SPEAKER_00 0:00

So yeah, we're trying to help people to focus on the here and now. This is where you are. You're in our church here. Get get engaged, get involved here. Don't hold on to something that might happen you know next or next season this summer or next year. We don't know what's gonna happen, but this is where God has put you. So be active here.

David Nakhla 0:20

Welcome to the Reformed Deacon, a casual conversation with topics specifically designed to help local Reformed Deacons. There are nearly a thousand deacons in the OPC alone, so let's take this opportunity to learn from and encourage one another. We're so glad you could join us. Let's jump into our next episode. This is David Nakla, coming to you from Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, out of the OPC offices there. Since the Russian invasion on February 24th, 2022, I've been eager to visit the saints in Ukraine, uh, particularly Hiro and Anya Hakaboard, the OPC missionaries serving there with MTW. And I've been to Lviv several times, two times. I was blessed to be part of their English camp outreach. Lviv is a beautiful city, and the people there are lovely. So Ukraine really holds a special place in my heart as a result. Over this past year, as a result of the crisis in Ukraine, I met MTW's Ukraine country director, John Idy. Turns out that when he's not in Ukraine, he resides in his home in the very same city as me in Glenside, Pennsylvania. It's interesting how it took a war for our paths to cross. We've had lunch a number of times this past year discussing the situation in Ukraine and how to be the most helpful. One fruit of those conversations was the idea to have a video created that focused on Hero and his ministry through this wartime period. That wonderful 17 or so minute video was released to our churches in December when we promoted the month as Ukraine Awareness Month. That was very helpful, I think, to our churches and coming up to speed on the ministry in Ukraine. And so I was thrilled when he suggested that it might be a good time to make a visit to Ukraine. And then following that, in January, February, and March, many OP churches got involved in sending crates of goods to Ukraine in a program created by MTW called Crates for Ukraine. The oversight of the Ukraine Crisis Fund, which is our fund that to which people have been giving generously, um, the oversight of that is done by one of the Committee on Diac Ministries subcommittees, the Refugee Ministry Subcommittee. I asked to see if any of the members of that subcommittee might like to participate in this trip. And John Voss Jr., a deacon from the Covenant OPC in Orlean Park, expressed his willingness and desire to go. A little anecdotally, I first traveled with John more than a decade ago to Japan, two months after the tsunami struck. John is a guru on building construction. He's got a huge deacon's heart. So I was really thankful he could make the trip. And then the OPC also recently in January created a new position and hired Jamie Dean to serve as the OPC's first communications coordinator for the denomination. Jamie had previously worked as the national editor for a world magazine, racking up more than 17 years of reporting experience. Informed by that experience, uh Jamie was eager to follow the crates. And so she so she was also invited to participate in this trip. And I'm really blessed to have Jamie with me here today to together reflect on what we learned on the trip. Jamie, welcome to the program.

SPEAKER_02 3:51

Thanks, David. It's great to be here.

David Nakhla 3:53

So let's reflect a little bit together, kind of bring bring people up to speed on kind of where you know how the trip went, maybe walk through a little bit chronologically. Um on Monday, March 13th of this year, we we all flew from our respective cities, John and I from Philadelphia, John Voss from Chicago, and you, Jamie from Charlotte to Krakow, Poland. Arriving midday on Tuesday, we were met by Olena, uh wonderful Ukrainian uh lady, church member who has driven the 200 miles, I think it is, from Lviv to Krakow, more than what, a hundred times or something like that this past year.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

I don't I don't remember exact number, but do you I think it was 40, but it may have been that may have been round trip. I'm not sure. So it was it was a lot of trips.

David Nakhla 4:42

A lot of trips, a lot of trips for 200 miles. Um, and she was able to do that because she is a well, she's not an 18 to 16-year-old male. Um, all the men are not permitted to leave the country. And so she, as a woman, that was a way she was able to contribute and participate in the ministry. So she's been driving that for lots and lots of times, and she graciously agreed to make yet another trip uh to pick us up and escort us through the border crossing and into Ukraine. If I remember right, that border crossing took us like three hours or something like that. Um I think that's right.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

It was a long time.

David Nakhla 5:20

So, but we got through and um without trouble, although they are careful at the borders, it seems. And um by God's grace, I think we arrived in Lviv at maybe nine or ten o'clock at night. Um so that next morning, I think our work officially began. And and uh Jamie, uh, what stood out to you about that morning?

