The day before hell broke loose, Nikolay Soltys, 27, and his pregnant wife Lyubov, 23, entertained a pastor from the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church at their home in North Highlands, a suburb of Sacramento, Calif. Like most of the large community of Ukrainians and Russians in the greater Sacramento area, the Soltyses are thought to have immigrated to the U.S. as religious refugees--persecuted Pentecostal and Baptist minorities--and the two were looking for a church to call their own. This was the big interview to qualify for membership.
Bethany clerics remember Lyuba, as she was affectionately called, as "very sweet, very calm."...