Extreme Makeover

by Mike Kozlarek
Director of Affairs for Russia and Ukraine, USIMG

"You're going to be on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition?"

Anya, my former secretary in St. Petersburg, Russia, called to tell me her exciting news--she was going to be on American TV! At first I didn't understand, but by the time Anya finished her explanation, I was crying tears of joy.
The whole story began four years ago when I worked with The Navigators in Russia. I got to know Anya through our student ministry. She had just finished college where she had studied accounting. She was hardworking, faithful, and trustworthy and wanted to be a bookkeeper.

Despite her fine character and education, I feared Anya would never get a job. Anya has cerebral palsy. She's sharp as a tack mentally, but impaired physically. I asked her to be my secretary--even though her typing was very slow--as a way of helping me as well as setting her up for the future.

Part of her job with me was keeping the books for the small nonprofit organization I directed. This got her into her career field. And she turned out to be a great secretary.

The next summer, I gave her several weeks off to go to the States to work at Camp Barnabas (www.campbarnabas.org), a Christian camp in Purdy, Missouri, that ministers exclusively to handicapped children. She went to help the camp's bookkeeper during the busy summer months. She lived with Paul and Cyndy Teas, the couple who runs the camp, and became like a daughter to them.

Anya then returned to St. Petersburg with a vision to run her own camp for disabled children in Russia. Since then, once a summer, she rents facilities and hosts a camp for severely handicapped children outside St Petersburg. It's small scale but way beyond anything she could ever imagine pulling off herself.

Fast-forward three years. Camp Barnabas was recently selected for the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition as one of the show's remodeling projects. Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a popular ABC program that builds new homes for deserving families. For this episode, however, they decided to refurbish several buildings at the camp--a home, a bunkhouse for volunteers, and a media center.

In the course of interviewing the Teas, the show's host, Ty Pennington, and his team kept hearing Anya's name.

Well, next thing you know, the producer is flying Anya to Missouri to make an appearance on the show, which will air October 16 as a two-hour special edition--its biggest makeover yet!

But that's not the end--that's not what brought tears to my eyes.

An American pop star, Lance Bass, of the group 'N Sync, contacted Makeover and asked if the show had anyone he could help out. Anya fit the bill!

Here's a young lady who's obviously crippled: Her walk, the use of her hands, her posture, all immediately show she has a bruised body. But Anya once told me her favorite verse is Psalm 139:13,14:

For You formed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother's womb.
I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works, and my soul knows it very well.

Anya, truly confident that she is "fearfully and wonderfully made," has met the Lord and her soul communes with God in wonderment. God has done an extreme makeover in her heart. And so, touched by her vision and appraised of her very limited resources, Lance Bass gave her an incredibly generous sum (find out how much on the show) to help run her camp in the future. God can do anything with those who are available to Him.

Anya hopes to use this gift as seed money to buy her own camp property. Over the years, Anya has tapped Navigator student ministry participants and leaders, and people from other organizations, to staff her camp. Anya's thought now is that by renting the property to other groups she can create an income stream to fund future ministry. And it could be a training center for Nav students who desire to go into the business field.

My humble Russian secretary is rubbing shoulders with TV producers and pop stars, appearing on national television, running a camp for handicapped children, and seeking to offer jobs to students to get them started in their own business careers: It's no wonder I shed a few tears.