“I have always felt like I did not belong,” Misha said. “Not here, not there. Not anywhere.”
Misha’s mother is Ukrainian, and he was born and raised in Nikolaev, Ukraine. His father, though, was from Eastern Mongolia, of Korean ancestry. With his blended background, Misha’s unique appearance often caused confusion as to his ethnicity. Feelings of shame took hold of his heart at a very young age.
“My face was too different,” he said. “I didn’t fit.”
Although Misha and his younger sister were raised in a nominally Christian environment, and attended church regularly, insecurity about his identity never completely went away. Misha felt like an outsider and, when the war began, he became one. With just two suitcases, he and his mother and sister joined thousands of other refugees on a perilous journey to Poland, eventually finding temporary shelter in Warsaw. There, although they received support from a local church, Misha’s loneliness only worsened.
“I was so, so angry,” he confessed. “I could not accept their love; my heart was cold. I thought about suicide almost every day.”
Over time, Misha finished high school online, as many refugee children did. While searching for a university, he found LCC Christian International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. “I dared to hope,” he remembered. “Maybe I could fit in, among so many others from different countries.”
As a freshman, however, he still struggled. When someone suggested the campus mentorship program, he was skeptical. “I knew only God could help me,” Misha said, “but would he?” His mentor was Multiply’s George Dumitrascu.
At first, Misha was silent and aloof. George slowly led Misha in a process of forgiveness for those who had caused him to feel rejected in the past. Something changed.
“I encountered Jesus in a new way,” Misha marveled, “as if the night had broken.”
With his newfound sense of family at LCC, Misha has been able to focus more on his studies. Looking forward, he feels called to ministry in Mongolia and Central Asia.
“They need to see Jesus,” he said, “as I see him now. They need to know that they belong.”
