The “Coin” that Keeps Coming Back

BY ANNETA VYSOTSKAYA

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you – Luke 6:38

In fairy tales and classic literature, you can find a story about a coin that keeps coming back to its owner after he paid it for something.

Fairy tales are only fairy tales, but they remind me of a financial miracle that happened to me in the early 1990s.

It was time of big hardships, total deficit and financial inflation when the majority of the population in Russia lived in poverty and struggled for survival.

At that time, my husband received an invitation to research at Hokkaido University, and all our family went to live in Japan for one year.

We were given good accommodation but my husband’s scholarship was just enough to buy food and other necessities. And we knew that we would be returning to our country and to our tiny one-room flat and the salaries that were not enough even to buy the necessities.

Because of this, I was delighted to receive an opportunity to teach Russian to a small group of Japanese students. Once a month I received an envelope from them with 5000 yen that I spent on the family budget.

My husband and I were brought up as atheists, but God did a miracle, and we met OMF missionaries and became believers thanks to their evangelism talks and prayers.

My husband and I and our two children believed in Jesus Christ as our Saviour and Lord. It happened just before we had to go back to Russia.

During that year in Japan, our pockets were not filled with money, but we found faith in God and the Bible became our instruction manual for all life situations.

I had a farewell lesson with my Japanese students and received an envelope with 5000 yen as usual. It was my last “salary”, and I had big plans on how I would spend it on some clothes and make up for myself. But suddenly I felt that I should spend the money not on the material but spiritual things.

For a “baby in Christ” whom I was at that time, it was not an easy decision to give up my plans for buying the material things. After some inner fight between flesh and spirit, I decided to spend the money on Christian books.

I went to a Christian bookshop and bought a large Bible dictionary that cost exactly 5000 yen. I was pleased about my purchase and a new formerly unknown sense of “victory over the flesh”.

But on the next day, 5000 yen returned to me in the form of a gift. I did not know that in Japan, there is a tradition to give farewell gifts of money to a person who leaves for another city or country. I had a feeling as if someone gave back to me the money that I spent in the Christian bookshop.

I decided that I will put 5000 yen into church offering on Sunday. I did it with great joy. It was also a sort of a victory over flesh because I normally would limit my offering to a small coin of 100 yen.

To my great surprise on the same day, I found another 5000 yen in an envelope with a farewell card.

During a short period before our departure, we experienced rainfall of the envelopes literarily from different people with 5000 yens in each.

The first 5000 yen became to me a sort of a “coin” that keeps coming back to the owner. It just continued coming back to me.

It is now many years since I became a Christian, but I firmly believe that everything that I give to God keeps coming back to me multiplied manifold.

Praise and glory to You, my God!

PHOTO CREDIT:

• Anneta Vysotskaya
• Gingko Avenue in Fall, Hokkaido University by HokudaiENG – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69690771