes to nap for a bit.

Two and-a-half hours later, I was woken by the pilot’s voice over the PA system.

“We apologize for the delay, but we’re having some flight control problems with the aileron. We would like to ask all passengers to evacuate the plane immediately until we rectify the issue.”

Amidst the throng of complaining and grumbling passengers, I groggily stood up and trudged off the plane.

Disheartened, I sat down in the terminal, wondering if I would ever make it to Kyrgyzstan – much less leave America or even Los Angeles.

Around midnight, the plane was finally declared safe for boarding, and the disgruntled passengers reboarded. I sat down, buckled my seat belt, and started to wonder, what if something went wrong with the aileron again while we were in the air? I thought of William Borden, who died en route to China after contracting meningitis in Egypt – Would I die before I ever reached my mission field?

I prayed and mentally recited Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” God could hold up my plane if it were to start falling out of the sky or careening into a mountain. God was with me, and He would protect me, His servant. Satisfied, I lay my head back against the headrest and fell soundly asleep.

Around one o’ clock in the morning, the plane took off without incident.

Thankfully, my transfer at JFK went much more smoothly than my initial departure out of LAX, and although I had only an hour-and-a-half for my second transfer in Moscow, I was able to make it to the gate with twenty minutes to spare. 

At long last, I arrived at Manas International Airport in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. After crossing the airbridge, I walked through a hallway lined with bucolic landscapes and traditional nomadic images. I felt a surge of emotion as I passed by breathtaking scenes of pastoral beauty and portraits of withered and sun-beaten Kyrgyz faces. This land would be my home for the next two years.

Immediately upon entering the terminal, I noticed a window designated for visas with a rather attractive young man behind it: my first encounter with a Kyrgyz person.

“Wow,” I thought, “Are all Kyrgyz guys this gorgeous?”

Eagerly, I scurried up to the counter and explained that I needed a student visa.

The man passed me a blank form and informed me that the student visa would cost seventy dollars. I nodded, duly completed the form, and handed it back to him with my passport.

I pulled out my bill holder. Four Jacksons. More than enough.

I enthusiastically handed him the money.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t give you change,” The man informed me, “We’re out.”

A little strange… But this is Kyrgyzstan. Maybe things like this happen.

“It’s okay,” I said, simpering, “Keep the change.”

The man returned my passport, and I proceeded to pass through customs.

Now to find my teammates, who were supposed to pick me up at the airport.

I followed the mob of passengers as they plodded on towards the baggage claim. I didn’t have a phone with a sim card, so I had no way of contacting my teammates to let them know I had arrived in-country. Just have to pray they find me.

A set of sliding doors parted, and I immediately noticed someone waving at me.

It was Myrtle!

I ducked under the line barrier and joined her and Xander.

Xander high-fived me. “Hey! How was the flight?”

“It was fine,” I replied nonchalantly.

“Did you get the visa alright?” Myrtle asked.

“Yeah, I got the student visa; although, the guy at the counter ran out of change.”

Myrtle’s and Xander’s jaws dropped. I laughed at their expressions.

“It was just ten bucks,” I reassured them, “Don’t worry about it.”

“What?! This is an airport!” Xander dashed off towards the visa office. “He had to have had change!” He hollered over his shoulder.

“Come on!” Myrtle grabbed my hand and pulled me along.

We reached the visa office, but the man who was working there was nowhere in sight.

“He’s gone,” I wheezed.

Resting our hands on our knees, we hung our heads, panting and trying to catch our breaths.

All of a sudden, Xander raised his head.

When Myrtle and I followed his gaze, we noticed a uniformed official.

“Wait... Here,” Xander said, with labored breath.

When Xander returned, he was accompanied by the uniformed official and the visa office worker, from whom I had bought my visa. With the uniformed official looking on with his arms crossed, the visa office worker unceremoniously plopped a crisp ten-dollar bill into my hand, did an about-face, and stalked off. Self-satisfied, the uniformed official nodded.

That settled, Xander, Myrtle, and I made our way towards the baggage claim.

“Thanks for going through all the trouble of tracking down that guy and everything,” I said to Xander and Myrtle.

“No problem,” Xander replied.

“Yeah, there’s no way that guy didn’t have change,” Myrtle remarked.

We found the appropriate baggage carousel and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Still no luggage in sight.

“Have you guys seen a small tan suitcase?” I asked, panic in my voice.

