Woman Brings Message of Faith From Kazakhstan

Growing up in the Soviet Union, Natasha Talalie spent most of her life thirsting for religion in a country where such thought was forbidden.

A native of the region known as Kazakhstan, the 21-year-old Talalie said that before the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, family and friends worshiped in silence for fear of being discovered by communist sympathizers.

“You had to act like there was no religion at all,” she said.

There were few religious images in the primarily Muslim region southwest of Russia, she said. Rather, there were renderings of Soviet founder V.I. Lenin.

“You had to hide any feelings you had about God,” Talalie said. “But you wouldn’t hide your feelings about Lenin.”

But that was nearly six years ago. Religion now is spreading across the former Soviet Union, Talalie said during a recent stopover in Ventura. Talalie was staying at the home of John Gennaro, pastor of adult ministry at the First Baptist Church of Ventura, and his wife, Carol.

Where there once was religious persecution, she said, there is opportunity for worship without fear.

“In the past, we had to pretend there was no God,” she said. “In many homes and in school you said nothing about God. The communists tried to crush it, but people knew in their hearts that God existed.”

Silence is just what the communists wanted, Talalie said. “With the people not talking about God, the communists thought they won.”

In reality, there was a large region of the world gaining strength through silent worship.

Then, she said, “the communists lost. We do not worship in secret now.”

Churches still cannot hold services in public buildings, “but they can put advertisements in the newspapers inviting people to their Christmas services or Easter services, and some churches drop off advertisement cards at your door.”

Talalie, who said she augments her salary as a private-school teacher by tutoring missionaries in Russian and English, has been in the United States since June learning how to run a Christian camp.

She spent most of the summer at the Sugar Pine Camp in the Bay Area, learning day-to-day operations. When she returns to Kazakhstan this weekend, she will be able to run a camp or assist groups and individuals who want to start a camp.

It was at the camp that she met John Gennaro.

“What has been so neat about meeting her is getting a real live perspective on what life is like in a country that is way behind where we are,” he said.

“I am excited for the fact that they are able to express their faith,” Gennaro said. “What bothers me is that our country is going in the opposite direction, with many people moving away from their faith.”

Talalie is quick to caution that faith has not been easily embraced for some.

“In our country, religion is something that was forbidden for so many years that some of the people just don’t know how to accept it all,” she said. “But there are lots of people who are hungry to hear the Gospel.”

Many of the new churches in Kazakhstan, including the nondenominational Christian church Talalie attends, were started by missionaries from the United States. There is also a Grace Protestant church near her home.

The proliferation of churches could not have happened without the fall of the Soviet Union. But Talalie, who lives with her parents and 19-year-old sister in a two-bedroom apartment, said freedom has not been easy.

“I’m still not sure where the country’s going,” she said. “We have freedom of speech and pretty much everything else. But economically we are in a worse situation.

“A warm apartment in winter, gas to cook and food to eat is more important to have than freedom of speech,” Talalie said. “It’s a challenge when you have a goal in your life and you’re working toward it and you’re starving to death.”

Where government has failed in making the transition easy, the church has provided a safety net for those still unable to deal with a free Kazakhstan.

“I could not comprehend how the country would end in one day,” she said. “I was like, ‘What’s going to happen now?’ We are so used to how things were going.”

Through worship, Talalie found her answers.

“Churches are the ones that bring hope to people, including myself,” she said. “Once people find God, life physically doesn’t get any better. But, spiritually, things are better.”

Her faith will again provide strength when Talalie returns to face the difficult process of getting back into college now that she has traveled abroad.

Corruption has swept many government agencies, she said, and school officials have been known to alter transcripts of students traveling abroad as a way of extorting money from them upon their return.

“My name is on a list of students who are to be kicked out because they did not pass certain tests or exams,” she said. “But my mom went to the school and she took my record book there, and showed them I passed all my exams.”

A friend of Talalie was forced to pay $200 before she could resume her medical studies.

“They wouldn’t let her go back to the classroom. And they told her that what they want is money,” she said.

Why not just pay the money and resume her studies and then go on to live out her dream to teach full time?

“When you think that teachers in our country make $50 or $70 a month it’s a lot of money,” Talalie said.

Widespread corruption aside, Talalie said the biggest change in her life has been the lack of stability.

“When I was in school, like 10 years old, I was sure about tomorrow. I knew that tomorrow would be just as today,” she said. “I will have these lessons, my parents will have money, and we’ll go on our summer vacations to the Caspian Sea.

“Now you’re never sure what’s going to happen.”

If given a choice, she would not go back to Kazakhstan. Rather, Talalie said she would like to stay in the United States and become a teacher.

“I would rather wake up here because, here in the States, I know that if I work toward my goal, one day I will get to that goal,” she said. “In Kazakhstan, even if I set a goal, I won’t get even close to that goal.”

But when the pain is too great, Talalie said, she always has God.

“I am more hopeful because I know that God is with me and whatever happens is his will.”