SPEAKER_02 5:45

Well, it started with an air raid siren. So I think that was memorable for all of us. Uh, I think it was shortly before breakfast we heard a pretty pleasant voice come over the hotel intercon telling us that there was an air raid siren underway and we should all go to the bomb shelter in the basement. Uh and uh yeah, I don't think anyone really responded to that, reacted to that very much. I mean, people I looked, I kind of glanced outside, and people kept walking their dogs and going to work and drinking their coffee. And outside you could hear actually the wail of the air-aid siren that goes around the city when they're under um a siren. Um, but you know, I mean, I think the reality in Lviv at this point is that most of those sirens do not materialize into an attack. And so people have just kind of grown used to that and keep just pressing on with their lives. Now, sometimes they do materialize into strikes. I mean, I think it was maybe less than a week before we were there. There was a Russian strike on several parts of Ukraine, and they hit a village about 50 kilometers outside of Lviv, and I think five people were killed. So it's not outside the realm of possibility. It doesn't usually happen, but it's kind of the shadow that people live under. Even though there's this sense of normalcy in Lviv, and it's a beautiful city, and people are doing their normal thing, there is a war going on right there in their country, and they all sort of live under the shadow of that.

David Nakhla 7:16

And if I remember, if I remember right, it was about two hours later that we heard that doo-doo-doo pleasant little noise on the uh on the intercom that said the air raid is over. Um but but just thinking about that, if you had to duck into a bomb shelter every time the air raid siren went off, it's not just leaving what you're doing to go to this air raid shelter, but you're gonna sit there for two hours. Um, it's it's easy to see how it begins to be ignored by most. Um and uh you just you I don't think you can live that way. Um, I think that the thing that we they also shared with us about these air raid sirens are that since they don't know where missiles will go, and it's even planes, you know, enemy planes being lifted up into the air, um, the the air raid sirens kind of go across the across the country. And so yeah, everybody's getting the warnings all the time about anything going on. And uh while helpful, um, it's easy to see why people begin to ignore it.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Yeah, people had on their phones either apps or I think a lot of times they were using WhatsApp threads on WhatsApp that would tell them an air raid was underway. So they would kind of glance down and kind of go, Oh, there's an air raid. Sometimes sometimes we wouldn't necessarily hear it where we were, but um, they would kind of always be aware of what was going on, just having that right in their pocket.

David Nakhla 8:42

And they even had, I think they even had, if I remember right, they even knew what kind of an air raid it was, what kind of missiles was it air uh was it planes taking off in Belarus or you know, that type of thing. So right. Yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

Yeah, it was kind of funny to hear these folks who had were all of a sudden kind of experts in different forms of missiles and planes. I mean, they all kind of had this vocabulary that we wouldn't normally have.

David Nakhla 9:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that morning we met with uh Doug Shepard, who's an American missionary, uh part of the PCA and and the uh L'Vivre team lead leader for MTW. And he works closely with uh our missionary there, Hero Hackaboard at the church in Lviv. They've been there. Um I think that they came there in the mid-2000s, 2006, 7, something like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:34

Right. I think Hero first visited as an intern in the late 90s. I first met Hero Hackabord on Team Baja, which was uh, you know, the the legendary OPC mission trip in uh Tijuana, led by Dave Crum. Hero was um a team leader one year when I was on that trip. I think you met him out there too as well. I'm not sure you met him there, but but he had, I think it that was around 1996 or 1997, and he had already gone to Ukraine at that point as an intern in Odessa and was talking about going back, and he did, and has been there now almost 30 years, I think, um, you know, in some form or another, living there full time, of course. And then Doug Shepard, who we met with that morning, has been there, I think, over 20 years, 20 years or over 20 years. Um, you know, they all came after the fall of the Soviet Union and and basically began evangelizing. I think one of the things that stood out to me in this trip was how much of the ministry, how much of the 12 churches that now make up their denomination, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church in Ukraine, how much of that started with these missionaries going to Ukraine and starting up conversations with people, evangelistic conversations with people, sometimes in the street, um, and people responding to an invitation to come to an English language Bible study or something else, and how much fruit the Lord has given from those efforts in 30 years. Now you have a denomination from that. I mean, many of the pastors in that denomination and the members of those churches are first generation converts. I mean, we met so many first generation converts. And so it was encouraging to me to see how the Lord had worked in that way over the decades.

