Yesterday Kris and I sat down with two leaders with CRM: Melinda (Wigton) Cathey and Alex Krutov. They are involved with a ministry to orphans in St. Petersburg, Russia. Kris and I were reeling all afternoon after listening to Alex tells his own story of abusive parents, street life as a child, and his conversion and then call into ministry.
CRM, under the leadership of Melinda Cathey and Alex Krutov, has a ministry called The Harbor. Their mission is to find the lost and forgotten Russion orphans aging out of the state system, and immerse the young adult orphans into small holistic communities. They strive to break the cycle of orphans creating more orphans through education, vocational and life skills training, counseling and spiritual formation. The only approach is this one: hope for change and work for change, one person at a time.

Alex who currently lives in Ohio, travels around raising funds for this ministry, all as a result of an American Christian missionary family that, in his words, “were interested in me as a person.” We sometimes forget the potency of loving our neighbor as ourselves, but Alex reminded me today of the powerful nature of this message.
Check out the Life of Stepan (view snaps) at the website for The Harbor.
Melinda and Mark Cathey were both students of mine at TEDS; they are now in St. Paul MN after years of working in Russia; they make their way back to Russia about twice a year.