Glimpses of Grace in Georgia: A True Story of Finding God’s Favor, Love and Forgiveness

By Amanda Gray

Glimpses of Grace in Georgia is an incredible true story of how Amanda and her family were taken from suburban America and brought into the heart of a former Soviet, third-world country during a time of economic turmoil and political instability. In this exciting memoir, Amanda outlines the struggles of living in a foreign country and how God miraculously provided for her family during this dark time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Feb 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664223066

Amanda Gray

Amanda Gray is a web developer in Virginia with an exceptional story about her experience living in Georgia from the years 2000 to 2003. Early in her adolescent life, Amanda faced a number of unique challenges, yet found an abundance of God’s grace through it all.

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Copyright © 2021 Amanda Gray.

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This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author

and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of

the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of

people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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Interior Image Credit: Bradley Scott

All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy

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Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy

Bible, New Living Translation, copyright ©1996, 2004, 2015 by

Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House

Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2304-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2305-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-2306-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021902669

WestBow Press rev. date: 02/19/2020

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1     When Darkness Prevails

Chapter 2     Thursday Blues

Chapter 3     What’s the purpose?

Chapter 4     Giving Thanks

Chapter 5     History Lesson

Chapter 6     Culture Shock

Chapter 7     Breaking Points

Chapter 8     Adjusting as well as Mom

Chapter 9     Glimpses of Grace

Chapter 10   Rays of Hope

Chapter 11   Lent

Chapter 12   The Shot Heard Round the World

Chapter 13   The Stone was Rolled Away

Chapter 14   Jill’s Joy Shattered

Chapter 15   God’s Displeasure or God’s Grace?

Chapter 16   Change in Perspective

Chapter 17   Bittersweet Return Home

Chapter 18   Bugs and Other Food Adventures

Chapter 19   Times of Trouble

Chapter 20   Protecting Tasha

Chapter 21   Losing Dama

Chapter 22   When Light Prevails

Citations

Preface

A round May of 2014, I was inspired to write a book on how to accomplish your God-given dreams by setting Christ-centered goals. Over the next few months, the words began flowing out onto the pages, and I got a solid draft of around 45,000 words. That was when I realized that I hadn’t taken any of my own advice. What God-given dreams had I chased? What had I accomplished for His kingdom?

After my project came to a screeching halt, I had my second child, and I shelved my unfinished manuscript. I knew God wasn’t through with me yet, and prayed for the right timing.

About a month prior, my parents returned to the U.S. from their fourth tour with the State Department and were finally able to retrieve the belongings we had packed into storage almost ten years prior. Do you want to know what I searched for the most buried deep inside those boxes? My old journal. I was looking for one in particular, but I found four!

I began to read through all my journals. I laughed, I cried, I felt things I hadn’t felt in almost fifteen years. Then I came across a journal entry towards the end of our three years in Georgia and it read:

I don’t know why God allowed me to go through these things, maybe I’m supposed to write a book about it someday, to help out young girls just like me.

Then it hit me: my God-given dream was handed to me when I was fourteen years old. This book has been in the process for six years since that epiphany. My deepest desire for you, my reader, is to be blessed… to laugh, to cry, and to feel the experience that we went through as a family so many years ago. I also pray that you find God’s grace through your very own life story. I pray that you can look through the hardships you’ve faced and still see God teaching you lessons, guiding you through your mistakes and forgiving you even at your worst.

With the help of my family and friends, I’ve incorporated our collective memories, stories and historical references about Georgia into this book. This book is a memoir. It reflects our present recollections of experiences over time. Some names and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been recreated.

It’s a story about how God gave His grace to my family when He moved us to the Republic of Georgia in the year 2000. It’s an account of our personal journeys and how we all learned how to rely on God through some seemingly dark times in our lives. This may be my book, but it is our story.

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Chapter One

When Darkness

Prevails

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may

have peace. In this world you will have trouble.

But take heart! I have overcome the world."

