Regent’s Dr. Anna Ord Shares Her Faith Journey

LIFE IN THE SOVIET UNION 

“It was pretty terrible,” Dr. Anna Ord says without hesitation, recalling her life as a little girl in the former U.S.S.R.  The socialist government controlled most everything, including housing and food availability; shortages of both were constant and extreme.  One image that’s burned in her memory is standing in line with her mother at 5am in the frigid cold, for a single quart of milk.  “Meat was an unheard-of luxury,” she explains, noting that her parents often didn’t eat so that their two daughters could.  Sometimes the girls would get one potato for lunch, and another for dinner.  “To say there was famine was an understatement,” says Ord.  Sometimes the only item on the market shelves was salt. 

Housing was another scarce commodity in Soviet Russia.  Personal property was not allowed, so most everyone lived in communal apartments.  “If there were three rooms, there was a family in each room, and they all shared one bathroom and one kitchen,” Ord recalls.  If there was running water at all, it was cold.  Leaving the country was not allowed, nor was owning albums or books.  The police could search the premises anytime for any reason. The focus of life for her family was simply survival.

“Healthcare in Russia was carried over from a very low quality nationalized healthcare in USSR - very poor quality,” she explains.  “For example, when I was a child, I had several back teeth pulled with no anesthesia; I also had my tonsils pulled with no anesthesia.  They just strapped your hands and feet to the operating room chair and that's how surgeries were performed.  It was very painful and I was only six years old.”  
  
SEEDS OF FAITH

When it came to belief in God, Ord’s parents were a part of the generation in Soviet Russia which made no room for religion.  Instead, people were taught to embrace the philosophies of Karl Marx, and follow the dictatorship of Vladimir Lenin, in power from 1917-1924, and later, Joseph Stalin who ruled from 1927-1953.  Her parents, atheists, used to tell little Anna and her older sister that the government had sent men in planes, helicopters, and even space missiles looking for God, but they couldn’t find Him.  To wear a cross or carry a Bible could mean time in a gulag -- or even death.  

Communist, atheist propaganda was the only type of content on radio or TV (though Ord’s parents used their antenna to tune in Beatles and Rolling Stones music, and occasional movies). In contrast to these Communist influences, Ord’s great grandmother shared her genuine faith in God with her granddaughters.  She was 16 when the Bolshevik revolution took place in 1917, and had grown up in a Russia which had been staunchly Eastern Orthodox for a thousand years.  She used to tell young Anna and her sister about Jesus, despite their parents’ warnings.   

NEW LIFE IN AMERICA 

When the Soviet Union collapsed in December 1991 under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev, many prior restrictions started to lift in Russia.  Still, there was rampant corruption and crime.  Fortunately for Ord, education remained a high priority in her family, and she excelled in school.  She started learning English when she was ten years old, and was tutoring younger kids in English by age 15.  Ord graduated number one in her high school class before she was 16 years old, and entered the Academy of National Economy in Moscow.  She earned a 4.0 GPA, and graduated when she was just 19.  

With her stellar record, Ord was awarded a full scholarship to Miami University in Oxford, OH, which she was thrilled to accept for many reasons.  “The poverty rates in Russia, the crime rates, poor healthcare, lack of educational and career opportunities, corruption - all those factors contributed to me wanting to leave the country at the first chance I got,” she states. Landing in Washington, D.C. in 2003, then living in Ohio was a different world for Ord.  “I was overwhelmed and blown away by the buildings, food choice, and stores” she recalls.  In addition to the abundant resources of America, Ord was amazed that people smiled a lot and even hugged one another in public; she rarely saw those behaviors in Russia.   

After completing her M.B.A. degree in Ohio, Ord landed a job at a logistics company in Florida, where she began to climb the corporate ladder.  By age 24, she was able to buy a house, own a nice car, and live “the American Dream.”  Nonetheless, academic accomplishments and possessions didn’t satisfy her need for meaning, nor did she know what would.  Ord says she felt lonely, depressed, dead inside, and couldn’t see much reason to live.  That was soon to change.  Co-workers invited Ord to their church, promising she’d meet other young adults and get lunch!  She consented to go, learned about God’s grace, and six months later, committed her life to Christ.  It was like finding water in the dessert, she remembers.  Christianity wasn’t about a set of empty rules, she found, but a loving God who gives hope and purpose.  

ENTER REGENT

Volunteering at Celebrate Recovery groups in Central Florida, and later at an eating disorders treatment facility, made Ord consider her true purpose in life. She saw how support and guidance from professional counselors and psychologists enhanced and changed people's lives, and realized that was how she wanted to spend her life.  Ord enrolled in Liberty University to study professional counseling, and in 2011, she came to Regent University, where she studied clinical psychology and earned her M.A. and Ph.D.  As the new Dean of the School of Psychology and Counseling at Regent, Dr. Ord plans to keep up the high standards of the school, and work toward the development of better mental health services through spirituality in counseling.