Stories & Testimonies

Part One: 2016

It was a beautiful day with the bullfinches singing loudly. Usually, in our location of Russia, these birds sing at the end of February and the beginning of March. But this day was special. This gloomy November day, with a boy named Sasha, we went to find his parent’s house.

Our Transition Home in Russia is a ministry home for orphanage graduates. We help these kids find Christ and disciple them in their faith while teaching life skills. This is Sasha’s story.

Sasha lived in our […]

My name is Natasha Kuznetsova. I was born November 23rd, 1990.  From the very beginning my life was very hard. My mother was an alcoholic with twelve children. She didn’t feed us much, and often she beat us and left us outside. A lot of the time we were living on the street. When I was in 4th grade, my mother died. My sister died the same year. Today I only have one living brother.

My father is still alive, and also an alcoholic. He now lives alone in our flat, and won’t even allow […]

She paced the upstairs hallway, on the phone with someone important. Her voice serious and respectful as she responded to the person on the other line. The tentative smile spread to her eyes as they lit up with restrained excitement as she explained who she was talking to – “That was the “administration” and they said I’ll be given my apartment this week”. Hearing the good news, the SOAR team member broke into a smile of her own and congratulated her with excitement, which was received with a laugh and the tightest hug around the neck. Masha, was going […]