David Nakhla 11:20

Yeah, for sure. Uh to me, along those lines, yeah, to have particularly when we were down in Odessa, and that is where, yeah, as you said, that's where Hero and Doug and some of the others started. Actually, John, John Idy might have been down there as well. Um, and and when I said 2006, 2007, I was referring to L'Vee, but yeah, they've they've they've been in the country much longer than that, um, and served in um in in different cities, but in their time in Odessa, it was just it was so amazing to in those interviews with the pastors, and you'd say, you know, did you grow up in the church? No. And they they well, how did you come to know the Lord? And they would say, These guys, um, and here we are with the same missionaries who who have been there all these years, and and they're working with the fruit of their labors, this this church, and now pastors, seasoned pastors serving there. Just it to me, it was it must be just very encouraging for them to, despite all this the current circumstances, to just see this faithful church that's continuing to um continue on and and pastors who are staying with the flock and and and continuing to shepherd. Um, they're proving to be very faithful shepherds um uh in these very trying times. So that was very poignant to me.

SPEAKER_02 12:47

Me too, and and challenging, just in my own thinking about evangelistic conversations. What do I hope for out of those and what do I expect the Lord might do out of those? And um, yeah, it's just is challenging in that way too. So it was good.

David Nakhla 13:01

So back to Doug Shepherd, he also works with the crisis team at the church that manages crates for Ukraine once they arrive in Lviv. One of the things we learned was initially the crates were brought into their church building and sorted there, but soon it became clear that they but they needed a warehouse to handle the hundreds of crates coming through. I think they told us that in the summer effort there were 13 more than 1300 crates, something like that. I think that's number came in similar to the winter edition, too, uh in the 1300, about that. Um, but anyways, it's a lot of crates. These are these crates, these tubs, they're basically what are they 40? I don't I don't remember how how many gallons, but they're totes that are sizable. And if you think of hundreds of these, that's a lot of that's a lot of space. And so they actually needed they needed a warehouse to handle these hundreds of crates to come through that were coming through. The MTW team and and the church in Lviv now are renting this warehouse, and on most uh Friday evenings, many from the church and even the community will come together to pray and then to unpack the crates, assemble kits for distribution, and re repack the kits into the crates to the frontline communities where they're needed most. I think he said that uh even the crates themselves are useful to those living near the front lines. And then we notice on top of each crate there's a sticker with the church logo, uh, which is a big cross and the church website and a link to the church's publishing house for good Christian literature in Ukrainian language. Uh so the crates themselves, um, it's clear where they're coming from, to whom they're going. For those who receive them, these are coming from a church, a Protestant church, and um, and they they have direct connections there.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

Yeah. Yeah, and I remember, you know, obviously the the items in these crates are meeting immediate needs. I mean, you've got medical, you've got, you know, basic supplies and some pretty urgent medical needs that some of these crates contain items for, you know, entry-exit wounds. That's a pretty sobering thing to see in a crate. Um, and and so they're obviously meeting basic needs, sometimes life-saving needs. Um, but also, you know, Doug talked a lot about how the project itself was also on a bigger level uh working to deepen bonds between the churches in the US and the churches in Ukraine. And, you know, he talked about how the crates have what he called the fingerprints of the pews from the US on them when they reach um, when they reach Ukraine. And um he he talked about some of that in our breakfast conversation. We recorded a little bit of that breakfast conversation, and um, here's what he said about that.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

Now we give aid to anybody, I don't care who you are, but they're gonna know it's from the Laviv church. And with that, they get the website, they get the publishing house. Um and we're hoping that this builds networks that we're able to follow up with gospel communities later. In addition to actually physically saving lives, there are stories which you can ask today. We get messages from guys who are like, hey, we I don't know who you are, but um like we know your name, thank you, because you saved my life and the life of my friends through your aid. We get those occasionally too. So so there's life-saving aid that's good that's going on. It's awesome.

David Nakhla 16:38

Uh later that day we were able to go to the to the warehouse that they rent and see the crates there. And it was it was great to meet Ruslan, who's the uh Ukrainian uh church member who uh serves there. He's uh just a few years ago was an unbeliever. He's come to the Lord and actually he's in he's in seminary. Uh that kind of got halted a little bit. So he's working full-time managing uh this flow of stuff that's coming through. It's a lot to manage. Um they they keep track of all the end end lines where where every crate goes. They're careful about what they put in the crates, they're intentionally spreading out the gifts and um repacking the they have these triage kits that are really high quality for ministering to those who who are bleeding out. Um and they've they actually augment those kits with even more additional high quality stuff. Um, and they were they were just really talking about how that has been a real witness as well. Um the the the quality of the aid that's being sent.

