From Belarus to Breaking Point
July 29, 2025
www.CrossCulturalVoices.org
Maria Makhnach: I've obeyed, I've prayed, I've fasted, I've done my due diligence. I've studied, yet to come to the end to feel like I failed. But not only I failed. More than that, God failed me. And that did not sit well with me. I was, to be very honest with you, I was not mad. I was livid. 'cause I was like, I would have a conversation with God in my personal time saying, “I didn't sign up for this. You told me to do this. I did. And now, like at the end of the road, here we are dealing with failure”.
Robin Karkafi: Hey everyone, welcome to Cross-Cultural Voices. I'm Robin.
John Yoder: And I'm John, and we have a third person with us. We are so grateful to introduce Maria to you as our third co-host.
Robin Karkafi: Yeah, super excited. We'd also love to invite you to join us in prayer as we continue and seek God's direction as a team. If you'd like to support us any way, please visit www.CrossCulturalVoices.org.
All right. So Maria, we're super glad to be here with you. Just as an initial icebreaker, what is your favorite dessert? And John, I'd like you to also tell me what your favorite dessert is, because I never really asked you this.
Maria Makhnach: Favorite dessert, ultimately I'm gonna go with, we have this cake, it's called medovik. It's really good. My mom kills it. So every time that'd be my topic.
John Yoder: I can say no to cake and pie all day, but I have a weakness for ice cream.
Robin Karkafi: Fair enough. Favorite flavor?
John Yoder: Anything with chocolate always wins.
Robin Karkafi: Honestly, I have been introduced to Mexican food as of late, and they have this dessert called tres leches. And oh, it is so good. Yeah. Maria, you've had it?
Maria Makhnach: It's so good. Oh, you guys haven't tried it? You should try it. If you live in Minnesota, there is a place. Just hit me up.
John Yoder: Robin, I thought you were going to say baklava.
Robin Karkafi: No, I can't. It's too much. It's too sweet at least. I guess that's just me.
John Yoder: Maria, we're so glad you're here. You are from Belarus. You spent your first 11 years there. Many of our listeners really don't know much about Belarus. Can you tell us a little bit about where it is and what it's like?
Maria Makhnach: Sure. Thanks for having me here. So Belarus is located in Europe. If you pull up the world map north of Ukraine and I was born in the capital city called Minsk. And it's a beautiful country. It's got all four seasons like Minnesota.
John Yoder: You were 11 when you came here with your family. What stood out to you? What was the biggest piece of culture shock after you got off that plane?
Maria Makhnach: How nice people were. So back in Belarus, the way the culture is, everybody kind of minds their own business. So when you're walking down the street, nobody's really making eye contact or smiling at each other. So that was the first thing that stood out to me.
When I was at a store, I remember I was picking up some groceries or something, and with my broken English, I asked passing person who, I am surprised they understood even what I was asking, 'cause I had a very thick accent. And they helped me out, which was very nice. That was not something I was used to.
And also just the way people greet you, the, “Hi, how are you”? In the back of my mind, the first time that question was asked, I was like, “Do you even care? Or you just asking just for the sake of it?” So that was definitely a shocker. It felt nice regardless if the person cared or not, but it felt nice, it made you feel seen.
John Yoder: Maria, you had the good fortune to be born into a Christian home, to attend some good churches, but as a young woman, you experienced a crisis of faith that really left you at the place of thinking about walking away from Christ. Can you tell us about that?
Maria Makhnach: Yeah. I love that question. I was born in a Christian family, grew up, knew the Bible, was taught how to pray. But my journey hasn't been easy because I had to deal with a lot of disappointments.
So straight outta high school, the Lord put in my heart to become a nurse. And as I was going through the journey of pursuing that dream there's a lot of obstacles that came my way. One of them was, I ended up failing class that I needed in order to graduate on time. So my graduation was supposed to be delayed by a year, which me as a person, I'm very determined. So once I set my goal on something, I wanna finish it through and from start to finish. And so if the timeline doesn't go my way. It's a little bit of a struggle to adapt.
And so that's what happened here going into my nursing journey. When the Lord prompted my heart, and said that I was gonna be a nurse, I saw my timeline going four years, I'm done. I graduate, get my diploma, I start working.
Everything was growing great up until that last semester when I failed the class. I was told, Hey, no, you can walk this year and you need to wait a year. I just could not accept reality. The reason why it was so difficult was because I felt like the promise God gave me in the beginning, I went into this solely going on what the Lord told me. I have obeyed, I've prayed, I've fasted, I've done my due diligence. I've studied, yet to come to the end to feel like I failed.
But not only I failed more than that, God failed me. And that did not stay with me. I was, to be very honest with you, I was not mad. I was livid. 'cause I was like, I would have a conversation with God in my personal time saying, “I didn't sign up for this. You told me to do this. I did. And now, like at the end of the road, here we are dealing with failure.”
Accepting that was not an easy journey. And so essentially I got to the point where I shut down. I told my parents, “I don't wanna have nothing to do with church. I don't wanna be talked into going to church. I just wanna be left alone to myself”.
