Visit with Lilia B.

Lena was blessed to visit with Lilia B., one of our homebound ladies. She has great difficulty walking, and her joints ache. Lilia is an elderly lady of 82 years old, and she shared many of her life stories with Lena.

Lilia's childhood was not easy—her father left the family when she was a kid, leaving her mother with three children and no place to live. The only place they could live was at her grandmother's home in a small barn, which they had to share with a cow. It was that moment when Lilia decided she would get a good education and not live in poverty. After she graduated college, Lilia became a successful, well-known agriculture engineer. Lilia never thought her elderly years would be spent in poverty surviving on a minimum pension.

Lilia lived and worked in the Kherson region. She later got married and gave birth to two kids: a boy and a girl. When her kids became teenagers, Lilia finally decided to leave her alcoholic husband. Her son got married and moved to Moscow, where he became an artist. In one of the photos you can see his oil paintings. A big tragedy of in Lilia's was when she learned her son committed suicide. 

While living in the Kherson region, Lilia met a widower who proposed to her and they moved to Kyiv. Having grieved over her son's death, Lilia was looking for comfort from God. Once as she was heading to work, a stranger shared Christ with her and invited her to the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In 1990 Lilia accepted Christ and started reading the Bible regularly. You can tell from how torn up her Bible is—see the photo below. Lilia says she reads it every day. 

Lilia continued to share encouraging Bible verses with Lena and told her about the Christian radio she listens to daily.

In 1995 Lilia's husband Alexander died of cancer. Lilia's daughter is single, and she works in Moscow as a baby-sitter. Unfortunately, she does not support her mother at all. Lilia had a granddaughter, Olena, who lives in the remote part of Kiyv. Olena does not visit her grandmother often since she is in her late 30s busy providing for her two kids and elderly husband. Even still, Lilia speaks very warmly of her family.

As it happens, Lena visited Lilia to serve her. However, after their three-hour visit, Lena realized that she was the one greatly encouraged and blessed by this weak, yet very spiritually strong, woman.

Thank you for allowing us to serve these widows.