`Your daughter may never walk': Vladimir Devakov tells Mary Lean why he's through with being a victim.

Ukrainian teacher Vladimir Devakov thought he would never have children. `This was not based on anything objective, just the feeling that God would not give them to me,' he says. So when his wife, Tanya, told him she was pregnant he was delighted.

Tanya had to spend three weeks in hospital to prevent a miscarriage. This, says Vladimir, is not uncommon in today's Ukraine. `Most of our pregnant friends have had the same experience--maybe it's air or water pollution, or lack of nutrition. A pregnancy pathologist told us that during the Soviet era her department was always empty, but now she can't find empty beds to put people in.'

Healthcare in Ukraine is still officially free of charge, but in reality patients have to provide everything except the beds and mattresses--down to the cotton swab if they are having an injection. Medical staff are overworked and demoralized.

Rather than take their chances in this threadbare system, the Devakovs decided to pay a doctor to supervise the last weeks of Tanya's pregnancy. He said he would arrange everything for the delivery and that when the time came the Devakovs could ring him day or night. `The time came on a public holiday at about 10.30 pm,' says Vladimir. `When the doctor came to the phone he was so drunk he couldn't put two words together. We could only rush to the hospital and take whatever doctor was on duty, who of course knew nothing of Tanya's medical history.'

Masha was born early the next morning. During the delivery, Tanya had concerns that all was not well with the baby, but the neurologist who later checked her said she was fine. When Tanya's room-mate asked a nurse to show her how to put the baby to her breast, she was told, `If dogs can learn how to do it, you can.' And when Tanya expressed concern about leaving hospital with a slight temperature, she was told she had nothing to worry about.

Seven days later Tanya was back in hospital running a dangerous fever. It turned out that the medical staff had not taken proper precautions after the delivery and Tanya had contracted blood poisoning. She nearly died, but amazingly she survived.

When the neurologist from the local clinic examined the baby, he found that Masha's muscle tone was exceptionally low and her reflexes exceptionally high. He diagnosed brain or spinal trauma and said that Masha might learn to walk, but not until she was three or four and even then with a heavy limp.

Vladimir was distraught. `I thought this was how God might treat me--let me see my daughter and then take her away. I had all sorts of plans for the hospital doctor, from lying in wait for him one night to suing him. I didn't know which voices to listen to. Some told me to sue; others told me to get on with having a second baby; others said don't do anything, walk with God; others, don't trust anyone.'

Five months later he left for Switzerland, to spend the summer working as a Russian interpreter for the MRA summer conferences in Caux. `I came with this thought: I come from a country where you take a taxi and are stopped by a traffic policeman. But he is not really a policeman--he wants your money. You proceed to the hospital and see a doctor who is not really a doctor. You think of suing him, so you go to a lawyer who is not really a lawyer. You take your child to school, to a teacher who is not really a teacher. And you begin to apply these doubts to everyone you meet on the street, at work and even in your church.'

Vladimir was touched by the support he found at Caux--the Egyptian paediatrician who wept with him for Masha, the young interpreters who collected money for her treatment, the older man who tried to encourage him each time they met. From the interpreter's booth, he listened to people on the platform talking of forgiveness. Perhaps that was the only real form of compensation for what he had suffered, he thought? He realized that in a small way he could be an agent of change. He could not do anything about corrupt policemen or doctors, but he could do something about education, by trying to be the sort of teacher that had time and consideration for his students. `I decided that I should let God do what only he could, but I should do all I could.'

Back in Ukraine, the Devakovs arranged massage sessions and injections for Masha, and `vitamins and lots of prayers'. By her first birthday she could stand holding on to something, and between 13 and 14 months she started walking. When the whole family came to Caux this summer, Vladimir told their story from the platform--and Masha, aged 18 months, ran across the stage into his arms.

Not satisfied with finding an answer to their own problems, the Devakovs have embarked on a range of initiatives to help others. He has translated booklets with information for parents-to-be. Vladimir and Tanya put aside part of his salary every month (augmented by gifts from a friend in the US) to buy medicine, vitamins and fruit for pregnant women. Their church is setting up a hostel for teenage mothers who have chosen not to have abortions, and they are helping two streetchildren to learn to read and write. Most radically of all, Tanya, who used to work as an accompanist in a music college, has decided to train as a nurse.

And how does Vladimir regard God, who he once thought wanted to take his child? `I heard a story once about the change that happened in someone when she realized that when God looked at her he did not frown but smile. Nowadays I think that God looks first at running Masha, and then he looks at me and waves.'