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I have been in Ukraine for two weeks now. I have met many wonderful people, had some amazing things take place, but the following will be my first post describing my time here.
February 21, 2025
There are times in life when an event happens that makes a deep impact on our life. Today that happened to me. Let me share a bit about the past two weeks I have been in Ukraine. As I have traveled across this land, I have seen so much that I have never seen in my homeland in America. I have seen a war torn country – road barricades, buildings leveled, windows blown out, all kinds of damage. I have seen buildings 500 years old. I have seen some of the largest grain fields I could have imagined. I have traveled difficult roads that were damaged beyond any I have ever driven on in my country. I have heard bombs going off in the night. I have heard constant warnings on my phone about possible attacks. All of this is foreign to my existence in my home country.
But today – I had an experience that I will not forget. There was a meeting scheduled by caring Christians who meet with people from villages who do not have a church, a car, or so many other things that most people think are normal. The meeting was held in a room in a small building that seemed set apart from everything else. We drove a long, snow covered driveway to get there. Everyone else in attendance had walked there. The room was probably about 20 feet by 25 feet. There were benches where people could sit. There was a small wood burning stove against one wall. One light hung from the center of the room. There were a couple windows that leaked cold air. It was very cold outside. It was not yet very warm inside. But there were a handful of ladies all ready seated and waiting for the meeting to begin.
The meeting went according to the schedule of several other meetings I had attended during the past week or so. There was singing, a testimony, a recitation, more singing, and then a short message on a Bible topic. Giving that message was my responsibility this day. I had done nothing to deserve this honor to speak to these dozen or so women. But here I was being given this opportunity to say something that might have meaning to them.
As I sat there waiting my turn, I looked over the women that were there. Most were at least 60 years old. Probably many were widows. Not one had taken off their coat or hat. They sat very still and were attentive – taking in all that was happening only a few feet in front of them. What had they come to see? They saw a mother with her two school age children, two teenage girls, a black man from Uganda who spoke fluent Russian and English, and two men in their late sixties, one was a native born Russian living for years in Ukraine, and the other was an American with a very white beard and hair. But no one acted as if there was anything unusual about this setting, in fact, it appeared normal to all that were there.
As I prepared my thoughts in my mind, I thought to my school age years, when we were taught about the Soviet Union and what life was like during that time for people who lived under that government. And here I sat in this room (that certainly had been built during my early childhood or before) with these women who were my age and who had been young girls that I had learned about while I was living in a very free land over 5,000 miles away.
In my 47 years of preaching, I do not think any setting I have been in could compare to this experience. I have had the opportunity to speak in meetings where there were thousands present. I have spoken in small home church gatherings. I have spoken in several foreign countries, in prisons, homes for the aged, and hospital rooms.
But there was something quite special about standing only a few feet from these women in this very small space, in this building that looked liked nothing had been done to it since it was built three generations ago. And I was talking about how God loves us so much that He gave His only begotten Son for our salvation. These women who had grown up under an oppressive regime that told them there was no God were now hearing from a person who has known nothing but freedom.
And then think about this. Their country was now again at war with that same government from Russia, and they being not far from the border were being constantly subjected to the actions of wartime – bombs, threats, military searches, and loss of electricity.
It was completely dark outside now but inside the simple light revealed every eye was focused on me and the translator, listening intently to my foreign words and the familiar words that followed. The last thought I left with them was to consider their relationship with God and what would happen when they stood before Jesus Christ some day. Maybe only in eternity will the ones who faithfully go to that meeting house to sing and speak with them find out the results of their efforts to bring these ladies to Christ.
But, my friend, what happened today in that setting is real life Christianity. You can take all the vain Christian activity in America that fills weeks, months, and years of time, put it all together, multiply it by 1000, and it would not be equal to what happened in that time spent together by those caring believers whose hearts were united with those Ukrainian women who had been told for so many years – there is no God. From experience those women now know that God is alive and real.
If you are familiar with Slavic gospel hymns, you know that much of it has sad undertones that come from a people who know about suffering. And Jesus came to suffer for people that are suffering because of what happened when sin came into this world. Slava Boga.