Glumly, Xander and Myrtle shook their heads.

“What about a monolithic black one?” I stretched my hands as wide as I could. “That’s like THIS big!”

Xander and Myrtle merely scowled and folded their arms in front. Negative.

I had nothing but the clothes on my back and my backpack, which contained my laptop, toothbrush, and toothpaste.

“Maybe Aeroflot lost your luggage,” Myrtle suggested.

“Yeah, that happens,” Xander agreed, “I lost a whole suitcase full of stuff once.”

“No, no,” I muttered, shaking my head, “That couldn’t have happened.”

“Yeah, it was a nonstop flight at that, too,” Xander recalled.

“My suitcases probably just haven’t come out yet,” I snapped, cutting Xander off before he continued reminiscing any further.

I scampered from one part of the baggage carousel to another, keeping an eye out for my suitcases.

“Let’s face it, Lorraine, your luggage hasn’t arrived.”

I heaved a sigh.

The next thing I knew, we were at Aeroflot’s lost and found.

“We’ve lost your luggage,” the Aeroflot worker announced flatly.

I nodded in resignation.

I wondered, “Jesus died to save me from the law of sin and death but what about Murphy’s Law?”

“If it shows up within the next few days, we’ll be sure to give you a call. We apologize for the inconvenience.”

“It’s okay,” I sighed, “I understand.”

Dejectedly, Xander, Myrtle, and I left the office and hailed a taxi home – to my new home, that is.

The apartment, at least, was better than I expected; although, I couldn’t say I cared much for the dour décor, done in sullen Soviet style. The vestibule, in particular, seemed especially grim and forbidding. Consequently, upon entering the apartment, I was pleasantly surprised and extraordinarily thankful to find a habitable dwelling.

In the quiet solitude of my new room, I meditated on the twelfth chapter of Hebrews and wrestled with the Lord in prayer:

“Lord, let me lay aside every weight that I may run the race that is set before me! If it be Thy will for Aeroflot to lose my luggage, I surrender to Thee, Lord, my Tommy Hilfiger suitcase, which my mother bought for me, presumably at an inordinately high cost – in addition to the mammoth black one packed full of my personal possessions! If these are the things that would hinder me from running the race for Thee, let it be done according to Thy sovereign will.”

A knock at the door shook me out of my reverie.

Myrtle peeked out from behind the door, waving a cellphone.

“Aeroflot called. They found your suitcases.”

The “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s “Messiah” began resounding in my ears.  

“Your suitcases arrived downstairs. Aeroflot even delivered them to the apartment,” Myrtle continued.

I raced out of the apartment, hurtled down the stairs of the vestibule, and bolted out of the building. There, in the street in front of the apartment, two familiar suitcases stood upright in all of their overstuffed grandeur: one a towering sable portmanteau that threatened to topple over at any second and one a smaller but paunchy beige valise.

Overjoyed, I grabbed hold of their handles and began towing them to the apartment.

Once inside, I opened and checked the suitcases. To my great relief, I found nothing missing.

I praised the Lord and thanked Him. After I had surrendered my luggage to Him and had resigned myself to the possibility of never recovering them, He gave me back everything I thought I had lost.

My attention was then co-opted by a most enticing aroma, which wafted from the kitchen. Apparently, Xander had decided to cook plov, a Central Asian fried rice dish, because he wanted my first meal upon arriving in the country to be a traditional Kyrgyz one – a fitting welcome for a missionary.

The doorbell rang.

A group of Xander’s and Myrtle’s friends had arrived to welcome me to their homeland. Most of the people gathered attended the house church service that was held in the apartment every Sunday. So, I was surprised to notice among them a very visibly Muslim girl, replete with a black headscarf – the likes of which I had never seen before in person. To my chagrin, I couldn’t help but feel slightly wary of Jamilya. I wasn’t sure how much I should let her know regarding my purpose in coming to Kyrgyzstan. Xander, Myrtle, and the other local Christians didn’t seem to mind her, since they talked rather openly about their faith and spiritual activities in front of her.

We sat around the living room, chatting and getting acquainted while we waited for Xander to finish cooking plov.

Suddenly, we heard the doorbell ring.

Xander and Myrtle must be very popular.

Being shy and introverted, I capitalized on the opportunity to get away from the crowd of unfamiliar faces to answer the door.

Per custom, I squinted through the peephole, as Myrtle had taught me to do upon my arrival to the apartment.

