An Invitation to the Peasant
A boy (he was my father) stood in a corner between two walls, trying to warm himself in the early rays of the sun. He was tired, dirty, frozen, and had no idea what to do or where to go. Moreover, he was tormented by hunger. Suddenly he saw a man walking straight toward him. The boy could not believe his ears when he heard the man say: "My son, if you watch over my horses and my wagon, I will go and buy hot food for us both."
Hot food! "This sounds too good to be true," he thought. The offer came at just the right moment. "Yes! I will watch over your horses and wagon!" He didn't need to think twice—he had nowhere else to go anyway, and besides, he was very hungry. Hot food was exactly what he needed now! Food would warm him and give him strength and hope for life. The mere thought that he would soon have something to eat suddenly revived his entire being. Someone truly cared about him. Now he felt quite good: he was needed and wanted by someone. He wanted to please the man and help him somehow, so that he would be kind to him. He watched over the horses and wagon as if he were the son of their owner.
Soon the man returned with milk and hot pies and offered the food to the boy. Then he prayed and thanked God for sending a young man to watch over his wagon and horses, and also thanked God for the food. They sat in the wagon and began to eat. Oh, what a blessing it was—to bite into a hot pie and wash it down with such delicious milk!
The boy stayed with the man and began to help him. The peasant had many sacks of corn and wheat in his wagon. He told the boy that he needed to sell them to earn money and buy clothing for himself and his wife. By the end of the day, the man had sold everything and was very pleased.
He began to ask the boy: "Where do you live? Do you have a home, a family?" The boy answered: "No, I am completely alone. My father died in a railroad disaster. My mother died not long after that." "Do you have any relatives or friends?" the man asked. When he learned that the boy was completely alone, the man asked if he would like to go to his village and live with his family. The boy was overjoyed at such an offer: "Yes, I would very much like to live with you!"
As they rode in the wagon along the road to the village, the peasant began to tell the boy about his farm and what he could teach him. "You can live with us and help us with the farm work. I will teach you everything you need to know about working the land and how to earn a living from it. You will learn how to repair farm tools, and even pots and pans! You will learn to make all sorts of necessary tools and learn how they are used on the farm. I will also teach you how to handle guns and how to repair them. On the farm, a gun is a very necessary thing. We have many wild animals here, and they attack our chickens and pigs, and sometimes even our cows. Therefore, you must know all about the tools we use on the farm and know how to repair them all. You will learn how to care for horses. I will show you how to make wagons and wheels for them, and how to repair them. You will learn how horses are shod. You will know how to work and manage the farm on your own, if you should need to in the future. In this way, you will be able to provide for yourself and your future family."
...My father became a very diligent student. He was very grateful to the peasant for not sparing his time to teach him all the necessary skills of making and repairing tools and equipment. He learned much of what was necessary to manage his own farm.
My father came to love the peasant and his wife dearly. He gladly helped them with all the work on their homestead. And on Sundays they went to church. Father noticed that they always prayed and thanked God for the food, and for how their day had gone, whether it was truly good or not. They always gave thanks to God in prayer for everything.
The peasant and his wife told father that they were evangelical Baptists, not Orthodox. "We do not agree with Orthodox doctrine, and we have no monasteries. We gather in prayer houses where God's Word is preached and where we praise God for all we have. We especially thank God for His Son Jesus Christ, who came to earth and died for our sins to save us, and gave us eternal life in heaven. In the Gospel of John 3:16 it says: 'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.'"
The boy was very glad that the peasant and his wife read the Bible with him and explained what they read; they wanted him to learn more about God. They also taught him to read and write, so that he could now read the Bible by himself.