SPEAKER_02 17:45

Yeah. Yeah. And of course, you know, they they track where the aid's going. Rooslan keeps track of all of that. They require a photo at the endpoint that comes back to them so they can see where the crate is. Um, they have a network of you know volunteers who help them deliver these crates to different places. And, you know, Doug was saying, even though obviously there's no way to talk with everyone who receives something from every crate, you know, the info that is in the crate that we've been talking about, you know, having the church's website, having the publishing house, having all of this contact info, he called that breadcrumbs, like breadcrumbs people could follow at some point if they wanted to know more about who sent this aid, what is this church, why are these people trying to help us? And I, you know, I thought that comparison to breadcrumbs was was helpful. And and later that morning, we moved on to talk with Hero Hockeboard, the OPC missionary, um, at the downtown offices of the church that he pastors there. Um, and he used a slightly different analogy when he was talking about the crates. Um, you know, he really sees this diaconal aid that's being distributed through the church as potential seeds, seeds for potential church planting. Like you were saying, I mean, they've made a lot of contacts. And Ruslan was telling us about this, about just how many unexpected opportunities to talk with people about the church and about the gospel. People he said he would never have expected before to be open to that, or suddenly open and interested and at least, you know, willing to keep a door open, even contacting him. I mean, these aren't always people that he's just kind of always keeping in contact with. People keep calling him. And so he's really developing friendships, I think, and connections with the church. Um, and so as he's fielding those calls and keeping in touch with people, I think what they're hoping is that over time this will lay the groundwork for church plants in other parts of the country. I mean, it's interesting that Hero and and the other others on the team are thinking about church planting during a war. That's still on their mind. Like they're thinking about the next step and they're thinking about what is all of this going to yield and all of this suffering, what might this yield? So we talked with Hero about this. We have some of that recorded as well. Um, and here's what he told us when we were meeting with him in his office.

SPEAKER_00 20:09

It's been uh wonderful to see the Lord using it to soften up people's hearts, to soften the soil, preparing the soil, we hope, for church planning across the country. Because people are getting to know us, our uh congregation, and through us, the reformed faith and the denomination, I hope, um because they know this aid is coming from our church.

David Nakhla 20:32

To be Ukrainian is to be Orthodox very much, and the Protestant church is looked very sideways and uh maybe even viewed as a cult. And so in God's providence, this distribution network of very high quality stuff that's saving lives can in the long term be really used to to to provide the church with a lot of street credibility um that it uh that it has not had. And uh so it'll be really it's really exciting to think about um you know what the Lord might do uh through this in the in the years to come.

SPEAKER_02 21:11

Yeah. So, you know, this of course is not the only thing the churches are doing uh at at this time. I mean, crates has taken up a lot of their energy and their focus, and it's a wonderful ministry, but we also learned, you know, that Hero is doing the day-to-day work of pastoring in the middle of all of this, because he's he's sort of tried to get back into the rhythm of how do I be a pastor under these circumstances and how do I help a congregation coping, especially with all the changes of the last year. I mean, I think we know something of this, I mean, in its very small way compared to a war because of what we all experienced in COVID, how it just shook shook everything up and it even shook churches up a lot. Well, I think this is exponentially even more so because of how it's just moved people around the country and out of the country. You know, church church members who, you know, or have long been church members in Lviv, lived in the L'Vived a long time, they've seen the makeup of their churches change pretty significantly in the last year. People have moved, people have gone out of the country, some people have come back, but it kind of is always constantly changing. People from the congregation have been called up to war. They have a prayer list that they use every Sunday. Um, that's their members and you know, extended friends and extended families who are being called to go to the military. I mean, Hero is telling us a 57-year-old man from the church had recently been called up. I mean, very unexpectedly. Uh, and it was it was a big shock to his family and a shock to the congregation. And so they're just kind of constantly adjusting to these changes. And then you have the people who have moved from other places in Ukraine to Lviv to try to find some safety for a little while. And they're not sure whether they should settle down, should they, in some cases, transfer their church membership, should they make permanent decisions about their lives now? So it's just a lot of things going on with people. Uh, here's what Hero told us about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

