On New Year’s Eve 2023, Stephen Shores moved to Russia as a missionary. Admittedly, this was a unique mission: Stephen, as an former Protestant and now an Orthodox Christian, was moving to Orthodox Russia to help stir up the native faith of Orthodox Russians, in addition to leading non-Christians to the faith. He has already had some success in both through his online activities. Stephen and Elena have been featured in three online articles, three YouTube interviews, and one TV interview.

Stephen (in baptism Nikolai, after St  Nicholas of Japan) met Elena in person on New Year’s Eve. They met online on VK, fell in love and married in August 2024.

Tragedy struck in January when Stephen lost his remote IT job due to an extended illness. Having only a tourist visa, he was unable to secure new employment in Russia, and after sending out over 200 applications, saw nothing but rejection internationally. 

Things were looking up in February when Stephen was finally offered a very good remote IT job, but he was required to return to America for a drug test. He could not arrange transportation back to the United States, and the company was inflexible. Dejected, he continued to try to seek further employment.

Through God's faithfulness and the advice of a good friend, Stephen was able to take up English teaching in Russia. Native English speakers are in high demand here, and the new salesmanship and organisational skills required to pursue new students and keep existing students, not to mention the new pedagogical skills, were valuable professional skills added to Stephen’s seasoned arsenal of IT skills.

In March, Stephen, after much prayer, re-branded his YouTube channel as Russia: The American Dream and posted a new video. Elena began appearing in the new videos. Surprisingly, the channel began to greatly expand and currently exceeds 5,500 subscribers.

While expanding his English teaching school, Stephen has continued to look for IT work and sent out over 1,000 job applications. He has been networking extensively in Russia to find work. However, the challenges of migrating to Russia have delayed finding work here. Hiring an immigration lawyer costs $1,000-$1,600. While the new legislation signed into law by President Putin in September somewhat eased the process, it is still not easy and requires assistance.

In addition to immigration costs, technological problems have cropped up. The stabilizer used to level the camera for steady shots broke. Stephen’s iPhone has a failing battery and increasingly refuses to save new videos. The laptop Stephen uses for work is increasingly demonstrating signs of wear. If either of these last two items goes out, it will cripple Stephen’s ability to work and look for new students, and it will completely halt the posting of new videos to the channel.

The reason we titled this campaign the way we did is because we believe that the love of the great Body, the Body of Christ, has NOT grown cold yet (Matthew 24:12-13) and that despite the challenges of life during one of the most difficult times the planet has ever seen, Stephen believes there are still generous souls in the West who love Christ and do not listen to propaganda, who love Russia and refuse to bow to pressure to hate the Russian people or those who have been sent to help the Russian people.

Your generous donations will help us to do the following:

1. Get immigration assistance to speed the immigration process and unlock further job opportunities in Russia

2. Replace the iPhone 13 Pro Max with a newer, more reliable device with a better camera to continue our YouTube production work

3. Replace Stephen’s old work laptop with a newer model to enable him to keep working and continue looking for full-time employment

4. Purchase additional equipment such as a tripod, camera mount, car camera mount, and other tools to expand the creative possibilities of the YouTube channel

FAQ (Frequent Accusations and Questions):

Q: 'If a man will not work, he shall not eat.' Why are you asking for money?

A: Stephen works more than 100 hours a week teaching English, doing evangelism online and offline, developing his teaching skills, networking with other video bloggers, editing books, learning Russian, translating the Diaries of St. Nicholas of Japan, helping others improve their teaching skills, and doing home improvement. He has almost no free time.

Q: What are you going to do if the fundraiser fails?

A: Keep working hard, keep grinding, and keep saving money. If this fundraiser is successful, it will speed up the process.

Q: Why are you helping those evil Russians? Aren’t you a traitor helping the enemy?

A: Christ loves Russians too! And most Russians have little to no interest in the war. Why are YOU interested in it? Can you find the Ukraine on a world map without looking?

Q: Are you planning to return to the United States?

A: To visit, perhaps, but temporarily, and not without Elena. Acquiring a tourist visa for Elena requires travel to Poland or Kazakhstan and six months of work. We have not yet sought to begin this process because of the persecution of Scott Ritter by the Biden administration; due to our online activities, the concern is that Stephen could be prevented from leaving the United States. We hope that under the Trump administration, free speech will be allowed again.