A favorite memory was the night I heard Victoria tell me her story of growing up in Soviet Ukraine.
Victoria was a wonderful co-worker at Haven of Peace Academy. So when she sat across from me at a staff dinner at an outdoor restaurant, in the dimming evening light, I asked her to tell me about her childhood under Communism.
What was it like growing up in the Soviet Union? I asked. And I sat spellbound as she talked about a carefree childhood where the children could roam freely, because there was very little crime. However, she said, there were also times when neighbors would disappear in the night, never to be seen or heard from again.
She talked about her Christian grandmother, who secretly told her about God and gave her a cross pendant to wear under her school uniform. One day a teacher found it, and forced the seven-year-old Victoria to stand in front of the entire school and stomp on that cross.