They've never been in a situation like this before. They don't know what's going to happen. And you know, we don't all we we don't know how to handle it. Uh none of us knows how to handle it. You know, it's it's a whole new ball game. And so you see people making rash decisions and um just having a lot of instability and and uh insecurity, uh housing-wise, sometimes job-wise, church-wise. Uh so yeah, we're trying to help people to focus on the here and now. This is where you are. You're in our church here. Get engaged, get involved here. Don't hold on to something that might happen next or next season, this summer or next year. We don't know what's gonna happen, but this is where God has put you, so be active here. And then for our people in Lviv, too, there's been a lot of adjustment because their church is no longer the same church that we had before. You know, of course, some people have left. We haven't had that many people leave, many who have left have come back. Um but you know, that comfortable church we had before the war started doesn't exist anymore and it will never exist again. And there are some of our members who are still struggling with that. Many have have struggled with you know, these people coming in, they're from other churches, and these other churches, even though they're mostly are Presbyterian churches, they have different characters, and that's partly related to the fact that these people have different cultures. You know, the far east of Ukraine is very different from where we are, the far west, or even Kiev and Central, or Odessa in the south. Um, Ukraine's a big country. I mean, compared to the States, it's very small, but in Europe, it's it's the biggest country in Europe that's completely in Europe. It's the size of Texas, roughly. So there are a lot of uh a lot of variation. The different parts of the country have different different histories, you know, completely different histories. Uh so yeah, you deal with that when people come in from these other parts of the country, they have a different way to approaching things.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

And so then we asked Hero how he tries to approach this. How how do you approach this, you know, pastorally? And this is what he told us about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:28

Yeah. Um talking talking through through with people on those on an individual level, it's mostly what we've done, you know, talking with them about the beauty of the body of Christ, how variety is is good. We shouldn't all be the same. And um God calls us to love one another within the body. You know, we and we have we have different issues and different struggles. And these people who are coming in may have you know some issues that are glaring to us that they need to work on or some things we don't like, but we also have issues in our lives and in our church, and we need to learn from them as well. There needs to be, you know, try to emphasize to people that there needs to be mutual exchange of um cultures and ideas. And uh, you know, I've been encouraged by a lot of the people who have come to our church from other churches because they have positive aspects that our people here don't, you know, which is probably some of my failings as well. But each pastor is going to emphasize different things. Each church has its own um way of doing ministry, and we really can learn a lot from each other. So I try to emphasize that to people. We we have we can learn from them. The fact that they're different, you know, is uncomfortable, but um it's it's good for us as well. So yeah, I try to emphasize the the positives while also empathizing with the difficulty.

David Nakhla 26:59

Yeah, it's so interesting to remember that in these changing circumstances where people uh in this country are being all mixed up, um, historically in the eastern side of the country, most would speak predominantly Russian. And I remember even being there in 2014, uh 2014, 2015 in Lviv, and how you would never speak Russian in Lviv back then. Ukrainian was a language, you know, we didn't we don't appreciate the Russians, they've they're they're they're invading our country with Crimean, all that. Um uh and so Ukrainian was is most predominantly spoken in in Lviv. And uh so yeah, so these people in these circumstances coming and bringing the language with them, although we are learning that even older people in the country are beginning to switch over to Ukrainian language, um, which has got to be very difficult to do. Um I think it is.

SPEAKER_02 28:03

It was interesting, you know, they were saying it's not as it's not as close as you might think. Right. I mean, even when when he when Hero moved to Lviv from the southern part of the country, he took Ukrainian classes and he had been in the country for many years at that point, but he had been speaking Russian. So it was that much of a difference. He said, if I want to preach and counsel in Ukrainian, he said, I'm gonna have to take some time, even though I've been in the country this long to learn it.

David Nakhla 28:27

Yeah, I think they said that the Ukrainian language is actually more close to the Polish language than it is to the Russian language. It's it's it's using the Russian text um characters, but uh, but it's actually not necessarily close to the Russian language. So so that's a big deal. Um, and but those are some of the some of the internal dynamics that they have to deal with and work through um as as they deal with being just just mixed up and yet seeing themselves as one one body in Christ.

SPEAKER_02 29:03

Yeah, it was a really interesting conversation with Hero. I think one of the other things that stood out to me was his appreciation for his fellow pastors, most of whom are Ukrainian um in the denomination, and especially those who are serving closer to the front lines um and sometimes behind the front lines. Um, churches in places like Kharkiv and Hyrson and Mikolaev and even Odessa, which was threatened at the beginning. Uh, some of those places are still pretty dangerous. And Hero just spoke with a lot of really deep appreciation for how those pastors had gone to sometimes heroic efforts to minister to their congregations and their communities really faithfully throughout this whole ordeal. And that's still going on.

David Nakhla 29:55

And it was really a blessing to be able to meet some of those pastors. Um, when our group went to Odessa, Odessa is a um port city, it's on the Black Sea. Uh, it was an 11-hour train ride, overnight train ride from Lviv to Odessa. Um some people sleep better than others on those train rides.

SPEAKER_02 30:20

We won't name names on training.

