Here is another personal testimony from our church, Street Cry, in St. Petersburg.

Liza Bachi, 26, recently received her medical degree from a University in St. Petersburg and works as a cardiologist in Mariinskaya hospital of St. Petersburg. God often moves through her in the gift of healing.

She has a heart of compassion and love, which moves her to intercession for the poor, needy, sick, for people who do not know Jesus yet. She is a big blessing for everyone she comes in contact with. Here is her story:

I initially accepted Jesus in 2001 at the age of 17. Growing up in a Jewish family, I knew religion as a set of rules to obey. But when I began to ask myself questions like “Who is God? Why do I live?” that set of rules did not give me any satisfactory answers.

But one day my close friend Nastya Tsarevskaya (see her testimony in November 2008 issue of our newsletter) told me that she became a Christian. I saw drastic changes in her and wanted to know more about it. Thus, I ended up going to her church. Once the service ended in an altar call for repentance – I came out and prayed the sinner’s prayer led by the pastor.

Still for quite a while, I stayed religious as opposed to having a vibrant personal relationship with God. May be because I was always a good girl and even after praying the sinner’s prayer, I did not have an understanding that I cannot live Godly life by my own strength. Time went by.

I attended church, prayers, outreaches – because it was proper. Not even noticing how I was turning my newly found faith into just a set of new rules to obey…

At the same time, I studied medicine in a university. One guy in our group was direct opposite of me. I was a believer – straight, good and righteous and he smoked, drank, partied and skipped lectures more often than not… Nevertheless, we kept company and were buddies for a year and a half. Sometimes looking at him, I thought that he was leading a more honest life following his basic instincts than I did trying to obey my rules.

Then one day out of sudden, he told me he loved me… I turned him down because it was proper. However, somewhere deep inside I wanted to have a relationship with him. So several months later, I gave in to temptation and we started living together. Needless to say, I stopped attending church…

God did not stop speaking to me though and calling me to come back. Neither my friend Nastya who initially introduced me to Jesus stopped calling me and visiting me and reminding me of the right way to go and praying for me all the time. But I decided to go with the flow carrying me farther and farther away into sin.

Gradually our relationship grew colder. I knew I did not really love him. From time to time, I would turn to my Bible, to prayer, which usually left me in tears and my boyfriend furious. My heart was hardening more and more and I was becoming completely worldly. Half a year into this relationship, my boyfriend was diagnosed with cancer.

Then, on September 6, 2006 with my heart broken to pieces I really cried out to God! Not that I wanted God, not that I felt anything; simply I realized that there was nowhere else I could go for help. That is why I offered God a deal: “Please heal this boy! In exchange You can tell me to do anything and I will do it for You!” I knew that God heard my prayer because supernatural joy filled my heart in spite of the natural grief of the situation that I was in.

Actually, my prayer life became really deep at this season of my life and slowly-slowly I realized that I want God, that a relationship is developing between me and Jesus. At first, I was ready to sacrifice myself and do God’s will for my life with no regards to my own desires – just because He answered my prayer and because I promised Him to do whatever He would say. But very soon I realized that I wanted to be with Jesus because of Jesus Himself and for no other reasons!

God miraculously intervened into the situation and completely healed my boyfriend. But he did not want to hear anything about Jesus. And I found myself facing a choice – Jesus or my boyfriend.

But by this time Jesus stopped being just a religion for me. He became my Love and my Reason for living. Needless to say, I chose Jesus!

It was not easy to come back to the church where everybody knew my situation only too well. But to my great surprise nobody reminded me of my past sin and everybody was happy for my repentance and return. I completed my medical studies and went to the School of Ministry and am continuing to discover the will of God for my life and to follow Jesus with great joy.

Since Liza put Jesus first in her heart, God put His man in her life – Arkady Ledkov. At the end of April, we celebrated their wedding. Please pray with us for blessing of this new family and for them to bring more fruit in the Kingdom of God together!

Visit StreetCry if you’d like to know more about their ministry.