My story

I was born in the summer of 1963 in Kerch, a small seaside town. Sea, warm and calm, Mithridat mountain, Voikov’s factory, lots of fish – it all describes Kerch during the Soviet era…

The brightest memory of my childhood was the love and friendship I experienced in our home. My parents were wonderful and intelligent people, kind and loving. Cheerful, a very energetic and independent mother with expressive eyes, and a calm and gentle father. A well-mannered, wise, and kind man who never paid back wrong for wrong (the Holy Spirit had already imprinted a divine origin in his DNA). My mother was a strong person who often made all the important decisions by herself and, of course, all the responsibility fell on her alone. Over the years, I realized that many of my mother’s qualities passed on to me.

We lived modestly, although our parents held fairly high positions, my mother was a financier and my father was an engineer in a building materials factory.

After graduating from high school I went to work and after 2 years a new life began!

I became a student at Dnepropetrovsk State University. French was not easy, but I managed it. I will remember this time forever: fun student life, new acquaintances, parties, wonderful friends with whom we still keep in touch and have friendship. 6 years passed happily and almost without worries.

I was a domestic girl,and nearly ignorant of the outside world, and I dived into the student life with fascination.
My behavior was not always right, sometimes I am ashamed of my words and actions of that time.
In the meantime, before graduating from university, I met one of the guys who became my husband. Six months after the wedding, after receiving my diploma, I returned to my home in Kerch.

Times weren’t easy, Soviet Union collapsed, my husband and I worked hard, I taught children at school and kindergarten, and my husband wasn’t home for several months because he worked on a fishing boat. We didn’t think about children. At first it seemed not a mandatory because there were friends and work.

We could not have imagined that it would last for 7 long years.

In the second year of our family life, my mother died and the world, which had been like a carefree childhood full of security, collapsed.

My father married a second time, my husband left for the next boat trip, and I was left alone in the huge apartment we had inherited from my mother. Loneliness and emptiness surrounded me. Sleep became restless, oppressive fears gripped my mind.

When you face loss, loneliness, pain, and despair, your shoulders sag, because of paralyzing fear. Everyday life became intolerable.

I would have broken down or be in deep despair if it hadn’t been for one meeting. My father’s new wife’s relatives lived in one of the Russia’s cities and I had never seen them before.

When my father’s new wife’s daughter knocked on the door in the evening, it was an unbearably hard time for me.
I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember the question, “Would you like to find the church of the living God?”

Coming home

For 26 years I had attended several traditional churches: the Orthodox and the Catholic Church. Unfortunately, I had not received significant answers to my prayers. But when I heard about the “living God,” hope came. That day I said the prayer of repentance, and my spirit was born from above. The fear was gone, the thoughts of despair were gone.
It was a joy and a faith to have found a Father who can change everything. The next morning I felt like I was not alone.
Joy flowed in my heart. I loved the whole world and the fears disappeared!

I told all my friends that God was my Father, and four of them accepted Jesus as their personal Savior. It lasted until my husband returned home from the sea.

My husband did not understand what had happened to me and forbade me to attend the services. He was called back to work, and I, as an obedient wife, stopped attending worship services.
I was left alone again…

If you are misunderstood and despised for what you believe in, do not give up but go to the light.

One winter, in preparation to go to work, I heard the voices of men behind the door. I fearlessly opened the door, thinking that they were neighbors – father and son. There was no one behind the door and the voices fell silent. At the time, I was working in a kindergarten that was a 5-minute walk from home. The working days lasted only 4 hours. It is interesting to teach children the basics of English.

One day our speech therapist had a birthday. Everyone sat down to drink tea and eat cake, but something inside me pulled me back home. Time flew and there came a time to go home.

As I approached the house, I saw an open balcony door (it was -20c outside!). The apartment door was also open and the neighbor who saw me in the corridor was surprised that I was not at home:

“I thought you were cleaning, the door was open!”

When I entered the apartment, I was dumbfounded, everything was turned upside down. Then it became clear to me that the thieves were here while I was drinking tea with my colleagues. The Lord blessed me that I did not come home earlier and find them!

