Before coming to the Women's Crisis Centre, battered wife Arina took her son Kostya and ran away from the family home. They began sleeping rough in abandoned houses and then gradually made their way north. Arina's home was in Volgograd in the south of Russia, almost 1800km from the WCC. Such was her desperation to flee from her abusive partner, she was prepared to make the long journey with her youngest son with no assurance of where they could stay on the way.
Arina has three children.
Her eldest daughter left home in her early teens and moved in with a boy to escape the tyranny at home. Arina worries about her but says she is independent and has a job so is comforted by this.
Her middle child, a son, tragically drowned only last year. He was mentally disabled and was also taunted and beaten by his stepfather.
Kostya, her youngest, is just three.
After one particularly severe beating towards herself and Kostya, she had no choice left but to leave.
Arina's husband, and stepfather to her two eldest, was constantly depressed and angry. Over their four years of marriage, he took his anger out on all three children and Arina.
We thank God for the WCC where she and her son have been safe since May this year. Here she has already come to faith and is part of a loving environment where she and her son have support.
In Russia, where a woman dies every 40 minutes because of domestic violence, this centre is literally saving lives with every family they give refuge to. Please support them if you can.
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