Meeting with Dr. Igor

MEETING  WITH  DR.  IGOR

Mariam presented a copy of “Worries Won’t Happen – Fred’s Story” to Dr. Teresa Leyba, President of Glendale Community College and Dr. Igor Voytov, student at GCC. 

The Glendale Community College Donor Luncheon was held on Thursday afternoon, March 21st.  And what a scene this was!  White tablecloth lay-out . . . soft background music . . . 223 people dressed up in their Sunday-go-to-meeting outfits.  All mixed together were GCC staff, donors of Scholarships and students who received scholarships.

Magaly, my super-special daughter-in-law, is a Physical Therapist at the Adapted Fitness Center, so she came from her job and we met at our table.   And also at our table - Igor and Liudmila Voytov.  who were awarded Dr. Fred Cheshire ESL Scholarships for the purpose of improving their English skills.  (I told you their stories in the last Newsletter.)

I asked Dr. Igor to write a short story of his life in Russia.  Before I show you that I need to mention a couple of things. 

(A).  If you have tried to make a contribution to Fred’s Scholarship Fund by credit card, the link I gave you was not working for awhile.  It has been corrected and royalties of $230 from “Worries Won’t Happen – Fred’s Story” have been added to this fund.  Book sales were consistent for a couple of months and now have settled down to once-in-awhile.  This is not an earth-shattering contribution but each one of you who purchased a book can know that every dollar continues to grow in the Endowment Fund.  Believe me, I thank all of you so much who have purchased books and donated to the Fund. 

This now works for credit card donation:  https:mcccdf.org/Cheshire   

Try it out if you don’t believe me! J

(B).  If you have something to tell me about your friendship with Fred, please let me know in the next month.  By June 4^th I hope to finish a rough draft of “There’s Nothing I Can’t Do.”  Send me an email at mimar102@cox.net

The reason for the June 4 date:  My spine is curving which is causing me considerable pain.  The doctors are going to open up my back again and screw some more strengthening metal in the lower part.  When this was first done on July 3^rd, it took me six weeks before I recovered enough to bend over again.  My doctor keeps reminding me in a regretful tone, “Since you’re 91, this is going to take longer, be harder.”  And I keep reminding him, “There’s nothing I can do about the age, let’s get this over with.”  I’m not worried.  If I appeared at the Golden Gate before I finished this book, Fred would tell me “Turn around, go back and get back to work.”

So here’s Dr. Igor and what he wrote for us.  I’ll get Liudmila’s story after I finish this surgery. 

I was born in Ukraine as a sickly child.  All my childhood was associated with constant pain.  When I was five years old my father gave me the Bible.  I read the words that became my guiding star for the rest of my life: "Give and it will be given to you".  

Soon 

Soon my family moved to Rostov-on-Don. That city is located in the southern part of Russia with more than 1 million inhabitants.

I graduated from medical university and was able to help a lot of people. I wrote the book “Councils of the Orthodox doctor” in 2000. Many people thought that I was a very rich person. To be honest, I was able to earn about 100 dollars by selling my book. Most of the time I distributed the book for free. Government officials demanded a bribe of $3,000 to renew my medical license. I did not want to give bribes, and I did not have 3000 dollars for these purposes so I lost my license.

I mastered the new profession as a software quality specialist.  This gave me

more money than my work in medicine.

In 2010, my son won the Green Card lottery from the US government and moved to the USA. He enlisted in the US Air Force and received the medal for the meritorious service.

The nationalists of my country found out about my son's military service and fired a gun at our apartment. The windows were broken. They set fire to our front door repeatedly. I received threats of physical violence. The question was constantly asked: “What if we fight America, will your son shoot at his Russian brothers?” I went to the police. I was officially told that they (a police officer) can not do anything. A police officer unofficially advised me to leave the city.

In 2013, my wife and I came as tourists to the USA. I wanted to apply for political asylum, but my son said that this is a bad solution to the problem.

We returned to Russia after 6 months and moved to live in Moscow. We left all our belongings in Rostov-on-Don. I kept it a secret in Moscow that my son lives in America and serves in the Air Force. My son applied for family reunification. After 1.5 years, we moved to the United States to reunite with my son’s family.

I was able to get a job as a deliveryman in Domino pizza. The work was very hard. On July 13, 2017, the weather was extremely hot and the air conditioner broke down at my store. I worked during that day and my health failed. I lost vision on my right eye. I turned to a doctor and good people from the Lions Sight & Hearing Foundation charity helped me with restoring my vision. I am grateful to the kind people in America.

God bless you and your family.

With respect, Igor.