There was a girl in my kindergarten with whom we became friends, though she was 10 years younger than me.The girl turned out to be a very loyal friend and was not afraid to support me, during this difficult time. About a week passed after the theft. The doorbell rang (my friend and I were in the kitchen).

There were two beautiful girls from the church on the doorstep and I noticed that they were very attractive, they had no flaws.

They asked me: “Are you Olga? Did you go to church before? Would you like to come again? ”

And they gave us the exact address of the service. We gladly went there next weekend. Unfortunately, no one else had seen these girls, and over the years it became clear that God had sent His angels to bring us back to Himself.

Thus began my journey with Jesus. Although it would be more correct to say that it began a long time ago, and I was in His eternal plans long before repentance. But I realized that just then.

We had no children for about 7 years. Of course I went to the doctors, I was treated, I went through the procedures, I went to the local clinics and centers. The year, when I realized that God is my Father, I finished with all the treatments and all the procedures.

I remember the day I was at home reading from God’s Word verse 18:14 “Is there anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you in a year, and Sarah shall have a son. ”

IS ANYTHING TOO HARD FOR THE LORD?

These words went straight to my heart, as if someone had told me personally that a miracle would happen in a year’s time.

My husband was then on a sea voyage to Cape Town, South Africa, for 8 months. I shared my emotional experiences with a friend who, also ended up reading the same verse from God’s Word.

We prayed and agreed that this was God’s Word for me.

But there was a small problem – to specify the time of my husband’s return from the ship.
The dispatching service replied that the voyage was extended for 6 months.

Of course, you may be disappointed with such an answer, but after all, God is faithful and He is not a human being to deceive. His Word burned in my heart!

25 years ago, there were no mobile, Whats Up, Facebook and other social networks. Even telegrams were rare then: the day after the conversation with the dispatcher, I received a telegram from my husband with the words: “I do not agree with the extension of the voyage. I will come back.” So miraculously began the birth of our son…

On the 3rd month of pregnancy we drove to a mother-in-law who lives in another city. The drive lasted almost all day. I was bleeding and was hospitalized in the gynecology department of a local hospital. The doctors’ predictions were not very comforting. They said we had to wait for the contractions.

If you have waited for a baby for so long and so surprisingly you find out the baby’s date of birth, and suddenly everything changes in one day then it is very important at this moment to resist the fears and situations around you…

I left the room, found a secluded spot, and cried out to God. It was a cry for help, a cry of a little faith, but my whole being was against doctors’ diagnoses and predictions. After prayer, the peace came to my heart that only the Holy Spirit, who is our Comforter, could give.

The bleeding continued throughout the month and at the same time the fetus developed. I only found out about it in 1.5 months.

During this month, the Bible became my primary source of faith, friends visited me, and the church prayed for us.

My faith has been tried more than once, but I am 100 percent sure that the One who promised is faithful.
While in the hospital, other women accepted Jesus into their hearts when they saw my faith.
Months passed and Jesus kept our son alive.

Once as I prayed, He told me the child’s date of birth. I was in the maternity hospital, but there were no contractions yet. I told the doctor that tomorrow, December 27, I would give birth, but he just laughed, “You all who have studied in medical school are very smart,” even though I am a teacher by education.

On my son’s birthday in 1994 it was a cloudy day, it was an icy, cold and windy Crimean winter outside.
In the morning my husband left to shop, the car slipped into the opposite lane, but thank God there were no other cars and no collisions…

The birth was attended by 20 medical students who were very surprised by my story and events. One of the students accepted Jesus as the Lord of her life right there in the maternity ward.

Our son was born at noon, at that moment the huge sun shone in the room.
The doctor who had seen me bleeding in the hospital was very surprised to see me having a child in the lap.
There is nothing to say but, “Glory to God, this is a miracle!” And she prayed and asked Jesus to come into her heart…

A lot of joy and hope came to our home with the birth of our son. Situations soon began to change and we had to move to Israel. New country, language, people, new life…

Nobody welcomed us there. We held a low-paid jobs: I took care of the elderly and my husband went to work in the construction. Our son was only 1.5 years old.

