Natasha Levai - Turning Troubles to Beauty

Born in Ukraine to a Russian mother and Ukrainian father, Natasha Levi has seen her life follow many twists and turns growing up, she experienced everything from atheism to witchcraft. And life looks very different these days. She's now married with a child and together with her husband is working to serve orphans in eastern Hungary. I'm delighted to have her as my guest on Bleeding daylight today. Natasha, thank you so much for your time.

beliefs that somebody will think that if a cat runs across the road, when you walk, then something bad's gonna happen to you. Or if you leave the house, and then you forgot something at home and you have to return then you have to look in the mirror and show your tongue to yourself, then

that somehow will prevent bad things from happening to you. So he would kind of cling to those things. Otherwise, he would always rely on himself. He was a he would believe in his own strength. And my mom was more so religious, I would say but she wasn't really she didn't believe in God, she

would read a lot of books, like you said, witchcraft. I don't know if it is really witchcraft, but I can't find a better word for it. In Russia, we call it as a Tarika. It's when you try to manipulate the powers of this world somehow to your advantage. She even had tarot cards. When I was

little, and I would get sick. I spent summers in Ukraine for the most part because my parents were working, and then they would send us off to my grandma. And she would sometimes take me to these old grandmas that claimed to have supernatural powers. And they would take a knife or

something else and move it around your head and say some strange things that you don't understand and claim that they somehow heal you through it. I never got healing for anything. I had some very minor health issues, and my grandma would take me to those. I don't know if I should

call them witches, but I just don't know how a better word for them. I also had a belief that there's something more in this life than just what we see. And I always had a sense that there is a bigger power, but I always defied the idea that it would be a person that there would be a god could be

like a men in some way. But it changed with time, around 16 years old. That's when I started discovering Christianity more because I had a friend in school who was a Christian, her mom was from a Protestant church and her father was Orthodox, that is our prevailing religion is Orthodox. Even

in the Orthodox temple, you don't always find the gospel shared. It is strange to me because they claim to be Bible believing Christians. But sometimes you find that to be very confusing. It must have been very confusing for you, because there's such a mix of beliefs as you're growing up, there's

the superstitions of your father, there's this cultish behavior by your mother in trying to manipulate the spirit world of some kind. And then you're introduced to some kind of Christian faith, but it's still leaving you wanting something else what was going through your mind at this

stage, when you thought of, of the issues of faith? Well, I believe that I am my own person, I can create my own life. I don't respond to anybody. I didn't feel that I have to, you know, submit myself to any higher power. I thought that that higher power exists, it can be used to my advantage or it

can be ignored or it can somehow impact my life if it wishes to, but I'm not in no connection to it on daily basis and definitely this higher power had nothing to do in creating me or directing my everyday happenings or

little period of time. That's what I wanted in life. And I thought that's the answer to all of my problems. And I remember thinking that I have to pray in this temple and bring these candles or I don't know, tidings so that this higher power will be on my side and help me will help me to get what I want.

So it's still trying to manipulate the powers that seem to be out there somewhere, but still not this idea of an actual person that you could connect with, what was it that started the change, for you to start to see things differently?

I think the biggest change was in the people that really showed care for me, in my family, my father was he for a period of time, he was an alcoholic, and he was fighting with my mom a lot. We didn't have a close relationship with Him. And my mom was emotionally absent because she was

always terrorized by him. And he had to work hard. He also had to work hard. So me and my sister kind of grew up on their own. Oftentimes, we were at home alone, I think that I missed a lot that care. And I didn't even know that I missed it so much, until I met people. And those people were

Christians who showed me that kind of care that first, I just showed interest in Christian faiths by going to an orthodox temple. Because a friend of mine from school just mentioned that when she has a bad day, she goes to the temple, and then somehow it changes her mood, she feels a

bit lighter. And then I thought, why not I will go to when I had a bad day, I went to the temple. And then somehow I felt better after too. And so I thought maybe there is something in it. My mum also claimed that in Orthodox temples, there are some strong pillars of power that connect you to this

higher power somehow better because people pray there. So she she thought that is a big factor in life. People go to temples because it works for them. Because people so many people really pray, because of being open minded towards Christianity. One time I was in town, we had a big

celebration. And it wasn't me. And there were a lot of people out. And I accidentally happened to lose my sister somewhere. She she wasn't small. She was kind of about the same age as me, but she had the phone, and the money and so I couldn't go home. Without her. I was just sitting on the