A troop of twelve menacing figures in matching black jackets populated the concave spectacle before me.

Myrtle and Xander sure knew how to make friends! Way to be all things to all people, guys!

“Hey, Myrtle, Xander!” I hollered. “Your friends have arrived!”

I tried to remember the Russian phrase that Myrtle had taught me to say when people showed up at the door.

“Kto tam?” I called out enthusiastically, mustering up my best imitation of a Russian speaker.

“Militsiya (“Police”)! Otkroi dver (“Open the door”)!” Bellowed an angry bass.

Disconcerted, I turned toward Myrtle and Xander, who had come running from the kitchen. I jabbed my thumb in the door’s direction. “Ugh, are these guys friends of yours?”

“Don’t let ‘em in!” Adilet, a local Christian and a third-year law student, blurted, pushing her way through us.

“Protocol is, they show their badges first,” Adilet continued and looked through the peephole herself. She shook her head. “It’s the SNB – the national security service. They’re flashing their badges, and they look legit. We have to let ‘em in.”

As soon as Adilet unlocked the door, the officers stormed the apartment. They marched on by, one of them armed with a video camera. One of the officers, presumably the leader of the gang, started droning on in Russian in an imperious manner. Adilet translated for us and explained that the SNB had a warrant to search the apartment.

Myrtle’s face blanched in fear and even the typically phlegmatic Xander looked quite choleric.

How could they have known that I would arrive? The SNB got to me before I even got to share the Gospel once! Now, because of me, the house church would be shut down, my whole team would be deported, and the mission would be terminated.

 “Keep an eye on them,” Adilet warned us, regarding the secret police, “Watch everything they do. Don’t let ‘em out of your sight.”

My teammates had given me a heads-up about corrupt law enforcement officers in Kyrgyzstan. As the officers started to ransack the place, opening all the cupboards and drawers, I determined to keep my eyes peeled and my wits about me, to catch any kind of misconduct on their part.

To my bewilderment, they expressed a vested interest in our teetering tower of American board games. The officer who looked to be the leader of the pack hefted the “Settlers of Catan” box. He turned it over in his hands, studying it  – and promptly spilled all of its contents onto the ground.

It was clear that no stone would be left unturned in our apartment.

Xander groaned, “That game takes forever to set up, so we always keep the pieces in a certain order.”

As we watched with irate intensity, the officers laid waste to “Ticket to Ride” and “Carcassonne.” My stomach growled. The smell of oil from the plov hung in the air. If only these guys would leave, we could get on with the party and enjoy some hot dinner.

“Why are you guys meeting here?” The woman translating for the SNB team asked brusquely.

In a conciliatory fashion, everyone responded that they had arrived to welcome me to the country.

I guess the SNB got the memo, too, and decided to crash the party.

No one mentioned anything that would implicate my teammates and I were missionaries. Everyone spoke carefully so as to omit any references to God, Jesus, church, or religion.

“I just got here,” I explained. I looked at my watch, “Exactly two hours ago.”

I wondered how the SNB knew I would be coming into the country.

“I haven’t even shared the Gospel or done anything illegal yet,” I thought to myself, “Much less, jeopardize national security.”

“And why are you here, in Kyrgyzstan, of all places?” The translator asked shrewdly, narrowing her eyes.

I gulped. I looked around at all the Kyrgyz young people who had gathered to welcome me to their country and felt a rush of sentiment – towards Adilet, of course, for her efforts to protect the team but also towards Jamilya, the girl wearing the headscarf; she was a staunch Muslim, but she was loyal to the volunteers who were her English teachers and friends. I knew, then, that I could trust Jamilya to not betray the team or the church.

Sensing I was under scrutiny, I hesitantly lifted my eyes to meet the translator’s glowering gaze.

“I have friends here,” I said in a placating tone. Then, I remembered what my pastor had told me to say if anyone in Kyrgyzstan asked what I was there for: “And I’m a student. I plan to study Russian at the local university.”

“If you wanted to study Russian, why didn’t you go to Russia? Why did you, instead, come to Kyrgyzstan?” The woman retorted.

“Well, ugh…” Taken aback, I scrambled for a logical answer, “Like I said, my friends are here.”

The woman peered at me closely.

I chuckled and hoped that my brazen laughter would mask my internal anxiety, despite the fact that the chuckling itself was a nervous habit borne out of the very anxiety that I wished to conceal.

