There’s something to be said for the roads in Russia. Actually, there are many things to be said and even more things that could be said but shouldn’t. The term “Russian Road” is pretty much an oxymoron, and if you spend 10 hours on one in a van with 10 people (one that’s built to hold 8) you can understand this a little better.

A Russian road is more like an old minefield, one in which all of the mines have been set off and the holes left in the ground. Someone then went through with some gravel with rocks the size of softballs and made a path on top of this minefield. After laying down the gravel, someone then went through with talcum-powdered-fine dust and covered the gravel about 4 inches deep. Whallah! We now have a Russian road!

If one is brave he will drive about 40 mph on such a road. If one is smart he will take a boat or fly. During our trip we opted for bravery over brains. The time finally came for us to leave the small village of Khandiga. We were to take a 14-hour boat ride back to Yakutsk, but because of fires along the Lena River the boats were not going to run for an indefinite period of time. We had but on e option, we would have to ride for 12 hours on a slow barge down the Aldan River and then drive across land for about 10 hours back to Yakutsk.

When discussing situations of seemingly perilous and dangerous plans among Russians, there’s always at least the comfort of looking at one of the nationals and seeing a calm repose upon his or her face. The peoples of Siberia do many things on a regular or semi-regular basis that would make most of us Americans say, “You’re not serious are you?” But they have become used to these tough situations, and I always had the comfort of looking at them and saying, “Good, they’re not worried. They’ve done this before and lived.’ When discussing this situation, however, I looked upon the face of a Russian pastor named Andrey as he was shaking his head back and forth and uttering one of the five English words that he knew… “No, no, no, no, no!” Can you hear the banjo and the player piano starting in the background now as the silent movie begins?

We left on Monday afternoon at 3 PM to drive down to the port to catch the barge. We ended up not leaving until about 7:30 that evening. (Hurry up and wait.) We had stocked our food supply with some candy bars, bread, some hard-boiled eggs, bologna, and of course, the staple of every Russian meal, cucumbers. We also had some bottles of soda, which ran out rather quickly.

Sleep was fleeting that evening on the boat as we all sat in the van, shoulder to shoulder with our feet in each other’s faces, coughing, snoring, talking in our sleep, listening to techno music coming from other cars on the barge, and overall trying to catch a few winks before the remainder of the trip on land. We all knew that once we were on the road there was going to be little chance of sleep, as we would be thrown around like dice in a game of Yahtzee. We had had brief 1 and 2 hour experiences on some Russian roads during the earlier parts of our trip, but we knew that these were going to be the cream of the crop of bad Russian roads.

Our barge touched land at about 7 AM the next morning and we soon pulled off and hit the “roads.” As we began our road trip we were being smothered with a cloud of dust as several vehicles were in front of us kicking up that 4 inches of dust that had been so carefully used to cover the huge stones and potholes. I remember thinking to myself, “This is just the road in the village, and soon we will reach the main road.” A gentle smile and a sigh of calmness came over me at the thought of this. Two hours later I sat in the van with a towel wrapped around my nose and mouth trying not to breath in as much dust as possible, realizing that we were on the main road back to Yakutsk.

So here’s the picture – all of us are crammed into the back of this van; it is two couch-like seats facing each other (one facing forward and one backward). We all have something tied around our faces, and our driver, Sasha, who speaks 10 words of English and understands 11 is swerving all over the place to try to hit the smaller potholes instead of the larger ones. We’re all bouncing up and down, often falling on top of each other. We can’t talk much because of the roar of the engine and the gravel, and if we want to eat, all we basically have is cucumbers.

During the ride I glanced back at Andrey who was sitting quietly with an expressionless look upon his face. I realized now why he had said “No, no, no, no, no,” earlier. Every now and then Sasha would be unable to swerve and miss one of those big holes, and we would become airborne for a few seconds. It was during these times that I couldn’t resist singing the opening bars of the theme song for “The Dukes of Hazard”… “Just the good ole boys…” Anyway…

I ended up sitting in the front passenger seat for a good bit of the drive, where the dust raged as fiercely as ever. Several times, over the roar of the road, I attempted to hold a conversation with Sasha. Eventually, I would hit a limitation in my Russian to which he would reply in heavily accented English, “You no understand what you say for you.” I have no idea really what that means, but it became quite funny.

In the midst of all this fun we finally ran out of cucumbers, and we were passing around the last cola bottle. Tired, dirty, hungry, emotionally drained from our time with the kids in Khandiga and sore from being thrown around for almost nine hours, we all found ourselves being tried. This was a tough experience for everyone in the van, the Americans and the Russians alike, and we were all having to rely heavily upon the Lord for help and patience during this ordeal.

If I may be forgiven for allegory, I couldn’t help but think in this situation about the paths that we as Christians are called to travel in this life. Often they are very difficult paths, filled with many trials and ruts in the road. Often our paths are dusty and dirty and we must fight to breathe sometimes, as the world would try to choke us to death. Often we find ourselves in less-than-ideal situations where we must learn to live side-by-side and work with our Christian brothers and sisters. It is during these times that God teaches many lessons in patience and self-sacrifice.

There’s a happy ending of course. After many dirty, uncomfortable and hungry hours of travel we finally arrived at our destination where we ate food, bathed and rested. Never before had food tasted so good. Never before had a bath been so welcomed. And never before was sleep so restful. How often the roads of this life have made me long for God’s Kingdom, for His eternal rest. How often I have persevered along the path because of the gracious promises of God for the future. Don’t misunderstand me, there were some very fond and memorable moments on our journey from Khandiga to Yakutsk, but it was still a difficult path to take. The Christian life is much the same way; there are many wonderful and uplifting times along the way, but it is a difficult path that is designed by our sovereign God to prepare us to be with Him eternally. Push on my brothers and sisters, God is leading you to your final destination where He will prepare a table for you, clean the dust off of you and bid you “rest” eternally.