Paying It Forward

📺 Featured on WSAV – Pay It Forward with Tina Tyus-Shaw

📅 Aired September 2022

🔗 Watch the full segment here https://bit.ly/3DJv5lZ

Thank you, Tina Tyus-Shaw, for telling my story. I’m humbled, grateful, and deeply honored to have been part of WSAV’s Pay It Forward segment.

While filming this story, Tina asked me when I moved to the United States. I paused for a moment and realized—it was September 23rd, 2013. I was 35 years old, arriving with two suitcases, a hopeful heart, and Anastasia on the way.

It’s now 2025. More than a decade has passed.

Looking back, it’s hard to put into words what this journey has meant to me. I’ve experienced challenge and change, growth and grace. I’ve learned to adapt, to rebuild, to dream in a new language. I’ve failed, I’ve risen, I’ve cried, I’ve laughed—and I’ve done it all with love.

I’m profoundly thankful for the people who stood beside me and believed in me—my husband, our children, my parents, my brother, dear friends, and every single person who helped me in ways big and small. You are all part of this story.

I am thankful for the resilience that carried me through the unknown.And for the love that has surrounded and sustained me at every step.

I thank God for the path, the grace, the strength, and the joy.And I thank this country—for the chance to create, contribute, and become.

To everyone who made space for me at the table: thank you.I promise I will always be someone who makes space for others.

With all my heart,

❤️ Maja