Galina's story

In 1979, Galina Vilchinskaya was 21. She had spent her summer teaching at a Christian children's camp in the Ukrainian countryside; now she was going home to prepare for her wedding.

But when the train stopped on the way home, the KGB stepped in. They arrested Galina and the other leaders, leaving the children alone on the station, with no supervision. The eldest boy, just 14, remembered the name of a Christian in the town. It was enough to get all the children home safely.

But Galina was sent to a concentration camp, some 7,000 miles from home. In this primitive camp – filled with criminals, sickness and unsanitary conditions – she struggled to survive. Her skin was covered in boils, her teeth were loose and her hair had fallen out.

But despite threats from the camp officials, Galina continued to share the gospel with her fellow prisoners. "I didn't come here to sit idly with my hands folded on my lap," she said. "I am compelled to speak about Christ." In cell 44, forty of her fellow-prisoners came to faith through her testimony.

When the prison governors discovered what was happening, she was transferred to another cell, intended for the most serious criminals. She told them who she was and shared the small amount of food that she had just received during the visit of relatives. The first question the leader of the cell asked was, "Will you teach us how to pray?"

Galina was in prison for four years. She wrote to her parents, "In this wilderness, I am needed more than in freedom. Here there are many people with a great spiritual hunger – outcasts who have been rejected by the world."

Open Doors campaigned on her behalf. Thousands of Christians in the West prayed for her. After her release, she married Ivan Shapoval, despite opposition from the KGB, and began a new life with him in Siberia.

Then the walls came down. Years later, Siberia was enjoying religious freedom, Ivan had become a Baptist pastor, they had five children... and Galina was still organising summer camps for children.