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Throughout her life, Olga Petrosyan ’06 has seen God’s hand at work in her story.

When she was just four years old, her family was forced to flee for their lives from their home in Azerbaijan, losing nearly everything they had, including lucrative careers as an English teacher and space engineer. Ethnically Armenian, they faced rejection and persecution everywhere they went – from Russia, to Ukraine, to Armenia and back to Russia. Her family settled in Volgograd, Russia, with her grandparents, in a house without running water, heat or a septic system. Eventually, in 2009, her parents sought, and won, asylum in the United States.

Their harrowing true story is the subject of the feature film “Between Borders,” produced by former missionaries Lonnie and Isaac Norris, now streaming on Amazon and Angel. It stars Elizabeth Tabish of “The Chosen” as Violetta Petrosyan, Olga’s mother and one of the film’s central characters.

For Olga, seeing her young life portrayed on the big screen has been both triggering and healing.

“I was very scared to see it. I stopped reading the script because I was so triggered,” she says. “When I saw the film, I cried from beginning to end. But through every scene, it was healing.”

One of the central themes of the film, and the real life of the Petrosyan family, is coming to faith in Christ through the outreach and kindness of the Norris family, who were missionaries at a Nazarene church in Volgograd. It was during this time that Olga also decided to dedicate her life and her gifts – including her singing voice – to God.

“I prayed a dangerous prayer that I would be able to study music at a Christian college one day.”

She was first introduced to Bethel after her parents visited campus and connected with longtime Bethel professor Duane Beals, Ph.D., and his wife, Charlotte, while they were in the United States representing Russia at the Nazarene General Assembly in Indianapolis. They videotaped campus for their daughter to see.

When Olga saw the video, she was amazed, but the prospect of coming to Bethel seemed impossible. Her parents earned only $100 per month with their incomes combined. However, Charlotte Beals’ sister, Jewel Norris, and her husband, Jim (the parents of missionary Lonnie Norris), learned of Olga’s dream and started the process of fundraising.

They reached out to all of their friends and family and were able to raise enough support to send Olga to Bethel for just one year. So in 2002, she boarded a plane and flew across the world to Mishawaka, Ind., to begin her Bethel journey.

“I remember every class started with prayer. [I experienced] teaching the love of Christ and was encouraged in my faith. It was a dream. I wondered. ‘Is this what heaven is like?’” she says.

Enough support was raised for Olga to continue her studies at Bethel for a second year, and then a third, and then a fourth.

“It was by the provision of the Lord that I graduated from a Christian college with a music degree,” she says.

Following graduation, Olga married her husband David Christoffersen and served as a missionary and worship leader in Denmark for 13 years. They had two children, Caspian and Leah. The couple relocated to the United States in 2019, where Olga spent five-and-a-half years as a worship leader at Pathway Community Church in Fort Wayne, Ind., the current home church of the Norris family who introduced her family to Christ in Volgograd.

 

Today, she serves as an associate producer at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Ky., collaborating with 13 church campuses.

“God equips us all along for our next steps,” Olga says. “Nothing is wasted.”

Though she struggled with her identity living “between borders,” she now considers her citizenship in Heaven and proudly claims the identity of “child of God.”

Olga hopes that those who see the film will see Jesus in her family’s story, and put a face to the word “refugee.”

Learn more about the film she and her family are featured in at .