David Nakhla 30:22

No, we won't name names. Um, but that was a good that was a good experience, even that. And even on the train, you know, being reminded that you're in a country under war where they said, you know, draw your shade. If you're gonna have lights on in the train, pull the shades down, you know, there was kind of continual reminders of being in a war country. Although uh one of the things that I remember when I came back, somebody said to me, How was war-torn Ukraine? I said, Well, we didn't actually see the war-torn part, the the parts we were in, Lviv and Odessa, both both very beautiful cities, and um with with nice restaurants and hotels and all that type of stuff. Um, you wouldn't, in a sense, know you were in a war except for some of those, you know, seeing soldiers out and about, hearing some air-raged sirens. But then really, it was in these interactions uh with the pastors and individuals in these interviews as we begin to ask more probing questions to see that everybody there is suffering a degree of PTSD. And it was hard for them to maintain their composure when they began to talk about some of the horrible, horrible things that they've experienced, feared, seen. So it was a blessing to meet with some of those pastors down there in Odessa. Uh, there are two churches in the denomination in that city, and we met with both pastors. First, we met with Pastor George in the northern part of the city. It's only a couple hours from the areas that were seriously hit by Russian forces. And uh, Jamie, maybe you could talk a little bit about uh George's background.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Yeah, Pastor George is um one of these first generation converts that we've been talking about, uh, who came to Christ through the ministry of these missionaries, this MTW team, and and the heroes a part of as well, many years ago. Um he's a Armenian, uh, but he moved to Ukraine. And uh this was, you know, after the collapse of the Soviet Union. He was teaching English there and was, you know, wanting to practice his English. There weren't a lot of Americans around, as you can imagine, at that point. And he, the story, as he told us, was that he heard a couple of people speaking English in the street, and he decided to practice his English on them. So he went up and started talking to them. Instead, he realized how poor his actual speaking in English was. Um, but these folks invited him to an English class. Well, they ended up being American missionaries, and the class was Doug Shepard's class. Doug, who we talked about earlier, he was teaching an English class, and the Bible was the text that he was using for that class. And so that began George's real introduction to um biblical teaching and to Christ and to Christianity and to the gospel, and he came to know the Lord through that ministry and has gone on to become a pastor since then. I mean, his original thinking was that he wanted to someday move to America, but then he said he really felt called to stay in Ukraine. His English is very good now. And uh he has has been there ever since and has is a pastor serving in this church, this first church that we went to um in Odessa. He's been he's been there ever since the war broke out. His wife evacuated for a time, um, one of his children, but but he stayed and has been, you know, conducting worship services for the people who have stayed. And he's been helping with the relief efforts. I mean, they're down that their the building that they're in is basically a house and they live on the bottom, and then the top level is where the church meets. And downstairs where they had a little kitchen and they have their rooms. One of those rooms was just filled with supplies.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:09

Um, and so they're kind of constantly helping to move those to different places. And he had actually just gotten back from a brief trip where he had translated for a Christian paramedic who had volunteered to come from the US. And they were kind of going into some pretty dangerous spots and training churches in how to do first aid. So really pretty front line. I mean, this wasn't behind the the enemy lines, but they were they were getting out into some of the real danger zones. I mean, they were hearing the sounds of war and that sort of thing. So, so again, here's this here's this pastor who is accustomed to doing all the really important and difficult things that a pastor does. And now on top of that, he's ministering in war zone. Um, so that was really um encouraging to meet him.

David Nakhla 34:58

Yeah, it was interesting when I when we walked up to the door, he opened the door and we both looked at each other. And we had, it turns out we had just been on a call, maybe a month or two before. And it was uh um in my capacity on the fraternal relations committee of the OPC, we're pursuing ecumenical relations, fraternal relations with uh the Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine. And uh we had just been on a call together. So that was really kind of a fun little um connection. But I do remember Jamie at the it it really struck me, and I have a little little video of it when he gave a toast to these to this group who had come. And we were, as it turns out, we were the we were now this is more than a year after the war began, but we are the first visitors to Odessa from from abroad, from I guess I guess from supporting churches type of thing. And uh, and it was just he talked about how meaningful that was to them. He actually got choked up as he as he gave this toast. For me, the I like to talk about the ministry of presence and uh as a ministry of mercy, and and that for me was back in 2017 when I went down to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and just just showing up in a in a war zone, in a disaster zone where people have a sense of being so cut off, being forgotten, and um the ministry of presence cannot be overestimated. So that was just again poignant to me in in in his toast.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Yeah, I agree. And he has a lovely wife as well. I think we should I should mention his wife, just wonderful hostess to us, but also just has a ministry in the church to women from that area. I spent some time with her and with a couple of women who were refugees from other parts of the country. And uh one who had fled fled from the eastern part of Ukraine when the war first broke out and they were their village was was bombed out. So they they left. And she was talking about her experiences. And the other woman had actually fled the eastern part of Ukraine in 2014 during the move Crimea. Yeah. And when she started telling her story, uh, she immediately became very emotional. And she was talking about something that happened almost 10 years ago.