And it was difficult for them as parents to hear those words. You can only imagine. But I was just in too much pain to talk about God or to have to go to places that would make me experience God, church home group. I withdrew. I basically just shut down emotionally, and I just pushed everybody away and I felt like I've reached an end at the time. But God had other plans.
John Yoder: So what was it that helped you round that corner and come to the place of really embracing your faith and even being stronger in it?
Maria Makhnach: It was God and God himself. There is nothing that I did. There's nothing anybody did. It was literally God himself.
I think, when God gives life to each and every single one of us, he has a certain plan, and when he has a plan, he finishes. He's not a human being who starts something and doesn't finish. There was a moment while I was sitting in my misery and offense and unforgiveness towards God, towards myself, towards people. And he just spoke to me through my mom.
She said something that really hit my heart. “The day we're born, your life was not yours, it was God's. God created you, not for your glory, so that you can go off and live your life the way you see fit. But he created you so you can live your life to glorify him”. And that hit very hard for me.
And after, she just encouraged me to give God another shot rather than giving up and ask him how does he see failure, which I have not done to that point. I was doing a whole entire journey. I started out relying on God, but somewhere along the way I started to rely on Maria alone. I did not rely on his wisdom, on his guidance. So then when I failed, I felt like he failed me. But all along, what I was doing is not including him in the conversation, I was just running my own way.
John Yoder: And then what happened as you moved forward? You had not passed the bar. You did not pass your test. That was a big disappointment. What happened after that?
Maria Makhnach: So after you know that conversation with my mom, every year before New Year starts, I have almost like a tradition. I go away and just be with God and set goals for the new year, what I want to accomplish. And so that year my mom just encouraged me. There was a conference going on, since she encouraged me to go, to just go away, be with the Lord. Like just give him a last chance. So I did.
And while I was there, a person that I did not know came up to me and basically said, “Whatever journey you're walking through, God is going to fulfill and it's going to be a miracle. You're gonna look back and it's gonna be your testimony”.
I heard it, but I am a person that needs hardcore evidence. I won't believe it till I see it. I am a dreamer, but I'm also a realist through and through. And so I was like, okay, great. I've heard it. Doesn't mean it's gonna happen, but I'll take it, put it in the back of my mind, stuffed it away. And I was like, reality is different, but okay.
And then while I was at the conference, the Lord was just ministering in miraculous ways to my heart that I won't get into. And then while driving back, there was a song that came on that essentially was a reminder that the fire that he lit inside of me was not meant to be tamed by anything, but it was lit by him. So then it was gonna continue to be done in the way that he sees fit.
About a week to two weeks after, I got back at night, I see a lot of dreams. And God would speak to me about dreams and the dream was the same. It was me getting my diploma and walking out and being a nurse. And I would wake up from those dreams, or understanding that the reality is different. But then in my dream, it felt so real that it almost was like, I wish that was reality. So then that all prompted me, drove me to action.
I met up with my counselor at the time and I was like, Let me just give God one a shot. Lemme put him to the test. So I met up with my counselor, said, “What are the options for me to really finish? I know it's impossible, but what are my chances”? And so basically he's “You have to go before the panel and defend your case”. And I was like, “Okay, let's do it”.
In college, we have a two-week period between fall semester and spring semester. So during those two weeks, I met with the panel. I basically told them I deserved to be retested on all of the material that I was taught in the class, which is six months worth of material.
Even as I was sitting talking with them, I'm like, “What am I saying? This is insane”. And I told them why I deserve to graduate that same year. Essentially, it was to chase the dream that God gave me, which was to go to the nations, heal people through medicine, and be the hands and feet of Jesus. And the dean was like, “Okay. Let's do it.”
So I studied for two weeks and then got a chance to retest. And when I tell you God can do miracles, he can do miracles. I ended up with the score that was way higher than any score I got throughout my schooling journey. And then that allowed me to graduate, and essentially allowed me to take boards and get my ultimate dream I was chasing all along.
Looking back, I can say two things. When God says something, he'll do it, he'll finish it.
He might not look like how I imagined it, but he finishes what he starts, and that's the beautiful thing about him. He never fails. Even though sometimes as humans we look from the outside in, and the way he moves does not make sense to us.
John Yoder: Yeah. And so God blessed you. In the end, he gave you what you were looking for. In that process, Maria, you went through a lot of pain. Has that created in you a capacity for empathy, and for being with others who are really struggling?
Maria Makhnach: Yes, a hundred percent. One of the biggest questions when I looked back at the time was “God, why did you decide to end my journey that way”?
I just didn't understand and, 'cause it was like I came so close my, I was 2% away from my passing grade. I was just mad. I was like, are you serious? If it was like 5%, 10%, I understand, but 2%. It just does not make sense. It's like crossing to the finish line and then tripping over your own feet and falling flat on your face. That's what it felt like.
And I kept asking God, “Why did you have to put me through failure”? Which I thought was failure. But then as soon as I started working my first job and with my very first patient, I gained a level of understanding. It was, failure does not equal identity. It's a perspective. Outcome is not the end result. What we should be chasing is the journey that we're walking through, that is ultimately the priority over the outcome.
