Natasha Luzina grew up in the Sharia orphanage in the eastern part of Kostroma. It’s pretty remote, and far away from the main city of Kostroma. After she graduated, she went to one of the worst Tech Schools in the region. When I took a team of Americans to visit this place, the administration had nailed shut certain doors they did not want us to open. I’ll never forget seeing the "equipment museum" where they kept certain machinery on display to teach the kids–but they could not actually operate any of it. Imagine trying to learn how to operate power tools by "looking" at them on display and reading about them in a book. This was Natasha’s Tech School.

Fortunately, she was able to get  into a better school in the city of Kostroma and that’s when she started visiting the Ministry Center there. She quickly became one of the leaders, and CHC hired her as one of our "mentors" in for our Mentorship Program. As a mentor, she would meet with other new orphan graduates, help them get familiarized with the city and the Minsitry Center, and maintain an ongoing relationship of encouragement and support. This is part of our intentional strategy of helping orphans reach their peers and giving them the vision and resources to make it happen.

We helped Natasha with many of the usual things–small repairs and furnishings to her apartment, for example.

When I visited her at her job (she’s the assistant manager of the McDonald’s in Kostroma) she was overcome with gratitude when she described all of the opportunities the Minsitry Center was able to provide for her. Again, I keep thinking about the life and death realities that our kids in Russia face. Something as simple as a place to go and spend time with caring Christian adults can make all the difference.