How I Became a Baha’i by Katya Aivazova Shcherbakova

Submitted November 2022

When I was 15, I came to the United States for the first time as an exchange student from Russia. My host family, Anne and Eric Pederson and their children, lived at their farm in Grinnell, Iowa. I spent 9 happy months living with them in 2009-2010.

I arrived in the United States in August, just before the beginning of the school year. I was trying to shape my view on the world, religion, God and my place in it, so I was still searching. My parents had declared Baha’is several years before my American travels, and I had been familiar with the Faith, as well as with Orthodox Christianity, which is the most widespread in Russia. I also used to have several Mormon friends–those were American missioners who taught English as an act of service back in my hometown of Penza. In fact, they were the ones that inspired me to deeply want to visit the USA one day. My American host family, on the other hand, belonged to the United Church of Christ, and throughout my whole stay we went to their church every Sunday for the service.

To sum up, I was acquainted with a number of different religions and denominations at that time. So when my host family eventually asked me if I identified myself with any religion, they originally assumed that since I was Russian, I was probably Orthodox Christian, which could be a more or less safe bet! However, I naturally answered that I was a Baha’i. So my story as a Baha’i started here, in Iowa, when I barely turned 16.

I told my parents back in Russia about my decision and they suggested that I find Baha’is in Grinnell. In the town with 9000 people no one seemed to know any Baha’is. Eventually, after spreading the word around, I somehow got in touch with a wonderful Baha’i family from Marshalltown, Bill, Betty Lou, and Tesia Cave. As I didn’t have a driver’s license, they started visiting me in Grinnell from time to time. The first time they came, Anne and Eric invited them in and made sure that they weren’t frauds and wouldn’t do my any harm! Then I was allowed to meet Bill, Betty Lou, and Tesia in downtown Des Moines. We would often go to the library and study quotes from the scriptures or read prayers. This was my first year in the Faith.

After my school year in America I returned to Russia to study at university there. But I have come back here multiple times throughout the years, and now I am writing this from my dear friends’ home in Waukee. Every time I was visiting Iowa, I tried to get in touch with the Baha’i community. In 2013 I spent 3 months in Des Moines where I met 2 Baha’i girls, Avalan Wilson and Afsaneh Zaeri. In the winter of 2015-2016 I came to America yet again and at the time there was a big Baha’i conference in Kansas City and I got to go there with some youth from Des Moines!

Now it’s my 5th time in the United States, and I am here with my husband Vadim. I am happy to be getting to know more of the Baha’i community here in Iowa.