Love's Labors Not Lost on Lena

Lena Dering represents every reason I invested ten years of love and labor as a missionary in Latvia. Her life typifies my dream for those whose lives God privileged me to touch, and whose lives touched mine so deeply there.

Lena (pictured at the right) is from Sakhalin in Russia's Far East. Her only memories of her father are violent ones of physical abuse. Her mother died when she was still a young girl. Somehow she ended up living in Riga, Latvia, with her grandmother. That's where her path crossed ours at Morning Star Church of Latvia. Through some of her Christian school friends who had joined our church, she gave her heart to Jesus and began her often arduous journey with Him. And with us.

When Lena first came to our church, she was far more cynical, distrustful, hardened and street smart than a young teenager should ever be. She was a classic "survivor." But under the tough shell was a tender, if wounded, heart that longed to trust God and to love Him, and be loved by Him. And by us. She had many false starts. Sometimes she would disappear for months and return to her old life. But the love of God kept drawing her back. The very stubbornness and tenacity she had learned in order to survive, God used to keep her doggedly coming after Him.

One message we constantly taught that resonated with Lena was that God had a purpose for her life that was bigger than herself, a role for which she was specifically designed, to help build the Kingdom of God on earth. We taught that salvation was only a starting point and that God had called each of us to partner with Him to destroy the works of the devil and rebuild righteous things on this earth. She learned the truth of Colossians 1:16-20 that all things were created by Him and for Him, that He is to have supremacy in all things, and that the Bible speaks authoritatively to every field of human endeavor, not just the spiritual realm.

So when I started a biblical world view course in Riga, she was the first to sign up. At our class Lena would ask so many penetrating questions that I would be exhausted, often with a headache, by the time we quit (which was always later than planned). But it was great, and she really caught a sense of destiny and a vision for becoming a positive witness and influence in her world. At the same time, as the Lord healed her heart more and more, He deposited in her a growing compassion for people whom society has rejected. It became more and more clear that her destiny was to fight for these people, and to call them out of darkness into the "glorious liberty of the children of God." (Romans 8:21)

Jump forward with me a few years to 2004. That was the year that most of our American team in Latvia came back to the U.S., as it was clear that our work there was done. Lena came as well, and settled in Nashville to serve with Pastor Bob and Sharon Perry in new ministries they were forming there.

Not long after, she began to learn about the heinous and growing problem of human trafficking, the capture, sale and exploitation of children and women for the worldwide sex trade. She learned quickly that this problem didn't just afflict faraway lands like Thailand, but was burgeoning right here in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. She began to study everything she could get her hands on about this topic. God began to connect her with others around the U.S. who are working to rescue the victims and end the practice of human trafficking. It has become the consuming passion of her life. Today she continues to network with others working on this problem, speaking out to church and other groups, creating multi-media presentations and even collaborating on an opera that addresses the problem being composed by David Perry. (Stay tuned for more on David's work.)

Gentle reader, forgive me for gushing a bit when I say that I am so proud of Lena. Here is a young woman from a very tough background with nothing but disadvantages, who practically raised herself in the stifling Soviet system, where speaking out and fighting social injustice was punished rather than praised. Many from her nation who have come to these shores come with one goal in mind: to get rich and forget the lack they knew back home. But Lena has come to give. She sees American liberty and wealth as a resource for fighting her chosen fight more than as a means of self-aggrandizement. Of course, she would love to prosper here, but rather than seeking to lose herself in the comfort of American prosperity, she looks outward to the world and seeks to better it from her perch in Nashville. These things she does because she believes that God has called us to build His kingdom here on earth and take His light to the dark corners, wherever they are.

My personal motto for my life in Latvia was, and continues to be here, "rebuilding a nation, one life at a time." Lena Dering is one life that proves the efficacy of that motto and why we need to go to the nations, starting with our own. I am humbled to have had the joy and privilege to be at least a small influence in her life.