CHAPTER NINE
Lena
Lena was born in 1995 and grew up in Marinka, a small town not far from Pervomaisk. Everyone in the village basically knew each other; her family was known as the Baptist family. Lena said that her parents, Igor and Oksana, were good examples to her of serving God. She enjoyed a carefree childhood. Lena was very close to her older sister Vika, who modeled Christian faith and life for her. With their brother Vova, they formed a strong bond, like the three famous musketeers. Lena remembered their being a close family during her childhood.
Lena’s parents worked, and her father was the bi-vocational pastor of the small village church. Her grandparents lived farther away, and several times during the year the children would go to the grandparents’ house for vacation. Lena had many pets as a child, as the family lived in their own home and had a large yard. She recalled having dogs, cats, and even a guinea pig. They lived near a large forest, and the siblings would play there. With all their pets, it was never boring, said Lena, and they always found enough food to feed the pets.
Lots of kids lived on her street in Marinka; some of them were her friends at school. Lena would play with her friends in the streets, wander around town; they would explore together, play games and use their imagination; in the absence of toys they created a grocery store and “sold” food. Lena has fond memories of her childhood. Lena and her friends also invented a little business by creating small bouquets from the field flowers to sell for pennies on the side of the street to neighbors walking by. She said you felt like a millionaire when you sold one of those bouquets. Lena reminisced that as a child you have all the time in the world – you have no worries, and on the streets of her small village, life was lived without danger or fear. When it was time for dinner, her mom would simply call down the street, “Time to eat!” and Lena would rush home to a delicious meal with her family. She said this was the most happiest, carefree time in her life.
Elementary school was not to her liking, Lena admitted. Her time to play and roam freely was dramatically cut when school was in session. She was good at math and reading as a child, she remembered. She participated in a spelling and reading bee. Her memories of middle school were stronger. Lena had one good girlfriend, and they would do everything together – go to school together, walk home together, play together. It was a great friendship, because they got along so well and their personalities complemented each other. Math became more difficult for her in middle school. Many of her friends went to music lessons in Pervomaisk at the Baptist church.
Her dad’s church was very small, mostly attended by dear old grandmas. This perpetuated a deep spiritual battle that was going on in her heart, Lena said. On the one side, she saw her parents going to church every Sunday, and expecting the children to attend with them of course; dad was, after all, the bi-vocational pastor of the small assembly. On the other side, Lena really did not want to attend church; she found it boring. She thought church was not really for her, only for old people, since young people did not attend her church, and there was no youth ministry. She talked with Vika about the situation and discovered that her sister felt the same way.
Lena’s problem wasn’t just that church was boring, it was that she didn’t really see herself as a sinner, so she felt no need to repent. As a family, they would read the Bible every evening together, pray, and talk about the need for people to repent of their sins. Lena was thinking, “Yes, this is what bad people need to do, repent.” Lena considered herself a Christian since she was growing up in a Christian family.
Her first convictions of personal sin came at the summer youth camps. Many of her friends who took music lessons at the church were going to these summer camps, so when Lena and her sister were invited to attend the camps, they went. At camp, students were given the opportunity to invite God into their lives. Lena observed with interest as many others made decisions for God, repenting of their sins, but she still considered herself a good person; she was even going to church every Sunday. But Lena recalled that she conducted her life as a hypocrite. On Sunday, she would be the holy Lena, going to church, being outwardly compliant and obedient to parents and God. At school, she was known as the daughter of the pastor in town. But Monday through Saturday, she would live like she wanted to live, drinking with classmates, and acting like an unbeliever.
When she was fourteen years old, an interesting thing happened. One of her friends in class confronted her about her double lifestyle. “How can you behave in such a way, but claim that you are a believer, a Christian? You behave worse than I do, and I certainly don’t claim to believe in God.” Lena said this confrontation was like a bucket of cold water poured over her. She realized that she was behaving like a hypocrite. When she wanted to act holy, she would tell people, “I go to church and my father is the pastor,” but she couldn’t care less about living the Christian truths and values. Lena said that during the summer months, acting like a Christian was easy because you were surrounded by all the believers in the summer camps and you would feel closer to God. But during the school year, you had to defend your faith, which made one not so popular.
Deep inside, the question tormented her: “Who are you really?” Lena was home one day and simply prayed and asked God to change her, to stop this double life she was beginning to hate. Lena said that from childhood on, she was afraid of hell. She did not love God, but the fear of being condemned to hell scared her. In Sunday school this idea of being punished and thrown into hell was a constant theme. Lena’s dad would talk to her about heaven and hell. Her honest answer to herself would always be, “I don’t really love God; I just don’t want to go to hell.”
But now, at the age of fifteen, Lena finally understood that she was not able to live a righteous life, that she did not have the strength to live without sinning. She asked God from a sincere heart to change her forever and to forgive her for her own sins. This repentance was accompanied with many tears, sorrow over her sin, and then rejoicing over her new life in Christ. From then on, she read her Bible every morning; before, she would just answer her dad, “Yes, yes, I read it this morning,” lying to him without hesitation.
In the summer of 2010, Lena was baptized. After her baptism, she served in her dad’s small church, started a group for girls, and created a worship team with her sister. Lena and Vika became acquainted with the young people in Pervomaisk, started participating and serving there, and enjoyed wonderful times of fellowship and camaraderie.
Her father was glad that Lena attended the church in Pervomaisk so frequently, and that she was involved in the youth ministry there. He had initially worried that Lena was hanging out with the wrong crowd of people and would be influenced away from God. The girls were drawn closer to God as they got to know people at the church. These personal connections and relationships made all the difference in Lena’s life and her interest in the things of God. She started to participate in the youth group called JAM [Jesus and Me]. During the summer months, she was a helper at the children and teen camps. From then on, her life was consistent: at school she would tell others about her decision, she invited her friends to JAM, and she was the same person in public and in private, at school and at church. And church was no longer a boring place for old people.
After she finished high school, Lena really did not know where to go or what to study. Many parents, back then, would decide for their children what professional path they should take and where they should study. But Lena’s parents told her, “This is your life; you choose what you want to do with it.” But she wasn’t sure, at the age of sixteen, what to do with her life.