Stoneworks is excited and grateful to welcome Marina Topoltseva and the Russia Family Homes Ministry.
For eighteen years, Stoneworks leaders have been partnering with Marina Topoltseva in her mission to care for and share the gospel of Jesus Christ with orphans and other children at risk. Now, it’s our joy to announce that we are finally making the association ‘official.’
Based in St. Petersburg and serving orphans and single mothers, Russia Family Homes (known in St. Petersburg as Road Of Life) was founded in 2004 and exists to help orphans, who are aging out of the orphanage system, to experience how a family is supposed to work, and to gain life skills and to be discipled. The single mother’s home is as it sounds – giving shelter and teaching mothers how to care for their babies, and in some cases, how to engage with them and love them.
The Russia Family Homes ministry currently consists of two homes (apartments in the city of St. Petersburg, Russia), two ministry couples (husband/wife), the ministry’s director Marina, the participants in the homes (orphans and/or single mothers) and a host of graduates of the program who stay involved in the ministry.
The first home, formerly run as a transitional program for graduating orphans, has evolved into a home for foster and adopted children and a center for fellowship and discipleship.
The counselor couple, Vladimir and Vera Simonov, first fostered about a dozen children then adopted three children, adding to their two biological boys, and has recently moved their two oldest kids (17) out to make room for more children.
They maintain ties at local orphanages for ongoing outreach. Vera has become an advocate to the city for foster parenting and adopting, speaking at conferences and counseling/training potential adoptive couples individually and in small groups. Currently they are waiting on God to show them the next child/children to raise.
The second home is for single mothers. It serves as a crisis shelter for fatherless families who have nowhere else to go, and then, for mothers/children who qualify to enter the program, a place of love, training, nurturing and discipleship.
The counselor couple, Vasya and Olya, take on the most difficult cases often having multiple issues including abandonment from their own childhood experience, abuse from a relative/spouse/partner, lack of parenting skills or temperament, lack of education (few employment opportunities), legal issues (citizenship/city registration/housing), and health, to name a few.
Stoneworks, in its mission to assist others in the ministry God has called them to, hopes to encourage and strengthen Marina in her mission to care for orphans. You may support this ministry by visiting our Support page, clicking the big red button and choosing Russia Family Homes from the drop down menu.