A year later, my father and his wife came to Israel. The Lord miraculously encouraged them to leave. A month before leaving, my father went to work on his usual route (he was an engineer at a building materials factory). He walked through the factory territory, suddenly one of the workers pushed him hard. As he looked back he saw that at the place where he had stood a second ago fell a tower crane. My father realized that God had saved him and decided to leave to Israel immediately.

That’s how we all ended up together in this country.

To be honest, it is not easy for new immigrants to survive. Families whose foundation is not in God easily collapse due to daily life, lack of money, quarrels, and arguments.

Our family also fell under the attack of the forces of evil. My husband started drink and could stay in the beer bar in the evenings after work.

If you are alone with a problem, what can help you in this battle? Of course, faith in God and showing patience, forgiveness and love.

It’s not easy to close your eyes if things don’t go the way you want them to go.
I began to learn to be firm and to stand on God’s Word because “me and my house shall serve the Lord. “

My son grew up, kindergarten, school, housework – I had to do everything alone. My husband started drinking even more. We started to see him drunk at home more and more often. Of course, he continued to work and loved us in his own way, but his addiction grew.

When our son was in 6th grade, he had a dream one day:

“I saw that I walked with my father for a long time. When we stopped, we saw around us knights fighting with each other. The knights disappeared and a puddle of blood formed in their place. Dad held my hand and I asked, “What happened?” Dad didn’t answer.

A small lamb came out of the blood puddle, and turned into a lion. A rock appeared. The lion jumped on the rock. People coming out of the forest worshiped the lion and became his warriors. I stood next to my father and watched the army armed with shields and swords.

“What happened? – I asked, but my father did not answer and looked towards the forest.

A cloud of horsemen appeared in the forest, in black robes, they had helmets with skulls, smoke came out of their nostrils. Their chief was a general wearing a Viking helmet with horns; the general threw a spear and wounded the lion’s paw. A wild roar echoed through the forest. The lion pulled out a spear with its teeth and the wound healed immediately. The lion roared loudly again, calling the people who were standing to him. Father also joined the lion’s army. The army fought bravely with the horsemen. The riders began to get tired, and a huge snake with two terrible teeth came out in the middle of them, summoning a lion with a hiss to the battle. The lion’s army split and the lion stepped forward. The lion roared and the snake hissed, competing in the strength of their voice. The lion gained momentum and hit the snake with his paw so that it flew a hundred miles. The clouds of the riders evaporated. The lion jumped on the rock and lay down. His companions approached the master, holding the book in their right hand and in ther left hand, the main work of their lives.
Dad went to the lion, with a book in his right hand and a bottle in his left hand.
The book and the bottle were weighed, dad realized that the bottle weighed more than the book.
The angels seized dad, but the lion intervened, ordering him to be released:

“I shall give you hope!”

It was a wonderful and a reassuring dream from the Lord that gave me hope that the situation will improve.
As the darkness deepens, the light is seen brighter and stronger.

Not wanting to be left behind, we bought an apartment in Israel, but the price was not affordable for us. I had to be in the hospital several times due to gynecological problems. My husband worked alone, we could barely make ends meet.
After failing to pay several loan payments, the bank announced that we can be thrown out and our apartment can be sold at any price. Many prayers were made to change this situation, but heaven did not seem to respond. We had a dilemma before us – whether to pay for the apartment or buy the necessary groceries. Only God knew about it.

One evening a neighbor came to us and asked if everything was okay. A pastor from Tel Aviv had sent him to find out how I was doing. I told him about our financial difficulties and we received help. It was a great God’s intervention in our situation because no one knew about our problem.

I learned to wait for an answer. It is very important not to give up halfway. Faith and determination give life to every day. God is never late or tired of hearing our prayers and needs.