When I look back at my journey, I was so focused on becoming a nurse. I forgot that the journey was more important than the outcome. 'cause the journey allowed to form me into the person that is far more important to God then me becoming something.
And so when I'm in the hospital, when I was working through my patients, as soon as I hear, “Hey, I'm a failure. I'm worthless. I can't do this, I can't do that”, it brought a lot like one I could resonate with.
Especially in our generation, we are taught to perform. Our identity is heavily based on our performance, and if we underperform, we ultimately feel like we failed the world. That is not true. When God looks at you, he curated you beautifully and wonderfully. He sees you as a child of God.
And that is the understanding I gained when I looked back and at my nursing journey, I was like, okay, now that makes sense. God wanted to teach me to see myself not as a nurse, but first and foremost as a child of God who abides in the love of the Father and who just happens to be a nurse who was equipped not by myself, but by him. And therefore, I let my life be the platform for his glory.
See, when you begin to drive your identity on performance, what happens is you take the lead, you take the wheel. But when you let God tell you exactly who you are, which is that you are loved, you are cherished, you are seen. You are the most precious thing the Lord created. What happens is everything that happens in your life, whether you're a nurse, whether you're a carpenter, whether you're working at McDonald's and you're flipping burgers, it feels like the most luxurious job in the world.
And even if you fail, even if somebody tells you like, “You can't do it, or you won't reach your potential, you're not living up to your potential,” it does not hurt you because you sit in the confidence that you know who you belong to.
And then, when I was walking through hospital walls, some of the patients I took care of were, felt like their words could crumble me. They were dealing with so much brokenness in our life. And what amazed me the most, the more the Lord affirmed me in my identity, which he did before, and then while I was working my job, when I would stand in those rooms and have those conversations, and be told that I am underqualified underequipped, it didn't move me, because I knew who God created me to be, where my identity lies.
And it doesn't matter what man says, at the end of the day, man can say all they want, but if God has you at a place where he wants you and he brought you to it, he'll see you through it.
So ultimately, empathy is a tool that allowed me to just open up doors with the help of the Lord to see the people for who they are, who they were created to be, not by what they do or what they bring to the table.
John Yoder: That's a powerful story and it, obviously it is your personal story, but it also illustrates a lot of Bible truth. Robin, do you have any questions or thoughts you would like to bounce off, Maria?
Robin Karkafi: One thing that I also related with is your relationship with your parents and your mother. I understand that like with immigrants, especially with parents who strive for excellence, they always want the best for the kids.
And I've always had that relationship with them where there was a high expectation set. I went through engineering school, and four years later I felt completely unaccomplished. I felt like this is really not where I should be headed. But again, maybe where God wanted me to be for that season of my life. Did you experience any tension between you and your parents?
Maria Makhnach: My parents actually, no, but I would say it was me. So for me it was the opposite. I used to be such a perfectionist or an, I'm an idealist a little bit. And I had to learn how to lower my own standards of excellence for myself so that I have enough grace.
So for me, it was a little bit of an opposite. A lot of my pressure came from myself onto myself. And my parents had to remind me like, you're not a superwoman. We have an ongoing joke. My dad's, “You're not a superwoman. You can't save the world”. And that's basically what saved me.
Robin Karkafi: I do realize that, it can stem from parents for sure. It can also stem from the person itself. But it's a great trait to have to strive for excellence, strive for trying your best. But sometimes people get carried away to an unhealthy extent, right? How was that transition there?
Maria Makhnach: It was hard. So practically, I had to incorporate a time where I just would sit still not do anything, even in my personal time with the Lord, not sit there when I'm praying and ask him, “Okay, what's the next thing you want me to do? What's the next thing you want me to do”? Just sit still and let that just be and let him speak in whatever that looked like.
And as simple as that sounds, for me that was very difficult. To sit still is not a thing for me. I'm constantly on the move.
A second one was to allow myself to block out days where I could just rest and not do anything. Because I always felt like if I have a day of sitting and moping around, I'm not productive. Therefore what am I doing? I'm not living my life with a purpose.
I had to invite people close to me, so my parents, first and foremost, and some close friends. There was a period of my life where I would just ask them, Hey remind me why I am enough.
Slowly through that my expectations for myself and that mentality of I'm not enough, it didn’t die completely, but it became easier to grasp the concept of “You are child of God and just as much as you love others and pour onto others, you also deserve to be poured on and loved on by people around you”.
John Yoder: Maria, you've got a powerful story, and we look forward to hearing more of it in time to come as we interact with many of our guests.
Maria Makhnach: Thanks for giving me the opportunity to be here. Everybody, that was a great time and thank you for tuning in. I've been listening to Cross-Cultural Voices for a while now, and I can tell you that it is a resource that is worth utilizing. We are so excited for our next guest. Who is it gonna be next week, John?
John Yoder: Yeah, the next couple that we have are Jerrin Job and Danica White. Jerrin was born in India, came to the US for his master's degree. And of the eight people that we're interviewing, Danica is the only white American. So we've got quite the diverse crowd. They've got a great story, and we look forward to hearing their story next week. We'll see you then.
Maria Makhnach: See you then.
