A Tale from the West: One Pastor’s Life in Chaotic Times. Ukraine Stories 3/7

Trigger Warning: While not very descriptive, this blog contains references to: Air Raid Sirens, War, Rape

“Sometimes we can look at what’s happening and only describe it with one sentence: It seems that the Devil’s arms are untied.” -Martin

Martin is a man I’ve gotten to know quite well over the past two years. A Baptist minister, he is a father to two sweet little kids (5 and under). Martin has been instrumental in spreading the Gospel in word and deed, despite the war that has raged on.

I’ve sat with Martin over many meals or cups of tea/coffee, where he’s updated us on the harsh realities that he and ‘his people’ endure. In contrast, when I bid him adieu, I return to my home in Budapest where life is normal in all its ways (reliable wifi, consistent electric, take-out/delivery food services, you know, ‘normal life’ in the modern world).

What Martin shares, though, stays with me.

How do you make sense of it all? So many things that are not propaganda, that are not exaggerations, but are the lived reality of so many people. I pray that these are things that nobody in my family ever has to endure.

Most recently, Martin shared what he heard from a military chaplain, someone on the front lines, ministering to wounded people of all types (soldiers and civilians).

I know that Chaplaincy work is gritty and raw, providing access to real people and real situations. As a ‘man/woman of God,’ you are invited/welcomed into their lives when their lives may be hanging in the balance. You are given the opportunity to hear their unfiltered thoughts/longings (sometimes spoken on a deathbed, almost always spoken through palpable levels of pain). And you are given the opportunity to encourage them towards Hope in a Loving God, no matter their situation.

Martin shared what his chaplain friend told him: how he has offered counseling for so many men, women and children. People who have experienced all manner of torture and rape…

Let me ask you something. Do you believe the victims?

“Sometimes we can look at what’s happening and only describe it with one sentence: It seems that the Devil’s arms are untied.”

This was what Martin said after a moment of silence, and before many more moments of silence.

When you attempt to realize the destruction that has occurred and is still occurring, words fail you.

So much devastation has occurred in the previous two years. Really, so much!

I saw recently a two-year anniversary post (on 02 April 2024) about the liberation of Bucha (a town near Kyiv). When Bucha was liberated a little over a month after the invasion began, 9,000 cases of war crimes were documented. Nine thousand!! In one town. Which had been occupied for only one month…

Multiply that across a nation about as large as the state of Texas. Multiply that over two years time (and counting).

It is unimaginable the pain and trauma that has been endured. Even for ones geographically distant from the routine bombings and invasion… Even for ones physically sheltered (so far) from the loss of life and limb…

…There is the incessant psychological trauma.

What does it do to a person to hear air-raid sirens every day?

What does it do to a person to hear regular accounts of destroyed towns?

What does it do to a person to discover names every day of people you’ll never see again?

Video LINK of Air Raid Siren from a recent delivery of humanitarian aid.

Martin wrestles with the psychological trauma of his nation. He wonders how they will ever recover, once the war comes to an end.

There is so much that so many have experienced that so many of the rest of us truly cannot fathom (thankfully!!).

One way we can all offer hope is through helping to provide humanitarian aid. Here is a link to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund. Money given there, earmarked ‘Ukraine’ will go towards providing food and medicine to people in more need than hopefully any of us reading this ever will be. I will personally load the products into our church van and deliver them to Martin in Ukraine. Martin has proven himself to be a man of deep integrity, a man of deep humility, and a man of intense unshakeable faith.

Link: https://www.jesusisthesubject.org/disaster-relief-and-restoration/

Martin is in a position similar to mine. He is far removed from the daily bombardments. However, he is much more closely involved in providing help than we are. He is the next link in the chain. He receives the humanitarian aid sent by the Church of God. And he sends it on to places where it is needed. For reference, check out THIS LINK TO AN EARLIER BLOG.

Further, though, Martin is much more closely involved in that he is Ukrainian. He speaks the Ukrainain language, as well as Russian. He has personal connections and relationships with so many men and women that I’ll never know.

In contrast, I have a personal connection and relationship only with Martin. What little information and few stories I receive is filtered through him.

Meanwhile, he has heard an infinite number of stories. I cannot imagine how he stays sane, as the few stories I hear are overwhelming and exhausting enough.

Additionally, through all the stress and tension, Martin has his own personal stress and tension.

See, Martin is a prime candidate for military conscription.

He’s a young able-bodied Ukrainian man. Until now, Martin has been exempt from military service on the basis of his work delivering Humanitarian Aid, passing along what we deliver to him!

