Forty-seven years have passed, and I have not forgotten the help we received through the prayers of Vladika John.
My husband began having headaches. We thought they would go away but they only grew worse. Finally he had to quit work — he was thirty-nine — and the family was left without a breadwinner. What were we to do? How were we to live? Some kind people advised us to go to Beijing (we lived in Tianjin) which had a large hospital where they took X rays and performed complicated operations. There we learned that my husband had a brain tumor requiring an immediate operation. Again, what were we to do, where were we to get the money? A kind man was found who paid for the entire procedure, two hundred and eighty dollars.
My husband was admitted to the hospital, while I stayed with some acquaintances in the Russian Mission in Bej-Huan. Vladika Victor lived there at that time, and there were daily services in the church. In the morning I went to church, and after Liturgy I asked Vladika Victor to serve a moleben for my sick husband. ''We'll serve a moleben" said Vladika, "but you write to Vladika John in Shanghai; he really knows how to pray. I'll give you his address." I did not delay in following Vladika Victor's advice. The operation was performed. For a whole week my husband remained unconscious, but then he gradually began to recover, and after a time he began to work a bit. I never did receive an answer from Vladika John.
Seven years passed, and we émigrés were evacuated from Tianjin to Shanghai where we were settled in the French barracks. Vladika came frequently to visit us and serve Liturgy. One day my husband was walking in the courtyard when
he met Vladika walking in the opposite direction. Vladika came up to my husband and said, "Why didn't you send your son to me to school?" Vladika had never seen my husband before and didn't know we had a son. I consider this to be supernatural. I also believe that my husband recovered through the prayers of Vladika John. My husband died in 1987.For a long time my sister's arm caused her intense pain. She turned to doctors and tried home remedies; nothing helped. Then she decided to appeal to Vladika John and wrote to him in San Francisco (she lived in Los Angeles). After a time the pain in her arm went away, and my sister even began to forget her ordeal. Once she went to San Francisco and attended Liturgy. When at the end of the service she went up to kiss the Cross, Vladika John asked her, "How is your arm?" Vladika had never seen her before! How did he recognize her and know that she had had trouble with her arm?!
Everything written here is the truth. I wrote as God laid it on my heart.
Anna F. Khodireva, Sacramento, CA