David Nakhla 37:22

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

And um, I mean, her backyard had a bomb strike in the backyard and it killed it killed someone who was renting a room in her house. So she had this very vivid experience. But even 10 years later, that was that was still very highly traumatic to her. And you know, just to give a sense of what, you know, just any per average person might have gone through. I mean, she was living there, she was a single mom, her sister lived with her. They had a one-year-old in the house, that someone's renting a room, and one day, bombs start dropping. And so they decided to get out. There was a train that was leaving, they didn't know where it was going. They just got on it, and it ended up in Odessa. And that's and she's been in Odessa ever since. And her sister has since moved away, and she's just sort of there in the city alone. Um, she said her mother had died a couple of years before the Crimean invasion, and she had never knew her father. She had never really been attached to a church before. And she moved to Odessa. Somehow, you know, she's got this little boy. Somehow she, I'm not sure how she met George's wife, but she met George's wife. And she's just really kind of taken her in under her wing and has been ministering to her and and loving her. And um, so it was encouraging to see, even that, that, you know, just the ordinary ministry that goes on in these extraordinary circumstances. And and in her case, I think it was again, like you're saying, the ministry of presence that meant as much to her as anything that this warm, gracious Christian woman had had reached out to her. So that was encouraging to see too.

David Nakhla 39:02

When I when we were there, I was thinking about um Ukraine is comparable to the size of Texas. And you know, for for us in the United States, we have yeah, there's nobody in the United States who remembers a war on our soil, you know, in continental US. Um you have to go back to the Civil War. Um, so we we don't know what it is to have war on our soil, let alone be in a country the size of Texas and have war on the other side of Texas. You're in Texas, maybe you're in you know El Paso on the west, you're a long ways from Dallas on the eastern side, but in a sense, you're within missile range, and that's that's the experience of those living in in Ukraine, living through this more than a year-long war, that yeah, they're not far from the conflict, and it has it has affected everybody in in lots of different ways. The other thing along those lines was the the sense of a man 18 to 60 could be called up at any time with 24 hours notice. And so not only are you dealing with the trauma of what you've gone through, what you've experienced, what you've seen, what you're experiencing, uh, but there's a continual uncertainty of even what tomorrow may hold. I mean, tomorrow, you know, your husband, your father, uh, you might be called up for service. And when they get called up for service, it's not, you know, go to training for six months. It's like, you know, you might get a little bit of training, but you are sent oftentimes to the front lines. And so, yeah, just that those were some of the impressions I had uh as we went along. So in Odessa, we also talked with uh Andre, he's a pastor serving actually in Mikolaev, which is very close to the front lines, actually was had been taken um at one point, uh hit very hard. Uh, they held off the Russians, and um and Odessa actually said if Mikolaev was taken, Odessa would have been next because that was that was the route. Um, so in a sense, Odessa's very thankful for the resistance of uh Nikolaev to um and and Nikolayev, by the way, is also where Anya's parents are from, and so that's just to give some context. Thoughts on that interview?

