Pastor once was lost, now is found – in Russia
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Boys play soccer in front of Grace United Methodist Church. “These
children need more than anything God’s love,” says the Rev. Rauza
Landorf, the church’s pastor. UMNS photos by Jan Snider.
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By Jan Snider*
August 10, 2009 | ST. PETERSBURG, Russia (UMNS)
She was Muslim. He hailed from German Lutheran stock. But when their
son asked, “Who am I?” Rauza Landorf answered, “Son, you are simply
Soviet.”
During the days of Russian communism, it was just that simple. All belief was expected to be placed in the government.
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The Rev. Rauza Landorf displays
pillows made by students at the
church-run after-school program.
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When the Soviet system fell apart in the late 1980s and early 1990s,
the question arose again, “Who am I?” This time, however, it was
Landorf who was doing the asking.
The search for answers led her on a journey toward Christianity that
she can only describe as miraculous. Today, she is the pastor of Grace
United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg.
“I came to the mosque and I could not find God. I came to the (Russian)
Orthodox Church and could not find God. But, the priest in the Orthodox
Church showed me the way. He asked if he could pray for me so that I
could find peace with myself and with God,” reflects Landorf.
As Methodists celebrate the centennial of their faith in Eurasia, the
church, like Landorf, is emerging from the fear and repression of
communist rule. Her journey, part of the rebirth of Methodism in
Russia, reveals the joys and struggles accompanying the gradual
awakening of faith among generations raised by an atheist state.
For the church and one of its newest pastors, the spiritual revolution starts with the children.
Faith reborn
Landorf looks a bit like a freshly painted Russian nesting doll, or
matryoshka. Her round face and body provide a solid force against a
modern society that attributes little worth to her chosen profession of
United Methodist minister. And, like the wooden dolls that are so
prevalent in St. Petersburg store windows, there are many layers to her
story.
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Landorf (second from right) and
volunteers provide instruction
and pastoral care to children.
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After her talk with the Orthodox pastor, Landorf encountered a
Protestant pastor from Sweden who showed her the way. “He answered the
question I had all my life, ‘What is the truth?’ When I stepped into
the church, I heard that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. I
started crying. I had such peace.”
Her husband and children joined her. Other family members experienced
the transformation, too, says Landorf, “Within the next month, my
sister and her family repented and my mother at the age of 54 accepted
Jesus Christ. I think it was difficult for her because her grandfather
had his own mosque.”
But she has been renounced by other relatives who either expected her
to lean toward her Islamic roots or who feel that any faith is folly.
Although the rejection can be painful, her focus is on greater needs in
the community.
Like the more than 20,000 street children in this city of 5 million.
Beautiful bedlam
As she talks of her path to inner peace, the chaos of more than 40
children playing, singing, sewing, or eating buzzes around her. The
after-school ministry she leads is in full swing and the children are
counting on her to provide the stability they don’t find in their own
families.
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A child shows off the Easter
bonnet she crocheted.
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“These children come from troubled families who are in difficult
situations,” she explains. “The parents have alcoholic or drug
addiction and they are not interested in the lives of their own
children. They have lost their own lives and they cannot show the way
for their children.”
Before her ministry began in 2002, these children would hang out in
alleyways sandwiched between grimy brick buildings rather than go home.
Many would have ended up in orphanages. But today they rush into the
brightly painted center for a warm meal before heading to different
spaces for lessons.
As she shares her vision for the center, some are learning to crochet
because it’s good for hand-eye coordination, others sit with tutors who
go over school assignments, and the older children learn to sing.
“These children need more than anything God’s love,” observes Landorf.
“They need assurance that they are loved; in spite of all their
troubles, they have a future.”
Love endures
Sturdy lunch room tables fill one room that serves as a makeshift
elementary art gallery; the wall is filled with vibrant, smiling
self-portraits. At one table, a young woman patiently reviews a math
lesson with an eager boy. When he answers correctly, he beams. Another
table is strewn with bright bundles of yarn as 12-year-old girls giggle
and weave the string into chickens and eggs for an upcoming visit with
the elderly.
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Self-portraits of children
line the walls.
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Most of the volunteers who work at the after-school program are members
of the church. Because the building is government-owned, they cannot
openly point out that they are United Methodists because it could
result in the ministry being shuttered.
Church members also must deal with Russian society’s skewed impressions
of Protestant practices. Lingering from the days of state-imposed
atheism is the belief that Protestant religions are cults that practice
cannibalism, seizure of property or the selling of children.
However, because of the acceptance they feel at the center, many of the
children attend the church, and some even bring their parents.
When parents can’t be reached otherwise, Landorf and her staff bring
food to the families’ homes and visit with them. They try and
demonstrate that the church is nothing to fear.
For some parents, it’s the first time they’ve heard praise of their
children. “We say, ‘your child sings so well!’” Landorf explains. “They
do not believe us.” So, she brings along copies of diplomas and
certificates. Recently, the children won a singing competition
sponsored by the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural
Organization.
Some of the local police also are converts to the ministry. They see
that the children are thriving under the center’s care and will
sometimes bring street children to the center.
Landorf says those cases are the hardest: “They are afraid of love,
they are afraid of hugs, they close their eyes and run away to hide
under the table. But our own children help us. They say, ‘Do not worry,
they just love you.’”
A faithful calling
When it is time for dodge ball, the older children take the hands of
the younger. It is clear that leadership skills are emerging among the
teens as they lead the small ones outside to a broken patch of concrete
in front of one of the many lackluster brick buildings lining St.
Petersburg’s streets. The teenagers demonstrate a gentleness that
mimics what they’ve witnessed from Landorf and her staff.
They also display a faithful calling that was lacking in Landorf’s own youth.
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A boy enjoys a snack.
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“It is not like in the Soviet Union when everybody needed someone to
watch their work. We say that it’s only you and God in the ministry and
that is enough,” she explains, “We have one good rule. If you come to
the church you do not just simply come, then leave. You serve with the
gift that you have.”
It is advice that enabled the Rev. Rauza Landorf to find her way to the
church, and it holds true for her many street children who were lost
and then found in Russia.
*Snider is a producer with United Methodist Communications.
News media contact: Jan Snider, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5474 or newsdesk@umcom.org.
Slideshow
Methodism in Russia: 100 Years of Darkness and Light
Video
UMTV: Refuge for Russian Street Children
Related Articles
'Cult status' Russian United Methodist Church grows, but not without struggle
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Resources
Russian Mission Initiative
Grace United Methodist Church, St. Petersburg, Russia (English)
Spring after-school center, St. Petersburg
The United Methodist Church in Eurasia
Give to an Advance Project in Russia
Give to an Advance Project in the Ukraine
A Pictorial Panorama of Early Russian Methodism, 1889-1931, by S. T. Kimbrough, Jr.
Sister Anna Eklund, A Methodist Saint in Russia, by S. T. Kimbrough, Jr.
Methodism in Russia & The Baltic States, S. T. Kimbrough, Jr.
Russian Praise CD
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