Even with this exemption, Martin does not leave his home without his children being in the car with him. He knows that even with exemptions, desperate times call for desperate measures and he could be stopped at one of the multiple military checkpoints that spring up all over the place. His children don’t necessarily prevent him from being conscripted, but they do prevent him from being immediately conscripted (If he were alone in the car, the car could be taken off the road, or left on the side of the road. But not with small children.).

Recently, Martin told me that they don’t make plans anymore beyond the next day or two. ‘We don’t make plans because we don’t have any idea what the situation will be. Will we be alive still? Will we have more people living with us that we need to care for? Will our town be reeling from missile strikes?’

As the war continues, please pray for PEACE.

Please pray for an end to all this suffering and destruction.

Please pray for all who have lost a loved one.

Please pray for all families separated because of fleeing and/or military conscription.

Please pray for all who are forced to live day-to-day, not knowing what tomorrow may hold.

Please join us in praying for Martin and so many like him, who tirelessly work to bring help and HOPE, despite all the incessant stress and uncertainty.

Also, please consider making a donation to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund, earmarked ‘Ukraine.’ Here is the link:

https://www.jesusisthesubject.org/disaster-relief-and-restoration/

The Ukrainian Church: Hope through Adversity

Over the past twenty-one months as the war has waged on in Ukraine, the Three Worlds team has sought ways to encourage and support our Ukrainian Church of God contacts – those who are still in Ukraine, many of whom are internally displaced, as well as those who have fled Ukraine and have needed to reestablish themselves and their families in a country not their own.

One of those close contacts is Pastor Stepan. The Three Worlds team first connected with Stepan and his family when they attended the Three Worlds Leadership Network (3WLN) event in its earliest years, and immediately ministry connections were made. Stepan was scheduled to lead a session at the 3WLN event in 2020 until it was canceled due to the pandemic. At that time, plans were also just beginning to formalize for EuropeX, a church-planting network, and Stepan was set to be a part of this as well.

As a Church of God pastor in Ukraine, Stepan was leading a young and growing church. Building upon their momentum, the church had a number of young people with aspirations to serve and impact their local community in a variety of unique ways. 

In addition to leading the local congregation, Stepan helped lead a network of pastors and leaders in ten other congregations throughout Ukraine. Together, these pastors had dreams to plant more churches, impact more families, and point more people to Jesus. Then, on February 24, 2022, Ukraine was attacked.

While there was a tremendous amount of uncertainty, the Ukrainian Church of God immediately jumped into action, housing displaced people, sharing whatever essential supplies they could provide, establishing and coordinating a relief supply chain that stretched across the country, ministering to others who had lost so much, and always pointing people to Jesus.

Pastor Stepan and his family faithfully served in this capacity in their home church for many months, until they finally had to make the difficult decision to leave Ukraine. Stepan’s wife was pregnant, they had two young boys, and their parents were dealing with physical ailments that required attention.

Knowing other young leaders were ready to step in and lead the church and local relief efforts well, Stepan and his family received their paperwork allowing them to leave Ukraine, and they made their way to southern Germany. Upon arriving, Pastor Stepan saw an opportunity to gather other Ukrainians having experienced the same atrocities as he and his family. In the following months, with the help of local German Church of God leaders, a new church was planted in Calw, Germany.  

Stepan and his family were only a handful of the 2000+ Ukrainians who arrived in Calw. They were able to connect with several hundred Ukrainians, as word spread that there was a church being led by people who fully understood the horrors they had experienced. 

Today, the church operates weekly programs with Sunday worship services, youth group meetings, bible study classes, and more. Eighteen people have been baptized in the last year, and many Ukrainian Orthodox believers have shared that they have experienced the love and compassion of Jesus for the first time through the church in Calw.

Our Three Worlds team is thankful for the opportunities we have been given to walk alongside Pastor Stepan through this experience. Most recently, in partnership with the German Church of God and the Global Strategy/Church of God Ministries – Anderson, the team was able to help coordinate the funding of a stipend that will allow Stepan to continue focusing on ministry. The German government requires those seeking refugee status to obtain a work contract within a certain timeframe. The stipend provided through this joint effort has allowed Stepan to meet this requirement and continue in full-time ministry.

 We praise God for the continued ministry of Pastor Stepan and his family. Having experienced the devastating impact of the war firsthand, they have in turn been instrumental in welcoming and walking alongside many refugees experiencing the same.  

A Tale from the East: One Pastor’s commitment to ‘feed his flock.’ Ukraine Stories 2/7

For Pastor Appreciation Month, this article is in honor of Ukrainian pastors, all of whom have been faced with an insanely difficult year.