street and waiting for her. So a guy came up to me, he was a evangelist. And he started talking to me, he gave me a brochure, a Christian brochure. And there are so many people passing out brochures about all kinds of advertisement, that I didn't really pay attention to him at first. But he sat

down next to me and then started asking me about my sins. He asked me, have you ever thought about your sins? And that was something I was thinking about a lot. So that question somehow it didn't seem strange to me, because it was close to my mind at that time. And I started talking to him about

it very openly, he told me about Jesus about his sacrifice on the cross for us. But I didn't understand anything of that, at that point. For some reason, it just didn't sink in any meaningful way at that time. But what helped me a lot is that he gave me a book, he left me with that book and left

his phone number in case I wanted to get in contact. And the book was about evidences of existence of God. And I read that book, in school, on breaks or at home. And I really liked it because it was written in a very simple language because it was translated from English. So it wasn't written

in a difficult Russian language, it was translated very simply. And that helped me really understand what it was trying to convey. I remember how interesting it wasn't I still to this day, remember that chapter on how human eye is made. The book was talking about all the intricacies of how

human AI is created, and how hard it would be for mere chance to create such a structure such a system? I think, slowly, I accepted the idea that it just makes sense that the world was created by someone. And I thought that, well, Adam and Eve, seem to be more realistic to me than Big Bang.

And so I think like, slowly, slowly, in my mind was opening to the idea of God of biblical God. And then I got in touch with the guy. I called that phone number and we met, he invited me to the church, and in that church, at first, it was very strange, because the church seemed very unfamiliar.

Like, you know, the way people were worshiping with raise hands. It seemed very strange to me like some sort of cult or a sect. So I was rather scared by that first visit, but the youth leader, he caught me before I was able to leave the church and he spoke with me. And so that was how I got

into the church. And of course, I was interested that there were some people who wanted to know something about me they want adopted me. And so slowly, slowly, I started attending that church to go into the youth group, they shared more and more about God with me. And since they showed showed real

care, they substituted parents for me in some way. I accepted anything. They said, Honestly, I didn't know anything about God, about Jesus about his death for us. So it wasn't necessarily that I had to break through some holes in my mind or my faith. I was new information. I just didn't see any reason why I wouldn't believe that, at that point.

When you came to that point of believing and saying, yes, I've looked at the evidence. And I believe that this is the case. And you accepted that and accepted faith. I'm wondering what your parents thought, because obviously, they had very different beliefs. Were they interested? Or were they not so happy about it?

At first, my mom was very happy about it, because she thought that finally I have some friends that are not drinking, or doing drugs or causing trouble. So she thought she was happy for me. But when my dad found out he was very, very unhappy about it, because he thought that it is a sect

or some sort of cult, and he told me that I can't go he was fighting with my mom about it, yelling at her. And then my mom decided to prove him wrong. And she Googled, it was Calvary Chapel Church in Russia, and she Googled it. And then Russian, Google told her that it's one of the top 10

Worst cults in the world. And so my mom thought that Oh, wow, I was wrong. My daughter's in the in the bad company. And so both her and my dad decided that I shouldn't be attending that church, and I was still under 18. My dad told me that when your will be 18, you can do whatever you want.

But until then you have to do what I do until you live in this house. And so I went to my pastor in this church, and I told him what happened. I just turned 17, I think, and he said, Well, if your parents think that you shouldn't come, then you shouldn't come, then you should just stay home

until you're 18. And then when you're 18, you can come to this church. I went home, basically I said, Well, if my pastor says, So then he must be right. You know, he's my spiritual authority. And for what a year, I didn't attend church. But after that year, I had to move out from my home.

Because even though my dad said, You can do anything you want, my mum was still scared of him. And she knew him better. So she knew that even though he said, You can do anything you want, he's going to cause trouble to her anyway. So if I decide to attend church, so she told me to move out, and my dad didn't know that that was the reason why I moved out. And he still doesn't know, I moved out to make life a bit easier for my mom when I was 18. So I could get a job and be more independent.

Where did your faith take you from there, you've had to battle against the beliefs of your parents, the fact that you weren't able to go to church for a year, and now you've moved out because of this faith? Where did things take you from there?

