Mark and Sasha

Fighting Love at First Site

Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think I would be getting married to a woman living on the other side of the earth. This was the absolute last thing on my mind as I stepped onto my flight to Ukraine during September of 2006. I was heading to Simferopol, Ukraine on a short-term mission trip with Cornerstone Church, and it was soon to become the most incredible adventure of my life.

The purposes of our mission trip were easy: support the local church, encourage the pastors, teach an english club to college students, and share the love of Christ with everyone we met. However I later learned that God had one very distinct purpose for me going.

Sasha and I met on September 10, 2006 in Perevalnoya, a small town about a half hour from Simferopol in Crimea. The Cornerstone team was visiting a small church we support there. Only a few people were there that Sunday morning, but one very important person was about to walk through the door. As we were meeting, this beautiful woman walked through the door, gave an enchanting smile, waved, and disappeared into another room. I felt like my heart had stopped. I didn't know who that woman was that just entered the door, but praise God she left! I know that might sound weird, but after all, I was there to share the "Love of God" and not the "Love of Mark".

I soon found out that every Sunday Sasha would get on a bus and travel from Simferopol to Perevalnoya to teach Sunday School to just a handful of children. That actually made things worse because to me that was almost more attractive than the way she looked. However, my attraction to her never really seemed to be that big of a problem because I really never thought I would see her again.

As we loaded onto the bus to head back to Simferopol I realized Sasha was coming with us. Not only was she coming with us, but someone had invited her to go with us to have pizza for lunch. During lunch I made sure to sit as far away from her as possible. The only problem was that I was still close enough to hear her talking and laughing, and soon I realized that Sasha had an amazing personality! Joy was just pouring out of her. "OK, no problem. I'm never going to see her again after lunch." At least that is what I thought.

Later that day we went to the Simferopol church that met at 4:00pm. Guess who was there? It turned out that Sasha actually was a member of the Simferopol church and only went to Perevalnoya in the morning because she could see they really needed someone to help with the children. At one point in the service I got up to give my testimony as planned, and I can still hear Sasha's laugh from all the funny remarks I made. Because she understood english she would always laugh before everyone else got the translated version. Then I would have the whole translation time to try and fight all the feelings this exuberant laugh was giving me.

All night long as I tried to fall asleep I could not stop thinking about this amazing woman I had just met.

"OK, no problem! I'm never going to see her again." I thought.

Monday through Friday we taught an English Club to some University Students. It was a lot of fun, and all the students were wonderful. We had broken the group up into an advanced and a beginner class, and I was teaching the advanced class. During a break we joined the beginner class...and there was Sasha. She had come late and John Lange, the beginning class' teacher, had asked her to help with some translations in his class. Praise God she was not in my class! Although, at the same time I was really glad to see her again.

"OK, no problem! I'm never going to see her again." I said.

The rest of the week she continued to come to the English Club, but the difference was John told her she needed to be in my class. So for the next 4 days she was sitting, learning, and being beautiful. The worst part was that for some reason we would always get stuck next to each other on the bus ride home. It was never planned that way, but there always seemed to be only one seat left right next to her.

I believe it was on Wednesday night that I got stuck sitting next to Sasha so I decided to finally talk to her a little. I asked her a couple questions about her life, and I was completely blown away by her openness and total heart for God. That night was really hard to fall asleep!

Friday had finally come and we invited all the students to come to a picnic the next day for a day of fun. I had overheard Sasha say she would need to work on Saturday so I thought,

"OK, no problem! I'm never going to see her again."

That night I was really sad. I wanted to see her again so much! At the same time I knew that nothing was going to happen between us. As well, I didn't want anything to happen between us. I'm realistic enough to know that there is no possible way we could actually start and continue a relationship that would actually work from two different sides of the planet. At least that is what I thought at the time. On top of that I had no desire to mess up the mission by hitting on one of the girls. That's a major no-no on misson trips.

Of course, Sasha showed up to the picnic on Saturday. As the day went on I finally found myself looking over at her and thinking, "This is stupid! I'm never going to see her again so I might as well enjoy her friendship for the next couple of hours." As well, I was really interested to know more about her and her life. So I went over to her and asked her to tell me about how she became a Christian.

Amazing!!!

She was simply AMAZING!!! I could not believe the words that were coming out of her mouth. Yet, in just a few short hours I found myself shaking her hand, telling her that it was nice to meet her, and goodbye. I felt like I was in some bizzare unfair fairytail where I had found the girl of my dreams and then had to fly back to live on the other side of the world.

"Ok...no problem...I'm never going to see her again..."

The next morning before we left we had a small worship service in the apartment we were staying in. We had invited the students from the English Club to come, but again Sasha was not going to be able to come. It's funny...after a week of this...I was still surprised when she showed up unexpectedly. I was thrilled! I gave my email address to everyone before we left, and I was especially thrilled to give it to Sasha. However, she told me that she did not have email or internet access. Needless to say I was rather sad. As she left for the final time all I could think was,

"...I really want to see her again."

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