I know many Ukrainian pastors who decided to flee Ukraine this year. Many of them fled to neighboring countries (Hungary, Poland, Germany, et. al.). They did what is best for their families, to keep their wives and young children safe from harm’s way.

I know many Ukrainian pastors who have chosen to stay put and keep on keeping on.

I also know many Ukrainian pastors who have fled their homes, but have chosen (sometimes out of legal obligation…) to stay within the borders of Ukraine.

ALL OF THEM have wrestled with questions no pastor should have to wrestle with.

It is easy to pass judgment one way or another, but until you are in their shoes…

until the spotlight is directly on you and your family…

What would you do?

What should you do?

What does God want you to do???

I want to tell you the story of one man whom I have been privileged to meet on a few occasions this year.

He was a pastor in Donetsk. Until 2014, when Russia invaded that region of Ukraine and annexed Crimea. (By the way, “annexation” looks strangely like what my ancestors did to ‘The New World,’ despite it being properly inhabited already.)

In 2014, he and his wife fled their home in Donetsk. They moved to a lovely seaside town, safely removed from the hotspots. Perhaps you’ve heard of it: Mariupol.

It’s the same city that the Russian military has all but wiped off the map in 2022.

This time (Spring 2022), the pastor (whom I’ll call ‘Sasha’) and his wife fled farther from their homes, seeking shelter with family in western Ukraine (near the border with Poland).

When they fled westward, they invited any of their congregants to join them, promising to care for their basic needs and help find them a place to stay until it became safe to return ‘home.’ Some chose to take them up on this offer and they joined their caravan heading westward. Some chose to stay behind, knowing that it would not be easy to do so. But how could they leave their home? How could they leave their property and possessions? And if they did leave, what would that even look like? Where would they go??

In June of this year, I sat down with Pastor Sasha and listened for the better part of an hour as he shared his experiences from the previous several months. See, even though he and his wife fled to safety in western Ukraine, he has continued to go back to the East every month. Why, you ask?? Let’s hear it from him directly:

“We are from Donetsk. We left Donetsk in 2014 when the war started. We were ministering there in the church. I was the pastor there, there were two of us. So our ministry at that time, when we left, we started ministering at the front line. We planted two churches there. So that’s how we started the church there. There were people who just started attending the church there.

And now, we are responsible for that. We care for them. We cannot get right to Donetsk, because we can even not pass or give something to them. It’s not allowed. And these territories, it’s still the territory of Ukraine.

Even it’s dangerous there, but we go there. Just to see people and hug people, to pray with them. They appreciate that, the care we bring. And of course, some food, some pills or medicine, some treatment. And those that are willing we evacuate from there. This is the trip we had recently, the last one.”

As he spoke of the danger he routinely faces traveling into war-torn neighborhoods, I found myself wondering “what would I do???”

What would I do if I were an Ukrainian pastor? How would I respond to all this devastation?

Would my family stay in our home? Or would we flee to safety? And if we stayed, what would my life look like? What would my ministry look like?

I remember fondly my time serving as a pastor in Indiana. The joys of pastoral ministry involve leading one’s staff (usually mostly volunteer-based), leading the regular worship services, teaching/preaching, and visiting one’s congregants (especially the sick and elderly).

I remember one dear old widow whom I would regularly visit. Those visits were so nice. She was such a sweet faithful lady. My visits would begin with getting a can of Pepsi from her fridge, before I would walk into her living room where she would be sitting.

Even if I didn’t want a Pepsi, I learned to take one. Or else inevitably a moment later I would see her struggle to get up and go to the fridge to get one for me.

Those visits would be relaxing as we shared stories and just enjoyed fellowship, before we prayed and I went on to my next appointment.

IN STARK CONTRAST TO THAT, I listened to Pastor Sasha’s recent visits to such a lady from his congregation. Before we take a look at that conversation, I should preface things by saying that, at this point in our conversation he pulled out a large plastic Pepsi cup and dumped its contents onto the table between us.  Suddenly the space between us is consumed by a lot of shards of metal.

Daniel: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh…

Pastor Sasha: …This is specific bomb material because before when the bomb was exploded, it was not sharp. But now they make it out of some metal which is very sharp so it will just cut wherever it goes.

Daniel: Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh….That’s insane…Where did you get this???

Pastor Sasha: Just when i went there, i was visiting an old lady, a grandma, I opened the gate and right near the gate was this part and also that one, and I was picking it up, and she was like ‘oh I’ve got lots of them, my son…’

Daniel: …Oh my gosh, oh my gosh…

Pastor Sasha: This one is from near the church territory. In Donetsk area. Front line.

Daniel: Unbelievable. Can I take a picture of it?

How do you pastor people whose lives are literally in jeopardy every day?

