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Pastor once was lost, now is found Jan Snider, Aug 25, 2009
UMNS PHOTOS BY JAN SNIDER
The Rev. Rauza Landorf displays pillows made by students at the church’s after-school program.
By Jan Snider United Methodist News Service
ST. PETERSBURG, Russia—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.
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 Ms. 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,” says Ms. Landorf.
As Methodists celebrate the centennial of their faith in Eurasia, the church, like Ms. 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
Ms. Landorf looks a bit like a freshly painted Russian nesting doll, or matryoshka. She provides 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.
After her talk with the Orthodox pastor, Ms. 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 Ms. 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.
“These children come from troubled families who are in difficult situations,” she says. “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 off for lessons.
As Ms. Landorf shares her vision for the center, some children are learning to crochet because it’s good for hand-eye coordination, others sit with tutors who go over school assignments and older children learn to sing.
“These children need more than anything God’s love,” says Ms. Landorf. “They need assurance that they are loved; in spite of all their troubles, they have a future.”
Love endures
Sturdy lunchroom 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.
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, Ms. Landorf and her staff bring food to the families’ homes and visit with them. They try to show 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!’” Ms. Landorf says. “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.
Ms. 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. The teenagers demonstrate a gentleness that mimics what they’ve witnessed from Ms. Landorf and her staff.
They also display a faithful calling that was lacking in Ms. Landorf’s own youth.
“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 says. “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.”
Ms. Snider is a producer with United Methodist Communications. For more UMNS stories, visit http://umns.umc.org.
UMNS PHOTOS BY JAN SNIDER
Faith reborn 
Love endures 
