Katya's Story

Russian Olympic athlete volunteers in the United Kingdom.
By: G. Martin Bell

"God does not exist, Katya.” “There is no God.” Katya was brought up with these words ringing in her ears from teachers and relatives. The Russian Revolutionary State of the 1970s had no place for God. In fact, there were no churches and even funerals and graveyards reflected a revolutionary, atheistic society. Graves had no cross as a symbol of hope, but every grave had at its head the red star of the Revolution. And so as a little girl Katya did not believe in God either. However, as she grew up, her father received an American Bible and his Orthodox faith, learned from his mother, began to stir within him.

In her teenage years Katya developed a tremendous love and talent for skiing. Living in Magadan, further east even than Siberia, she became a strong, athletic cross-country skier in the harsh and cold conditions. Her talents were noted by a coach for the Belarus national cross-country skiing team and soon she found herself combining studies at university with training sessions and competitions.
One of the skiing friends she made while competing in Belarus always seemed to be reading books and the Bible. Katya couldn’t understand this. She didn’t read the Bible and had no interest in religion. Her friend Irene invited her to her home town and, while they were there, also invited her to church.

There was a campaign meeting in the little theatre in that town in 1995. ‘I don’t remember much of what was said,’ says Katya, ‘something about the Second Coming and about life after death, but I started to think. Then my friend lent me a copy of Patriarchs and Prophets, and I discovered that all that the Bible said was true. It was like a new world opening up for me.’

As she was always travelling with the national skiing team, there was no chance to attend church, but God spoke to Katya through the books that her friend Irene gave to her. When her training was finished, she went in search of a Seventh-day Adventist church and found it in a dark building where people played chess downstairs and had other social activities. Katya loved the church and all that she learned there, and was baptised in 1996. Her bubbling enthusiasm spilled over as she told her friends in the Belarus national skiing team how she had found God, and one of them was baptised with her.

Problems began when the new training season started for the winter skiing competitions. Katya wanted so much to keep Sabbath but, as competition time came, it was harder and harder to keep the Sabbath hours for God. When she requested Sabbaths free to go to church, her coaches just laughed at her.

Meanwhile, Katya learned that vegetarian meals enhanced health and vitality, and she shared this knowledge with other members of the national team, and eventually the whole women’s team of skiers became vegetarians. She also shared her faith with the maids and the cooks in the hotels where they stayed during training and competition time, giving them videos and books.

Chosen to represent Belarus at the Olympics in Nagano, Japan, in 1998, Katya entered a period of intense training. Two Adventist girls were on the team and found themselves parading with the many thousands of athletes from countries all around the world in the huge Olympic stadium. Here they also met an Adventist bobsled Olympian from Canada.

In the midst of the ceremonies the athletes were invited to a Christian service in the city and all the women on the Belarus ski team decided to attend. A car came to the Olympic village to pick them up, and the man in the car was an Adventist who was able to arrange for them to go to the Adventist church in Nagano on the Sabbath. They were also able to find a Japanese girl who spoke Russian and could interpret the service for them, and she too went to the Adventist church for the first time.

Returning home to Russia after the Olympics, Katya made her decision to quit skiing and the national team in order to keep the Sabbath and follow her new-found faith and Lord. As one of the top cross-country skiers in the USSR, she was presented with the acclaimed medal for ‘Master of Sport at an International Level.’ Coaches and managers tried to persuade her to stay on and train for the next Olympics at Salt Lake City in four years’ time. She was offered a free apartment and every financial support, but she made her decision and says, ‘It was like a stone left my heart...I lost my apartment, my job, my skiing and had nothing to live on, but I knew I had made the right decision.’ Shortly afterwards, the Adventist church she had visited in Japan agreed to sponsor Katya for one year at the Adventist Seminary in Russia, and during that year an American dentist was introduced to her at the seminary and offered to pay for all four years of a BA course.

A little later, Katya was part of a Christian sports ministry, ‘Athletes in Action’ in Austria and Finland where she met many of her former friends who were competing in those countries in the world championships. She was able to give them Bibles with testimonies from Christian athletes from all over the world.

Katya’s life continues to be just as exciting as it was on the Belarus Olympic team, as she has committed her life to Jesus and follows Him day by day. Through her witness, her grandmother, her step-sister and her former atheistic mother have all become baptised Christians and Adventist church members.

The latest chapter in Katya’s adventure started when she responded to a call to Roundelwood Health Spa operated by the Adventist Church in Scotland. At Roundelwood we wondered if she would be able to arrange a visa and obtain permission to come to the UK, but just one of the many miracles that has happened to Katya occurred shortly after she responded positively to the call to Scotland, when an old friend who had connections with the British Embassy in Russia was able to help her with the visa application.

We are delighted that for one year Katya will share her warm smile and her wonderful story with us at Roundelwood, and with the guests who attend our health-enhancing programs.