“Well, I figured, might as well learn two languages and cultures while I’m at it!” I exclaimed, just a tad too loudly. I pounded my thigh with a fist in what I hoped was a self-assured manner. I looked at the woman straight in the eye and declared, “That’s why I’d rather study Russian in a former Soviet country than in Russia.”

Satisfied, the woman nodded.

Internally, I breathed a sigh of relief.

For another hour-and-a-half, the SNB scoured the apartment.

Xander and I followed the SNB as they entered our bedrooms.

In one of the bedrooms was a conspicuous-looking closet with a green padlock on it: a storage space for Bibles.

Technically, it was legal in Kyrgyzstan to possess Bibles and Christian literature for personal usage, just not for distribution or proselytization – But we had way too many Bibles in that closet for purely personal use.

Xander tried to block the Bible closet from view with his rather lengthy body and prayed that the officers would not ask him to open it. By the grace of God, they never did ask to look inside the locked closet.

Strangely, however, one of the officers ordered Adilet to look behind my bed for him – an odd command considering that Adilet was on our side, if anything. If he really wanted to check the premises for incriminating material, he should look for himself.

Glancing up from her perfunctory perusal of my dust bunny collection, Adilet let out a cry of indignation at the officer with the video camera. She and the officer talked back-and-forth in Russian for a while.

“The light wasn’t on. At some point, he stopped recording,” Adilet explained to me, “He says it was to save battery, but that’s illegal. According to the law, he should keep taking video until his battery dies and then replace it afterwards to continue shooting.”

The officers cleared our bookshelves of Christian books, opened the cabinet where we stored our Bible study materials, and set aside all of the Christian literature they found. One of the officers gleefully pulled out an oversized shining silver Koran from the closet, which one of the former missionaries had presented to the team, and set it aside in a separate pile. I hoped that the beautifully decorated Koran would exonerate the team from indictments regarding our Christian activities.

The team looked on, aghast, as the officers continued to stack Christian materials until the heap had piled up into a bona fide mountain.

My mission was over before it even began.

“Alright, you’re clear,” the translator declared, “We haven’t found anything.”

We were thunderstruck. After finding all that Christian material, the SNB was exempting us? I was astonished.

Just then, an officer emerged from the bathroom and yelled something triumphantly, brandishing a stack of papers that looked slightly damp.

Evidently, he had “found” an extremist Muslim document underneath the bathtub. The document was obviously planted, but, unfortunately, none of us had thought to monitor the officer who had to take a leak.

“Where is your leader?” The translator demanded. “We have reason to believe he is working in cooperation with a Muslim extremist group and is an Islamic terrorist. He must be taken into custody.”

I stared blankly at the slew of Christian paraphernalia on the ground. What an absolutely ridiculous indictment!

“He went back to America to get married,” Xander responded. 

If the SNB chose to press for imprisonment with their “evidence,” our team leader could find himself in jail for up to a year upon returning to Kyrgyzstan.

“Could you please sign off here that these documents were found in your possession?” The SNB demanded.

“I’ve never even seen that before!” Xander exclaimed.

“Were these documents found in your apartment or not?” The translator snapped.

Dutifully, Xander, Myrtle, and Adilet each took turns writing their signatures, albeit in a desultory manner.

Satisfied, the SNB vacated the apartment, and our motley crew of friends dispersed as well, since it was already late. From the kitchen, Xander lugged out the cauldron of plov, which was by now cold, and doled out to each of us a ladleful of oily rice. We ate in silence in the steely wake of the abrupt police search, surrounded by overturned furniture, loose papers, and strewn board game pieces.

Nonetheless, there was peace in my heart. I called upon the Lord: “‘Should evil come upon us, the sword, or judgment, or pestilence, or famine, we will stand before this house and before You (for Your name is in this house) and cry to You in our distress, and You will hear and deliver us… See how [the Kyrgyz authorities] are rewarding us by coming to drive us out from Your possession which You have given us as an inheritance. O our God, will You not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on You’” (2 Chronicles 20:9,11, NASB).

In answer, God comforted me with the following words: “‘Do not fear or be dismayed because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours but God’s… You need not fight in this battle; station yourselves, stand and see the salvation of the LORD on your behalf… Do not fear or be dismayed… For the LORD is with you” (2 Chronicles 20:15,17, NASB).

I had arrived.