Lea Povozhaev

Finding Love, Family, and God Lea Povozhaev

Join us on a journey as a middle-class American girl meets a hockey goalie from Russia living with a wealthy host family in America. Allured by the mystique and beauty of a snowy winter-land, Lea travels to Russia to study the culture and meet her soon-to-be in-laws. Smitten by foreign beauty and a richness of Christian faith, in her youth Lea cannot imagine the challenges that marrying Russia will bring. The clash of cultures hardly begins until Sasha's parents from St. Petersburg come to America and add new dimensions to the newly-wed Lea and Sasha who have just had their first son. Finding Love, Family, and God: Living the Orthodox Tradition is a story that spans across the world full of multicultural trials and tribulations. It is a young woman's journey with a new family and religion where laughter alternates with tears. Finding Love becomes the way to finding family and to seeing God, Who is always already there, waiting to be found. With small steps of faith, and a few leaps, Lea and Sasha become family. Lea is challenged to reconsider the meaning of family and faith as she and Sasha become Orthodox Christians with the quiet urgings of Sasha's Grandmother. Miraculously, the impossible becomes possible, such as unlike families coming together in love - and staying together when there seems a lack of love. Povozhaev tells of her family's roots in America and her husband's family's beginnings from Russia. She shares the story of falling in love with Sasha and his homeland (with travels to Russia in 1999). Despite challenges in coming from different corners of the world, Lea and Sasha learn their way together. Their marriage deepens through sorrows with family and faith, and joy in Christ is found, bringing with it impossible turnarounds. Lea gains new perspective, possible by love of God and in Christ, and she finds her way to see beyond the ugliness of pain and present problems. This is a story of hope in life, possible for all with the always near option of love.