How do you pastor people whose thoughts are consumed by such fundamental questions as:

Should I stay in my home, or flee to some other geographic location?

Will I die today?

Will someone I know and love die today?

I found myself selfishly wondering if I will one day wrestle with PTSD just from listening to Pastor Sasha’s experiences…

In this conversation, he shared stories from his own experience. And he shared stories from the experiences of his colleagues and of his congregants. He spoke of young men being called up into military service, who have since died. He spoke of older men volunteering for military service, who have since died. He spoke of men whom it is unclear what happened to them. He spoke of handicapped people from his congregation who are unable to move freely on their own. He has evacuated many of them from their homes and taken them to safety. But then the next struggle begins: Where is a safe, available, and also handicapped-accessible place for them to stay for an undetermined amount of time???

How do you shepherd people in a time of war??

How do you provide for their spiritual well-being while yours is undoubtedly also being massively challenged, to put it lightly?

How do you provide for their physical well-being while you yourself are living in temporary housing, provided by a friend, a family or a church connection?

These are all questions I have never been forced to even consider.

Pastoral ministry requires a wide range of skills and a wide knowledge base. While one does not have to be an expert in many fields, it certainly helps to know a little about a variety of things. It is basically necessary to also have a lot of connections: people whom you can turn to for advice, information, assistance with things out of your ‘wheelhouse.’ See, no one person can do it all. We need others. This is true on a ministerial level. This is also true on a lay-level.

Pastor Sasha: “But one positive thing out of this war… the war united even Christians and nonbelievers. When this war started, all the people were volunteering, ah…it doesn’t matter the denomination now, everybody is just mixed together, helping together, serving and ministering in different locations, so this is also shuffled us, which is good. Before, all the denominations were so separate, they never, like very rarely they do something together and they, yeah when everything was good everybody was just by themselves. And now it doesn’t matter who you are.”

Sasha’s Wife: “It was so obvious, you just go on the way, like because of the traffic jams were terrible, and so we just stopped in different churches. And it doesn’t matter which church, you just stop. They have mattresses, they accept you, they feed you. And then you go next, and then you go next, and lots of people, rotations. Because we were on the way for three, little bit more than three days, because the roads were stopped…”

This is the story of just one Pastor. There are many similar stories. As Pastor Appreciation Month draws to a close, I invite you to join me in praying not only for your local pastors. But also pray for all the pastors in Ukraine. And Russia! And pray for all those who had been serving in one of those countries, but are currently located elsewhere.

In addition to prayer, I would invite you to consider giving to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund. This fund has helped provide resources to care for the ongoing needs of those whose lives have been greatly affected by the war in Ukraine. Please click on THIS LINK and write ‘Ukraine’ in the comments.

https://www.jesusisthesubject.org/disaster-relief-and-restoration/

A Tale of Two Churches: Ukraine Stories 1/7

Once upon a time there were two churches…

They were both located in western Ukraine. They were only about 15 kilometers away from each other. But they did not have any connection or partnership. The only thing they had in common was that they both worshipped the Risen Lord Jesus on Sunday mornings.

They were not affiliated with the same denomination or faith group. One identifies as ‘Non-denominational,’ while the other simply identifies as ‘Evangelical.’

But then a tragedy occurred on the other side of their nation.

And with a tragedy always comes an opportunity. In the famous words of Mister Rogers, ‘look for the helpers.’ See link HERE.

Their communities became overrun with ‘refugees’ (more accurately ‘internally-displaced people’), fleeing their homes in the east. Some of these people came from Church of God congregations in eastern Ukraine. Some came from different faith backgrounds. Some came from totally irreligious backgrounds.

But they all came with very real needs.

Needs for Shelter. Needs for Food. Needs for friendship and community.

These two congregations began doing what they could to care for these new ‘neighbors.’ And in time, they got to know about one another’s responses to the critical needs all around them.

And they began a partnership.

They have theological and liturgical differences, yes. But what matters is they share “one Lord, one faith, one baptism…”

What an amazing illustration of Unity!

What an amazing testimony to the suffering world all around them of God’s Love in action!

What an amazing testimony to the peace of Christ!

In subsequent articles, I will share more individualized stories from our collective experiences these past several months. You will hear first-hand from some of the people that they are helping. Note: Specific names and locations will consistently be withheld for security purposes.

I would ask for you to do two things in response:

1.) Pray for all involved. Pray for God to continue to meet their needs, especially as winter is right around the corner.

2.) Please consider giving! Giving to the Church of God Disaster Relief fund is an easy way for you to make a tangible difference. Please click on this link and mark ‘Ukraine’ in the comments.