JOHN 16:33 (NIV)

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V ividly I recall the first few months of my life in Georgia. Never have I experienced such absolute sadness, and prayerfully I will never again. The days felt like years; as the days, though short, felt like the earth stopped spinning around the sun. One particular night a few weeks into our move to Georgia, I felt my entire world come crashing down. It was almost too much for a twelve-year-old girl to handle, yet somehow I managed to get through the night.

My soul was dying in a vast ocean of darkness. I felt the life being sucked out of me, as the tears spilled onto the pages of my journal. I blamed myself for bringing this suffering to my very being. My silent cry was only heard in the form of pencil scratches. My voiceless call for help was made known to no one but my trusty journal. My efforts were fruitless; no one was there to actually listen.

And to think I welcomed this newness. I wanted a change. I desired to leave. I wanted so desperately to get out; to leave behind the dark dragon of my sin, hopeful it would lose its grip on me. But that dragon pursued as if I were its prey. I thought I escaped, but those feelings of guilt haunted me and lurked in the shadows in this dismal country.

The power of the darkness is strong when you have no weapon to use against it...

My body trembled with a vigorous shiver as I pulled my journal closer to my chest, and re-adjusted the hand-made quilt over my head that had begun to slide off. I imagined I looked like an Eskimo, as I had wrapped the blanket tightly around my head to keep in what little heat my body produced. There was a draft in my room coming from the wall opposite my bed. The double doors led out to a balcony that had been converted into another room, where my sister slept. If I was this cold, I wondered how Tasha was able to survive being that much closer to the drafty windows. On cold nights like this, I would stick my feet in between the blades of our electric radiator to quickly warm up my toes. Alas, it only worked when the power was on.

I laid on my stomach, pillows propped up my chest while all the weight of my upper body leaned on my left arm as my right penned out my woes of the day in my dear journal. My only companion. The one whom I spilled all my darkest secrets.

Tears began to stream down my face as I reminisced about the happy memories of my middle school friends. Did they miss me like I missed them? Would they remember me in a year when I returned? Would they treat me the same or any differently? The school I attended now wasn’t anything like back home in Ohio. There weren’t any kids my age. Even if there were, not one spoke a lick of English. Well, except for the standard, Hi, how are you? Vat ees your name? That was the standard greeting of the little kids from our school. Even after telling them our names they would run away snickering, only to return moments later with the same canned English questions. It grew old rather quickly. I wished I could have a best friend again, like I did in Ohio.

Katie was my best friend. She lived next door to me, and we would do everything together. I remember the first time I met her. We had just moved into a white-shingled, two-story house in Ohio, and had unpacked all of our belongings from massive cardboard boxes. We threw them into the garage to be properly disposed of later. Well of course, I thought it was a perfect game to climb to the very top of the cardboard boxes that were stacked to the ceiling of the garage. Katie peered in and watched me around the corner of the garage door, which was open as I played princess and the pea. My sisters were off doing something on their own. I was perfectly content to play by myself.

What are you doing? she inquired. I looked up and saw a girl about my age, wearing a white helmet, and one-size-too-large knee and elbow pads standing near the open garage door. She was riding her bike around the block when she saw the moving van and heard my voice inside the garage. Katie decided to come say hi. Her dark brown hair peeked through in all directions from her helmet. She was a skinny girl and tall for her age. Her bright white smile looked back at me as she laughed at the sight of a little girl who had climbed the top of a cardboard box mountain.

She looked like she wanted to join in the fun. So I replied, Playing princess and the pea! Do you want to play too? Without hesitation she jumped onto the top of the stack with me. We began to imagine it was an ocean wave, and we were surfing on top of it. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship with my best friend, Katie.

Now, she was just a memory and my journal was my only friend. Perhaps a better friend than I had ever had. I could tell my journal things that I wouldn’t share with anyone else. I never had to worry if it would spill my secrets as gossip to my best friends. Although there was no preventing anyone else from reading it, which was why I always hid it away when I left my room. I didn’t want to give my older sister, Jill, any more ammunition to make fun of me. Or worse yet, my parents would know that I kissed a boy the last day of school before we moved.