At first, I was just happy that I could attend the church. But then, slowly, I think, this feeling of not having roots, or not belonging crept into my life slowly, slowly, little by little, because in my church, I think my main family, my main group was this youth group that we had. And then

because of some conflicts, my youth pastor was excluded from the church, he was excommunicated, not so much to say that he's not a believer, but there were some conflicts between them, and he left and then my youth group became something totally different. That plus not having my family anymore,

because they saw that I'm some strange person that attends some sect or a cult. So that felt like a rejection. I was studying something that I wasn't so interested in. Because when I became a Christian, they realized that, okay, maybe my purpose in life is a bit different from what I imagined

it to be before. So at that time, I was studying psychology in the university, and all of a sudden, they just lost, I lost all the interest. I was working at McDonald's to just pay for my food and stay. And then slowly, I just realized, I don't have really a purpose and big purpose in life. I'm a

Christian, but I also have a life to live. And I hope I can do something. I think that I prayed a lot about God's guidance, what to do next. And at first, I just started working at the Christian orphanage. So it was like an apartment where kids would stay for a few months to two

years. These kids have to be held in some place. That is not the orphanage yet, because they haven't been officially declared orphaned. And so we were working with kids like that. And I was mostly doing administration, not so much taking care of them directly. But I did that for about one

and a half, two years. And then there were American missionaries that came to Russia. They came to our camps, and I was helping as a translator. And I think what struck me is how different they are from us. Russian culture is a bit depressing. I think. Even Christian people are, I think

a little bit they still inherit something from our overall Russian culture. American people that came they seemed so happy and joyful and bright and indifferent, and they seemed more caring even in some ways. And of course, it's all in all these different, you know, from person to person from

church to church. But somehow this specific group of people just seemed so different to me, they kept coming to three times a year, and I continued my relationship with them. And there was one or two people that I was more close with. They told me about the Bible College. And I thought that, wow,

there is a Bible college somewhere out there that, you know, has people that are not Russian people, but from all over the world. And I can explore, you know, what Christianity is like, and all kinds of other places. And maybe there is more to life, you know, because these people seem to have so much

more, I guess, just this hope for something bigger, drove me to try it. And I applied for a Bible college in Hungary, and then ended up studying there for two years, I finished the school of missions at first, and then did internship with them. So it was definitely a huge learning curve, for me.

So it's quite a change, from the way that you've grown up to now to accept this faith in Jesus. And now you're actually learning more, this must have been a great encouragement for you as well, what happened from that point on once you had done that study? Where did that take you?

That school of missions was so inspiring on its own? A lot of our classes contained missionary biographies, we would read missionary biographies, and then talk about them. That was extremely inspiring, because you see how God did such miracles and other people's lives that you've never heard

about, not only never seen, you never thought it's possible. But you see, there were so many people that had happened to and you think, well, it's probably because they have so much faith, maybe God can do the same things in my life, too. You know, I just step out on faith and trust him. And I think

that after such a year of constant encouragement and inspiration, I decided that I want to be a missionary. And I, of course, didn't understand all the hardships that it entailed. Even though we did study the hard parts of missionary lives, we didn't live them through. So it's one

thing to read about it and experience it in your own life. And I think that I took it lightly, and decided that I definitely want to do missions after these two years. And I didn't know where I would like to go. At first, I didn't have any connections, and I was praying about it. And then

there was a an organization that is based in the States, the leader of that organization was an adopted father of my friend in the Bible College. And he contacted me and asked me whether I would like to work with their company with orphans. Their whole organization is focused on helping

orphans around the world. And they mainly do work in Romania. And I think they heard about me from their adopted daughter, and then asked me whether I would like to be sent by them. I prayed about it, and then thought, why not? I don't see why that would be a problem. And they said that

they would like to send me to Guatemala. At first, I think I was excited about the you know, this exotic country that is so far away, and with the poor kids, and somewhere very different for my home country. I just was, I guess excited about the idea. And we read different missionary biographies

to about such exotic places, and you know, like Africa, or Philippines, and I think I imagined myself being in a country like that. They contacted me a year before I finished my Bible College. So during that year, a lot of things changed. And they said that Guatemala didn't need

help anymore. And I asked them if they will be okay with me staying in Hungary. And they said, Yeah, sure. And so there was a little town on west part of Hungary that needed help. They had a very small, tiny church of maybe 20 people. And the problem was with that place was that it was on the

border with Austria and Austria is a very wealthy place compared to Hungary. So if you live in Hungary, but work in Austria, you probably gonna make four times as much as you would working the same job in Hungary. So a lot of people will move to this town, shop run, they will move there and

