Amazing story
Elena Popkov: Swept Away
By Jewel Graham Taylor
The 700 Club
Council Bluffs, Iowa -
The Popkov children loved to play in the streets when it rained, that is until a flash flood swept Elena out of sight and into a drain pipe.
"I was on like a swimming tube, " remembers Elena. "I just sat on it and the water just kept carrying me until I got to the drain pipe."
Elena's brother Viktor remembers the terrifying ordeal. "There was like no air in there, so she couldn't, she had no chance of breathing or anything."
While the current pushed Elena farther and farther down the sewer line, one of the other children ran to the house to get help.
Elena's mother Olga immediately began praying. "I couldn't believe it at first. I couldn't believe it. And I started praying right away that God, please keep her alive, please keep her alive."
While struggling to surface, Eleven year-old Elena remembered what her mother taught her. "From the beginning I said, 'if you're alone by yourself,'" said Olga, "'and you're struggling, you can't, you know, find your way out, just pray. God, He's there for you, you know, He's listening to you'."
"'Jesus, help me.' That's all I said in my head," says Elena. "And then seconds later there was some sort of bright light and somebody , it was like some sort of power was like just dragging me out of there by my arms. I did not feel any pain or anything. It was like my body was already on shore and somebody was just dragging my soul from there."
Elena surfaced at a split in the pipe, two city blocks from her back yard.
"I don't really know how I got out," says Elena. "But I'm pretty sure it was God."
Neighborhood kids helped Elena to an ambulance. She had minor scratches and bruises, but amazingly, when doctors examined her at the hospital, they found no water in her lungs.
"I thought it was a miracle that she got out and she lived through it," says Viktor. "It was like God was there the whole time."
The entire family credits God for Elena's miraculous survival, especially Olga. "I told my kids that life is boring without God. If you live for Jesus, your life will be exciting and full of miracles."
Viktor agrees, "He's real. He can do anything, even the impossible."
"Some people, they just think that there's no God, no hope, no nothing," says Elena. "But I know that there is a God and there is a hope."
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