VALDOSTA — Had she listened to her Soviet advisors in the early 1980s, Raisa Andreeva would have aborted her pregnancy and become a member of the powerful KGB.

But she didn’t listen. Raisa Andreeva chose life.

Now, Raisa and Anasthasia “Nastya” Andreeva, the daughter she refused to abort, hurriedly spread God’s word throughout Russia before the powerful Kremlin can crack down on missionary work.

The Andreevas have been in Valdosta this past week, organizing and marshaling forces with the Mailbox Club, on how best to spread the word once expected Russian legislation is enacted prohibiting Christian missionaries from traveling to other regions.

The Mailbox Club is an international religious organization with a home base in Valdosta. The Mailbox Club sends Christian lessons to children around the world. In 2008, the Mailbox Club printed 35.5 million lessons in approximately 80 languages, reaching 2.8 million children in 96 nations.

In Russia, the Mailbox Club has reached 52,119 children so far this year.

For the past few years, Nastya Andreeva has represented the Mailbox Club in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. She coordinates the Mailbox Club’s operations via Operation Christmas Child, Eastern European churches, and Child Evangelism Fellowship. Raisa is a Child Evangelism Fellowship representative.

Nastya arrived last Monday in Valdosta. Raisa arrived Wednesday. They depart for Russia this Monday.

They are working with Charlie Harris of Valdosta, the Mailbox Club’s regional director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia. If Russia enacts the expected legislation, Nastya could continue Christian missionary work in Moscow, but she could not legally travel to other Russian regions as she can now. The legislation would also affect foreign missionaries entering Russia. She would likely be able to return to Russia, even with the new law, after traveling to other nations for her Mailbox Club work. For now.

Harris and the Andreevas worry this may be the first of many Kremlin moves to curtail religious freedom in Russia. They also have concerns that the government will adopt the Russian Orthodox Church as the state religion. The Andreevas, who are Baptists, have nothing against the Russian Orthodox Church. Many in the Russian Orthodox Church aid them with the Mailbox Club and the Child Evangelism Fellowship.

“But if the Russian Orthodox Church becomes a state religion, it will be more about the temples, the icons, the art, than the belief of salvation through Jesus Christ,” Nastya says. “Beautiful temples but no word about Jesus Christ.”

This lack of Jesus, of warmth, led Raisa to the Baptists and open talk of God several years ago, when she sought spiritual solace following the death of her father in 1989.

“When he died, I thought something is wrong with this belief that there’s nothing more,” Raisa says; Nastya interpreting her Russian. “There were good relations between daughter and father. It can’t just go nowhere. It must continue.”

Seeking spiritual answers required bold moves.

She had been raised in the Soviet system that had left her confident that God did not exist. “They were told under the Soviets that very stupid and dark people believe in God,” Nastya says.

Her husband, who worked for the Soviet government, agreed Raisa could attend church, but he was ashamed of her newfound Christianity. He said she could go where she pleased but demanded Raisa not take their daughter to church. He did not know then, but Raisa took young Nastya to church anyway.

Raisa had already earned a reputation as a woman with an independent streak.

In the early 1980s, Raisa excelled in her university preparations to become a printing engineer. In 1981, her brilliance attracted the attention of the KGB, the Soviet Union’s powerful national security agency.

The KGB was an attractive job offer: High salaries, the best housing, the best cars, the best food, the knowledge of being in the know and secure.

Raisa was already married as she trained to become a KGB member. In 1982, she became pregnant with Nastya. Her Soviet advisors advised she terminate the pregnancy.

“They told her, she was a smart woman. We’re trying to build communism. There’s no time to build a family,” Raisa says, her words interpreted by the daughter she refused to abort.

Following this refusal, she was out with the KGB. Raisa did not receive the usual government money given to new mothers in the Soviet Union. She was told she would never hold a job.

In 1983, Nastya was born into a society where people could be sent to Siberia for 10 years for preaching religion to a child. Those sent away could not correspond with family or friends for the duration of their sentence, leaving loved ones to wonder if the relative was dead or alive.

This system was cracking open in 1989 and 1990 as Raisa sneaked Nastya to church. Mikhail Gorbachev’s Perestroika allowed American evangelists, including Billy Graham, to visit the USSR.

As time passed, even Raisa’s husband and Nastya’s father changed his attitude. He remains an unbeliever in the church but a believer in the positive good of their mission. He may not attend church, the Andreevas say, but he pours much of his money, talents, efforts, and time into the ministries of his wife and daughter.

As the Soviet system of communism crumbled, churches thrived during the 1990s. Now, this has also changed.

“There is no longer fast growth, but stable growth,” Nastya says.

Charlie Harris adds, “The urgency in Russia is very real.”



The Andreevas are scheduled to speak Sunday at Perimeter Road Baptist Church and Redland Baptist Church.