The following is an interview with Elena Kulagova, a psychologist who also trains churches and ministries in Living Free. She shares how the ministry of Living Free began in Siberia. (Elena is pictured here with her husband, Evgeniy)

Elena initially shared about a young man who had attended the Living Free groups in conjunction with the Teen Challenge Leadership Training Institute. After returning to his local church in Novosibrisk Siberia, this young man shared with his pastor what he had experienced with Living Free. He also discovered that the vision for the church that year was "Before somebody begins to minister here, their souls should be set free."

As a result, Elena was invited to come to the church in Novosbirsk and taught the Living Free seminar in June 2008. The pastor and his wife were among the participants, and she wanted to coordinate the program for their church. After all the leaders went through the groups, they were able to see the great changes that had taken place in their own lives and the freedom from many life-controlling problems that they were experiencing. Obviously, the leadership team was hungry for God and desired to minister to the people. So, the decision was made to introduce Living Free to all the home meetings of the church.

As a result of this decision, the church added 150 people in six months, and the groups began to multiply because of the work God was doing in peoples' lives.

The pastors of the church researched the breakthroughs that were occurring.

• They found out that the people were able to get rid of the problems that had been torturing them for many years.
• They were accepting and ministering to the people who were coming to the church.
• They had a desire to minister to others in the way that Jesus minstered to people when He was on earth and in the way He had ministered to them.
• The pride of these people and their religious attitudes were improving.

Because of its history, Elena feels that Russia as a nation that has an attitude of imposing limitations on themselves.

Because it is much easier to lead the people in an authoritative style when you can impose some rules on them and make them do whatever you want them to do. And the creative process is just not necessary when leading the people in this style. A person is just not able to behave naturally. And he or she just tries to measure up to the standards that they impose on them.

After the people went through the small groups, these self-imposed limitations and standards seemed to disappear.

As the church continues to do the small groups, the results are great. Another person is now leading the work of the program, and Elena plans to return to train that person in Living Free very soon.