Chris was my first boyfriend, although if my dad ever found out he probably would have killed us both. The most we had ever done was hold hands in the halls to and from our classes. He would meet me at my locker and escort me, like a pure gentleman, to my next class. I would daydream about him in class instead of listening to the teacher, taking mental note of his messy, long bleached-blonde hair, and his nerdy black-framed glasses. Then I would secretly write long notes with my gel pens. Some classes you had to be extra careful. The teacher would eye us from the corner of the room to make sure we were doing our assignments. Up until that day I had only heard that Mr. Smith was mean and read notes out loud to the entire class to publicly shame the girls for not paying attention. Some were really bad, some downright naughty which in turn would get the author sent straight to the principal’s office. It was my last day of school; we would be on an airplane about this time tomorrow. I wasn’t planning on kissing him—that was until my friend, Maddy, leaned over to me and whispered, Chris is really looking forward to this afternoon.

With a puzzled look on my face, I wondered what he could be excited for. Was he excited for me to leave? It was my last day after all. We had been going steady for a few weeks now, I would think he would be sad for this afternoon. Because it’s my last day? I whispered back with a furrowed brow, confused why she would say he was excited.

No! she said almost too loudly, and instead went to a piece of paper and began to pen out something in secret to me. Obviously, it was too sensitive to say out loud where others could hear. After she was done writing, she put her pen down quietly and looked around the room to make sure the teacher or others couldn’t see. She then flipped the note upside down and slid it across the table to me.

I gingerly lifted a portion of the note off the table, like it was a card in a poker game. Underneath was written in golden gel pen the words, Chris says he wants you to kiss him! My heart fluttered at the sight. A kiss? I’m not sure I was ready for that. Suddenly, a classmate jumped to his feet and snatched the note from my hands. Mr. Smith! he yelled, Maddy and Amanda are passing notes in class! He raised the note high above his head, and shook it vigorously back and forth as if it was a flag waving in the wind.

Give it back! I screamed at him as I stood to my feet trying to jump up to reach the note in his hand.

Mr. Smith, who had previously had his feet up on his desk, and reclined back in his chair, stood up and declared, Ahh, this should be interesting. He got up and walked over to the boy and took it from his hands.

To the entire class, he read out loud the note which Maddy penned, Chris says he wants you to kiss him. With that, the entire class erupted in a chorus of oohs, the way the audience would when watching a couple kiss on an episode of Saved by the Bell. I had never been more humiliated in my life. My face got red and I slunk further down into my seat. I wanted to disappear into the background, but I became the center of attention instead. Now everyone in the first period knew that Chris wanted me to kiss him. Half of them probably didn’t even know who Chris was.

The kids at school must have thought it was pretty funny because the story kept getting repeated until lunchtime. Someone I didn’t know in the eighth grade came up to me to give me tips on proper kissing technique. Other kids would turn their backs to me, hugging themselves, all while making kissing sounds. Others gave me pats on the back and exclaimed, Good luck today! Some heard we were going to make out in front of the school for everyone to see. Others heard worse.

I was utterly embarrassed. This was not at all what I imagined my last day of school would look like. Most of these kids didn’t know it would be the last day I set foot in this building. Some may even believe I was run out, never to come back again due to a severe case of embarrassment-itis. I wasn’t sure I was ready to kiss Chris, but I guess I didn’t want to let him (and everyone else) down. It’s such a terrible memory to think back on how I was more concerned with what others thought of me, than my own feelings.

That afternoon, when school let out, Chris met me at my locker. I had already cleared all my belongings from it and he helped me carry some of my books to where the busses were. His canter was fast, I suppose he also heard what everyone was saying. I’m not sure if he quickly wanted to get to the kiss, or if he wanted to be rid of me already.

There wasn’t a crowd like I was expecting. I suppose if there was, I wouldn’t chalk up the courage to kiss him. There was such a hustle and bustle of kids running to their busses, getting into their parents’ cars; everyone was distracted and wanted to get home quickly. So, I took a step off to the side of the building, just outside the front doors where not many people were. We plopped our bags and books on the ground, and I reached up and gave Chris a big hug. He was much taller than I was, so I had to stand on my tip-toes while he hunkered down to wrap me in his arms. I remember then our faces met, and he gave me a very sloppy kiss on the mouth. His black-framed glasses fell down his nose and bonked me in the face as it happened. It may have only lasted a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

It’s not something I did back then—run around school kissing boys. I felt like I owed it to him, being my last day and all. Everyone else pressured me into it. I suppose that should not have affected me one bit, but it did. Strange how other people can impact your own decisions and thought processes; that’s something I would struggle with even years later. Even though the kiss lasted only a few brief moments, I knew one thing for certain; it felt so good to feel loved. I was wanted by someone else, but that was only a distant memory now.