then drive half an hour and work in Austria, then drive back home half an hour, and then they make four times more than they would. So a lot of people in that town were very money oriented. And that made it hard to really break through to anybody with the gospel. Because somehow, I guess the

wealthier you are, the harder it is for you to think about God except, you know, giving up your life and things like that. I find it that poor countries are more receptive to spiritual truth somehow, they didn't really have a system of ministry just yet. It was a beginning for them. The pastor

was a missionary from the states and he would sometimes visit the old folks home or the orphanage here and there, but his main focus was on preaching and they didn't really have many people going out to the orphanages or sharing the gospel with others. So I was a pioneer in some way for them.

I was excited about it. I decided that I will make the most of it because I was still inspired by all those stories that I heard about other missionaries. And I really tried my best I tried to meet people, learn the language, go to all kinds of English clubs in town, you know, to meet strangers and

tried sharing the gospel with a lot of many people. But I guess I got discouraged after a while, because I saw that nothing is happening. People hear the gospel, but they discarded they think, yeah, that's nice, you know, for you. But for me, I have other things in my life, and I don't need

it necessarily. Going to the orphanages, by myself was also a bit hard. And I guess just little by little oldest hardship without much fruit burdened me to the point where I started losing motivation. And I felt like God is not going to do anything. And somehow God is not showing up for me the

same way that he did for those people. And then after maybe one and a half years, I got even depressed, because my living conditions were also not so comfortable. I was living in the church and the church wasn't heated very well, it had holes in them doors, or the windows in the kitchen. So the

cold would come in freely. And then the heaters were very old, and they didn't heat very well. And I guess the cold water, everything together feeling that? No, God is not showing up. My work doesn't make any sense not having community. I think all that together, made me give up. They

asked me to leave basically, because I wasn't doing well at all, mentally. And looking back, I realized that a lot of that had to do with my upbringing, too. Because, of course, God is enough. And we can find strength and fulfillment in him. But we can separate ourselves from our mental

upbringing, I guess, or mental makeup, how we were raised. And I had a lot of wrong ideas about myself about the world about people around me. And I think I didn't have the right idea of God. And I was starting to find life in the wrong places. And so yeah, slowly, slowly, that kind of went downhill. And my attempt at being a missionary failed. And that time,

that must have been difficult not knowing how to do a lot of the things that you were being asked to do. Because you were there on your own. You weren't sent there with a team, you weren't given the opportunity to work alongside others in the faith. And your faith is still young, how do you do come back from that? What was your next step from there,

I felt very discouraged and thinking that my world is ending because I didn't really have a home to go to. And I really had the dream to be a missionary. And so that is going to be my identity in my life. At that point, I really didn't know where to go, there was one place that where the Bible

College was. And then they had a conference center in the same building where the Bible College used to be it was a Christian conference center. And I thought that probably I could go there and work. You can be in housekeeping or in a coffee shop, or do anything else to keep the place alive and

running. You get a place to stay and food. But I had a friend who lived in America, she was one of the people who came to Russia on the first missions trips. And she really was, I guess, moved by my situation. And she wanted to help. And he invited me to come and stay with her in California

for a few months. There wasn't really a deadline, she just said, just get you to get us on and we'll see. And my visa was good for, I think six months. So I got my tickets. And I stayed in America altogether for about four and a half months, I think. But I came to her place. And I really

didn't know what was going to happen next. She was very wise. And we would have a lot of times together when we would talk and pray and read the Bible. And she was also wise in the sense of mental health. She was doing a lot of Christian counseling herself. And then she was able to help

me untangle a little bit of what's going on in my own mind. Why was I feeling depressed? Why didn't I seek out help? I didn't seek out friends. Why didn't I seek out a better working conditions in a sense. After two, three months, I think my whole worldview changed. I realized that because of

my lack of parents even I would seek to fulfill that hole in me through all kinds of wrong means. And she helped me to connect better to God and to find my fulfillment and him better. After that trip. I just decided I don't want to do ministry anymore because I realized that I wanted to fulfill

myself in some way to be meaningful to find appreciation and acceptance by being a great person like I read about in missionary biographies like we learned about in the School of missions. And I realized that this is not something that is going to fulfill me and God is enough for me. So I don't

want to try and be somebody great in order to feel like I am worth something. So I just decided that I'm not going to do ministry Until God very clearly calls me to it. And I went to that place. So that conference center and I was working in a coffee shop, praying about what would be the next step,