Finally, I wrote a wish to God on paper with the price of selling the apartment, which we had to return to the bank. I put the note in the box at home and I even managed to forget all about it, because I was busy all the time: people came, looked at the apartment, found out the price and left immediately.

A few days later the doorbell rang and two women stood at the door – mother and daughter. They had come from St. Petersburg and said that they are satisfied with the apartment and the price, they were even willing to pay in cash. While moving to another apartment, I suddenly found this paper tag and shed tears. The Lord is always so good!

Going from trial to trial, the Lord gives us islands of mercy and peace. It expresses His infinite love for us.

It is important that our hearts are not hardened, but that we focus on Him and on what the Lord has already done in our lives.

If it were not for difficult moments and overcoming obstacles, it would be difficult to understand who God is and how He changes us into His likeness. We always trust Him in every situation.

After moving to a new apartment, life seemed to be getting better. Bank officials no longer put pressure on us, but we remained prisoners of our addictions and weaknesses.

I had a wonderful job working for a shipping company. It is almost impossible for a Russian-speaking resident to find work in the port.

One day I felt that it is a good day to look for a job, I printed out my CV and went to the port. I left my details to the company. Many seemed surprised and even compassionate, realizing that it was impossible to find a job without acquaintances.

A month passed, no offers came. A call from one company made me happy. It turned out that the head of the department, sorting the unnecessary papers on her desk, noticed my resume, pulled my paper out of the trash can and called me. I have worked in this company for over 16 years now.

My husband went to work on land, from the ship to driving a truck.
In a job like that, alcohol has no place, but he immersed deeper in the sin.
In the meantime, our son grew up, served in the army, entered university, and worked in the Israeli prosecutor’s office.
The Lord kept our ways, we rejoiced each day in Him and in our accomplishments.

Psalm 40: 1–4

“I waited patiently for the Lord; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.  He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him.”

As you face the challenge, you will realize that you are with God, no matter how great the mountain before you.

At that time the Lord spoke much to me, like the Father who comforts His daughter:

I am the One who provides security and makes you happy;

I’ll do what you’ve been waiting for so many years in one night, but you with your prayers
prepared a way for Me into your husband’s heart;

My dear daughter, I love you very much and no matter what your circumstances are, you remain
always dear to Me;

I love your home very much and many are looking for the comfort and warmth of your home;

I will give you joy, sorrow and sighs will disappear;

Don’t worry about the little things, let your heart look only for Mine and everything else I will prepare thee, I will not leave thee, nor forsake thee;

My thoughts and ears are directed to you and I hear your words wherever you are – I will heal and save your husband.

I collected all these precious pearls into my heart, and I had hope that my husband would be saved and delivered.

But in reality, things got worse, it was time to take a step and break the relationship.

It also takes courage: either to stay in a cage with the door open or to fly out and feel the freedom of choose.
Suddenly, surrounded by the complete destruction of the family relationship, my husband was offered treatment in a rehabilitation center in northern Israel, without the right to return home for a year or even longer. He had no choice. He agreed, and my son and I were left alone.

The reader of my story might think, “How to live without a provider, without the head of the household, without an income?”

I answer: “Take this step and trust God. He will not leave you or forsake you. He is faithful, He is wonderful! “
People from all over the country whose destiny had been broken by sin (alcohol, drugs, criminal past) gathered at the center where my husband went.

First, they were told that the people who are about to deal with them have a strong desire to bring freedom and change into their lives.

My husband began to recover, and the director of the institution saw a special person in him and called my husband a “lord.” It motivated him to get even better.

The Word of the Lord received 17 years ago was fulfilled:

“Your husband is a great victory for My Kingdom. I have acquired him for My honor.

You don’t have to worry and bother youself, because I’ll guarantee his salvation sooner than ever.

Changes happen very quickly, and My grace and honor are enough for each day.

Don’t worry about many things, don’t be sad, don’t grumble: I’m here to strengthen and keep you.

There is never a shortage in your home, there will always be enough. “

Today, my husband is completely free from addiction and he was reinstated at his job.
He helps people, like he once was, to get better.

Our new journey continues…