Every Home Volunteer Passes Away at 100
Thick snow fell. But, despite the weather, a team of local believers was driving to carry the love of Christ to a boarding school. A team member recalls that, as they peered through the windshield, “a familiar figure appeared through the veil of snow.”
“It’s Grandmother Zindaida,” someone said.
The outreach team pulled over and called out over the wind. “Where are you going? Let us give you a ride.”
The woman known as Grandmother Zindaida was well into her eighties at the time; her friends worried about her.
But Zindaida smiled and said, “No, children, I’ll take the bus. I need to bless people there.”
For years, Zindaida made this trek. On even-numbered days she walked to the train station and shared the love of Jesus with people as they waited for their train. On odd numbered days, she went to the bus station and did the same thing.
“She stood at the station—Bible in hand, a prayer book, and psalms in her heart,” writes our Every Home Ministry Director in St. Petersburg. “She brought the Good News to the place where souls, like trains, often stand at a crossroads.”
Grandmother Zindaida
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On the day of the snowstorm, however, Zindaida wouldn’t have long to stand in the bus station. Her destination was a distant village where a young family had recently accepted Jesus as their Savior. Zindaida was going to encourage them with the wealth of Scripture stored up in her heart.
At age ninety, Zindaida knew whole chapters of Scripture by heart. “Psalm 119, that great hymn of love for the Lord’s law, flowed from her lips like living water to the thirsty,” says our ministry director. “The gospel truths she memorized…were the very breath of her life.”
Born between two world wars, Zindaida witnessed a century of change and upheaval. The Soviet Union expanded its power and then crumbled. The map of Europe was redrawn many times. Zindaida’s homeland raced to explore space.
But Zindaida’s achievements in her long life are not the kind that often make headlines. Amidst a changing, racing world, Zindaida devoted every moment to one purpose: sharing Jesus. Her friends say, “her ministry moved with the steady rhythm of a faithful heart.” Her legacy is not in innovations, discoveries, or changes to the order of the world—it’s in transformed lives.
In September 2025, Grandmother Zindaida passed away at the age of 100. Our ministry director takes inspiration from her story. “During her lifetime, her door—and her heart—were always open: to someone ‘important’ and to a homeless neighbor alike,” he says. “And her nights belonged to God. At ninety-three, she could spend the whole night in prayer, on her knees, interceding for those who had shared tea with her during the day and listened to her stories about Christ.”
Zindaida and others like her are the beating heart of Every Home. In our 80-year history, our name has changed, our methodology has expanded, and our reach has grown exponentially. But who we are has always been ordinary believers carrying the love of Christ, however they can, to their neighbors—the steady rhythm of faithful hearts.
