Memory Verse If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast! (Psalm 139:8-9)

Dear Grandchildren, The day of our departure was approaching. We were permitted to take a couple of weeks off to see loved ones and to prepare ourselves for the journey. Since my mother and sister, Olga, left at the end of August to move to Paraguay, South America, I had already said my goodbyes. While the rest of the choir members were away with their families, I visited friends.

There was one trip that I made in order to straighten things out with someone. I had a boyfriend whose name was Leonid Nikolishin. He was the one that I told you about before, with whom I sang duets. Well, he wanted to marry me and there was a time when I almost promised him that I would.

While I was away in Kobryn, he wrote me letters and begged me not to go to the U.S. I decided that I had better go see him and tell him that I had decided to go to America and that nothing would change my mind. When I told him that, he cried and told me that there would never be another person who would love me more than he did. But not too long after I came to America, I heard that he married a friend of mine. So there!

My mother was very happy that I broke up with him. She was glad that I was going to America and sad because we were to part and the future was so unknown and so mysterious to both her and to me. Now we would be living on two different continents.

December 10th was the day the choir left the headquarters in Kobryn and traveled by train to Warsaw. We were to stay that night in a hotel, and the next day take another train to the one big port of Poland-Danzig, which in Polish we called Gdansk.

I took advantage of the stopover in Warsaw, taking the local small train to Konstancin to say goodbye to all the girls who were still in the orphanage. I stayed there and spent most of the night talking. Different girls expressed different opinions about my going to America. Some were saying that they would never leave their country, but others wanted to go with me. In the morning, in our usual manner, we all gathered for family worship. Then there was hugging and saying goodbye.

I never forgot one of those moments. I was standing against the wall while one of the girls gave a farewell address. After that, they all sang, “God be with you until we meet again.…” Not until that point did I realize that I was going away and might never see them again in my whole life. I was so happy that I was going, but when I looked at all of them crying while singing this song, my heart began to break from the weight of all the emotions that piled up. I hadn’t realized how much I loved the people with whom I shared the same roof, the same sorrows, and the same joys, until I had to part with them for good. I wasn’t sorry that I was going to America, but I felt very bad for leaving them behind. All of them were saying, while kissing me goodbye: “Don’t forget us, Nadzia.” The emotions of parting didn’t leave me even long after I was on my way to join the rest of the choir members.

I corresponded with some of my closer friends for some time, and the letters that I received from them are all preserved. Many times I open the box and read them. Do you know, that each time, tears blind my eyes when the memory of the last day in the orphanage comes up before me in a vivid picture? I remember their faces, their clear voices as they sang, and a feeling like loneliness comes over me as I think of them.  We grew up together!
—Grandma Nadzia

Questions 1. Would you ever leave your family and go live on another continent like Nadzia did?

2. God provided Nadzia with many good friends at the orphanage. How do good friends help each other?

3. Is there anywhere on earth that you can go where God is not with you? Why or why not?