As I laid in that cold bed, I felt the polar opposite. No one in the world wanted me.

The light from my kerosene lantern dimmed and flickered as it slowly died. The darkness was overcoming it too. My cold fingers slowly turned the knob on the side and the wick raised enough for the fire to consume it and grow into a large flame. It instantly brightened the room and spilled dark shadows on the furniture and walls by my bed. I held my cold hands briefly by the glass to warm them up. It took a moment for them to thaw, but I felt the surge of my blood flow through them. I was reassured there still was some sort of life flowing through my veins.

The light from the lantern made the outline of the library visible. This was my room. Its walls had books stacked upon floor-to-ceiling shelves. Books that I was never able to read. They were all in Georgian or Russian. Two languages that I hadn’t quite figured out the differences.

The pages of my journal were clearer now. The warm, orange glow from the lantern made enough light to see my chicken-scratch writing on the pages below. Most nights I spent in bed like that, writing for hours by the light of a lantern. I recalled my friends back home and thought of all the activities I was missing. Most nights we didn’t have electricity in the house—nor did the surrounding neighborhood. It was an eerie feeling to look off the balcony of our eighth-story apartment and see buildings for miles in pure darkness. Only the light of the moon outlined each building enough to see their dark silhouettes.

In Ohio, we would have fierce thunderstorms. One moment it would be calm and peaceful outside, and within a matter of minutes, you could look out your window again and see pure chaos. Dark clouds would roll in and the world would be veiled in an expanse of darkness. Lightning would crash, brightening the ground only for a moment beforing darkening again. Thunder would boom, like a bowling ball on the floors of an alley, and the whole house would shake and vibrate with the sound. Then the electricity would go out. My family would huddle together with flashlights, in awe of the powerful storm. We thought it was exciting and fun to have the power go out.

There was no awe here. We lived almost daily without power. The exhilaration of the storm in Ohio only lasted a moment, and in due time, our power was restored. But not here… here we lived in darkness.

I guess I never really understood what it meant to live in darkness until the light was taken from us. The pleasantries of life in the United States seemed like a fundamental right to most. It was inhumane to take away a person’s electricity or water when they paid for a service. In the Republic of Georgia though, our electricity was sold to a neighboring country. Prize of the highest bidder. Through the rolling blackouts, hospitals and the metro system stayed on. Then those who were cunning found ways to hook up their own power lines to the grid that was online. If it was hot, they found ways to steal it from someone else.

It was a game of the survival of the fittest. If you didn’t get electrocuted in the process, you’d be able to pass on your cunning genes to your kids and the vicious cycle would continue with the next generation. The old Soviet infrastructure wasn’t prepared to supply that many customers at once. The grid online for essential services was regularly taken down, overloaded with the number of users who had maliciously tapped in.

It never dawned on me how extremely blessed we were to live in the United States. We never had to wonder how to cook a meal without power. We didn’t worry about parasites in our tap water. We didn’t plan our showers in advance because of a limited supply of hot water. How quickly we forget how truly blessed we are when endless aisles of food available in our supermarkets. How quickly we forget how blessed we are when we have everything at our fingertips.

I lifted my hands from the page and rubbed my eyes. I opened my mouth wide and yawned. Tears formed in my eyes and I felt them drop down my cheeks. Sleep, akin to the darkness in my life, started to overcome me. I looked up, and I saw more dark shadows form, messing with my eyes. I blinked a few times to clear my view and looked around my room. The silence of the apartment was eerie. All I heard was the wind which howled every few minutes as it moved through the apartment building. I thought that everyone had gone to sleep when suddenly someone knocked at my door, and I almost