I was thinking that maybe I would just pursue education, finished my bachelor's degree, get a master's degree and just be a Christian counselor, or something of that sort. Somehow, just I got brought me back into ministry with orphans, because people from America kept coming on short

trips that I knew, and they would invite me to come join with them. Just slowly, slowly, I felt that is a calling on my life, because God cares for orphans. He says that the pure religion is to take care of orphans and widows in their distress. And even though I felt I'm fit for ministry, I

guess that pool to care for them still was stronger. And I ended up moving to a little village for about a month where they had about four orphanages. And I, again, was there by myself. But at that point, I already had support system, and I was people that I would talk to when it was hard, you

know, I wasn't doing it all completely on my own. And after that month, I was still thinking and trying to find, you know, housing, where I'm going to stay, what would be next? What would it look like, that's when COVID hit, and everything shut down. All orphanages shut down. They had

kids, of course, inside, but you couldn't visit anymore. And I ended up staying in a town that was very unfamiliar to me and never lived there before. And I was locked in the apartment by myself didn't know how to get to the store, how to use the buses. And what were the rules, there were rules

at some point that you could only go to the closest store and you couldn't go to the store that is further from where you live. And I wasn't sure which store is the closest to me. So I didn't want to go to any store because I didn't want to be caught by police. And then they will tell me

that, you know, you broke the rules. And especially since police was actually stationed very close to my house, from Monday to Saturday, I was alone at home. And then on Saturday or Sunday, my friend would come take me to the store and then on Sunday would go to that home church and

then maybe spend the whole day there pretty much and then go home. After those three months, we ended up dating that guy and then ended up getting married. That was how God basically showed me my future husband is by chatting me in a place all by myself and then letting only one person come to me. So COVID wasn't all bad, then. No, it wasn't.

after all. Actually, my husband he was very much into orphan ministry himself, because when he got saved, he read that place in James that says that pure religion is to take care of widows and orphans in their distress. And he himself started going to an orphanage, building relationships with

the kids, inviting them to his home playing soccer, teaching Bible verses and doing whatever sticks trying to figure out how can he build relationships with them, especially since they're from such a different culture. They're mostly gypsies and gypsy culture is very different from Hungarian

culture, even though they live in the same place. And most kids in the orphanage are gypsies, when we also get married. That is something that we do together. Now. He works of course, I'm at home with a baby. But on Saturdays, we go to the orphanage and on Sundays, we invite the kids over to our

house. And during the week, we also invite them if they want to come over with the bus after school, then they're welcome to and we're trying to build relationships with them. And that way to be that in a sense, family, you know not we can be fully a family for them, because we're not there for

them. 24/7, but to a degree to be there for them if they really need to a safe place to come to or to talk to somebody, and to share with them about Jesus and pray for them and help them in their Christian walk to if they need help. And that it was interesting how God kind of weaved

this orphan ministry through my life. My second job was in a Christian orphanage. Then the people that I got inspired through to even go to the Bible college were people that were doing orphan ministry, even in Russia and then in Hungary, then the first organization that reached out to me

to send me out as a missionary was the organization that focused on orphanage ministry, every single step of my life, somehow God brought this orphan ministry there. That's I guess how I can say now that that is my calling for my life. That's what we're planning to continue doing.

It must be extremely satisfying to almost come full circle to where your upbringing wasn't perfect. And you're waiting for someone to be able to step in to be able to bring you really the words of life. And now you're able to do that for others whose upbringing is difficult for those orphans and make a difference in their life, as well as raising your own family. So it must be a very different place to where you were when you are that young.

Yeah, I think that maybe the reason why I feel so drawn into orphan ministries because I grew up missing that big part. Like missing parents in my life, missing family, loving family, even relatives or friends sometimes, and I think because I know what it feels like to have that void, I guess

I can have more compassion towards them. And maybe that makes it a bit more easy, like easier for me, makes me relate to the kids better. I guess God takes us through hard times. And but then he brings beauty from those hard times in order for us to be able to bring that beauty into other

people's lives who are you know, in a similar situation, I'm honored in the sense to be able to be a part of that restoration that God brings into other people's lives. And I hope that we can make a difference for these kids. I'm sure it's already making a great difference for them. Natasha, it has been wonderful to hear just some of your story. If people that are listening, want to connect with you in any way, where's the easiest place online for them to find you?