Aleksandr and Lubov Patsenko have faced many trials in life. One of the trials they will never forget is when they had to leave everything they had known and flee to America. It all started when religious persecution began in their country, Kazakhstan. Religious persecution is the act of harming people based on their beliefs. It affects many religious groups all over the world and Christians in Kazakhstan happened to be one of them.
Lubov and Aleksander before the fall of the Soviet Union.
Kazakhstan is a country in Central Asia that consists of many ethnic groups. Kazakhs and Russians are the majority. Hundreds of thousands of people from European countries immigrated to Kazakhstan in the 20th century during and after the World Wars. Aleksandr’s ancestors had been living in Kazakhstan for many years. Lubov’s family immigrated from Ukraine in the late 1950s.
After the Soviet Union fell in 1991, the Patsenko family did not feel the effects until after 1993. They had lived in a village named Alga that was far away from the chaos happening in the big cities. “We had only heard and seen the news of what was going on. We never actually felt it, until now,” Lubov said. The Muslim Kazakhs had suddenly taken back their country and started introducing new laws and building mosques. They started oppressing Christians. Lubov had connections with the church. “My mom’s house was an underground church in which my family served. We began to feel unsafe.”
There were people who watched everyone, waiting for someone to do something worthy of arrest. Aleksandr was coming home from work one day when the police suddenly took him in for questioning. “There was one shady man who stayed at a hotel for months that kept an eye on the residents of Alga. I assume he reported me for suspicious behavior.” The police were trying to get the names of the people who attended the Patsenko family’s church. “As soon as I knew that they wanted names, I refused to rat people out. I told them instead that there are different and new families every time, so I do not know. I invited the police to attend church and find out themselves.” This was the moment when the Patsenkos knew they had to leave. They could not endanger their three youngest children.
