10/15/2026
“FOR 21 YEARS, SHE WAITED FOR SOMEONE TO CALL HER THEIR DAUGHTER. THEN GOD GAVE HER A FAMILY.”
Imagine watching other children embrace their parents while you wonder why no one comes for you.
For Lena, growing up in Armenia, this was life.
Her mother struggled with an unhealthy, unstable lifestyle and could not care for her children. Six of the seven children spent time in an orphanage. Lena remained until she was 21.
Sometimes her mother took her out of the orphanage—but to send her into the streets to beg for food and money. Lena remembers fearing punishment if she returned without enough. She endured abuse and rejection.
At 21, she left the orphanage with nowhere to live. For months, she slept in a car inside a garage, worked two jobs, and sometimes ate only one small meal a day.
Then she became pregnant.
When Lena asked her family for shelter, they demanded that she end her pregnancy. She refused. At six months pregnant, she was thrown out.
She sat beneath a tree, crying, her belongings beside her, with nowhere to go.
But God was opening a door.
Through someone at a local church, Lena was connected with Teen Challenge in Armenia.
She came looking for a safe place for herself and her baby. What she found was something she had longed for her entire life: a family.
At Teen Challenge, people welcomed her, cared for her, and introduced her to the love of Jesus. She began to know God not as someone distant, but as a Heavenly Father who loved her.
Later, when Lena and Vahram prepared to marry, a father figure from her spiritual family stood beside her. He made it clear she was not a woman with no one to speak for her.
She was their daughter. She belonged.
Today, Lena is married and continuing to grow in faith. She believes God is at work in her family.
This is the heart of Teen Challenge: more than shelter, more than a program. It is people encountering Jesus, finding hope, and discovering they are not alone.
For years Lena waited for someone to come for her. Through Teen Challenge, she found a family that welcomed her—and a Heavenly Father who had never forgotten her.