SPEAKER_02 41:31

Yeah, Andre was was great to talk with as well, a very serious man, um, understandably so, under the circumstances. And he is again another church leader who met the MTW team 20 something years ago as an unbeliever after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And you know, he his testimony was that he was he was searching around, trying to kind of figure out. I mean, he had a sense that he needed to believe in something and he really didn't believe in anything at that point. And I think he was telling us at one point that he decided he would keep all the Ten Commandments and that would help him be a good person. And then he said very quickly he realized he couldn't do that. He couldn't, he couldn't do that. And so as he was searching, he ended up meeting, I believe, I believe in this case it was John Idie, who he ended up having a friendship with in the beginning, and uh got involved in the church that they had had started there and came to know the Lord through that and really through just understanding grace. I mean, he said it took the elders of that church explaining to him what it meant to get a gift, truly a gift that you didn't deserve. And he had a hard time wrapping his head around grace. But when he finally got it, he he really got it and has been involved in that church ever since, or in churches in that area ever since, and is now a church leader there. He's not ordained quite yet. I believe he's on track to be ordained, maybe even in the month of May, or or maybe take his exams in May, but he's close to it. I think he's been an elder there for some time, but essentially he's acting as the pastor of that church at this point. He helped evacuate several members of his church during the attacks on the city and his own family. Um, and then he's he's been working, and that was a pretty harrowing experience getting getting those folks out. And then he's been working just really tirelessly to keep making the rounds, you know, particularly to more rural areas, to villages where a lot of relief hasn't come or it hasn't been as consistent. And that often includes, you know, elderly people in the among the church members and among neighbors. We kept hearing about how a lot of elderly people just didn't evacuate. I mean, they just, you know, in some maybe they couldn't physically they couldn't, they didn't have someone to help them, or they just thought, I have nowhere to go. I can't pick up and start over again somewhere. And so, in a lot of cases, you would have you would have a significant number of elderly people staying in the cities where they were. And so, Andre. Along with the help of his brother, you know, they make these rounds, they make sure that people that they have contacts with get the medicine that they need, get the other supplies that they need, drinking water. I mean, he was saying that the water coming out of the pipes in the city, even to this day, is still this brackish water. I mean, you can't drink it. Um, and so, I mean, they don't have they don't have drinkable water in the city. So, I mean, he he's really doing a lot to make sure that people get what they need. And, you know, he told us that as he makes these rounds, he makes sure that these people know exactly where this diaconal aid is coming from. You know, he said, I I specifically tell the people that the church from all over the world is helping me right now. That this is not from me, that this is this is from the Lord. And one thing that's interesting about Andre is that he could have left not only his city, he could, he's one of the ones that could have left the country. He has four children. So he falls under an exception because he has more than three children that he could have evacuated with his family. But he decided to stay. And we we asked him why. And he he got pretty choked up um and had to really take a moment to kind of gather himself and and get his answer. And the answer was really simple. I mean, he said, I am pastor. That's why he said, I'm a pastor. That's why I stayed. You get this sense that these men feel like a pastor stays with his flock. And so so that's why he stayed. And so that was that was also encouraging to see. We asked both Andre and George about their reflections after this first year of this war, that we're not sure how long it's gonna last. And John Idy, MTW missionary John Idy, was with us, and he translated Andre's answer for us during our visit. We have a little bit of that here. You'll hear John Idy speaking in English translating here.

SPEAKER_01 45:45

Uh I can say that uh situation through these situations you understand what's important.

SPEAKER_00 45:55

Yeah, because it's not your house, it's not your money, it's not your documents, your family. It doesn't matter what they've taken with them, if they've remembered, forgotten something. The most important thing is that they're safe. Your church, people that you God has called you to, your family and your church.

SPEAKER_02 46:28

And then Pastor George, you know, said something similar about how he's realized what's really important in life and and just the urgency that he feels afresh to share the gospel. Not just because he's in a war zone. The war zone has crystallized that for him, though. And and he he put it, you know, not getting too relaxed in this world, but to be focused on sharing the gospel with others because life is just so uncertain.

David Nakhla 46:54

I think most people will testify that they feel closest to the Lord under very difficult circumstances, and uh we certainly experience that firsthand in these in these interviews and these interactions, uh, just a very closeness to the Lord and a sense of what is most important and very much a holding loosely to the things of this world. I think we get very in our very comfortable Western lifestyle, we get so tied to this world. And um, and when you don't know really what the 20 next 24 hours hold, you don't know what the next couple hours hold. Um, it really it really makes you cling to the things that are most important. And that definitely was was true for these brothers. So it was the next day, then we we had the privilege of meeting in beautiful historic church building uh that belongs to the other Presbyterian church in Odessa. There's just a great story, even of of how that building was kind of reclaimed during uh post-communism. And I think MTW said their biggest, one of their biggest fundraising efforts, they raised over a million dollars to to refurbish the building, and it is a beautiful, really beautiful building with a beautiful pipe organ. So wonderful in God's providence as we walked into the church building. It turns out that the the organist was there that day, and she um she was gonna uh do a little playing, and and we got to experience some of that and just again give a sense of the beauty of the city and the and the beauty of this this location in Odessa. And there we met with Pastor Valeri and also with a pastoral intern named Misha and his wife Lena, their husband and wife team administering a lot of the diaconal assistance that comes through the church.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

Yeah. And our translator, who was also with us that day, was a woman named Masha, who's been a member of the church, I think almost 20 years. And I know I keep talking about this, but she is another one who came to faith through um the ministry of the Odessa Church, uh, who was not a Christian, did not understand the gospel, had not really heard the gospel in its fullness. And um a couple of people from the Odessa Church on one of the mission projects in the summer that they used to do. Um, this may have even been before the church was fully established. I'm not sure of the timeline there, but but this was back when they used to have this summer project, and they had sent an American and a Ukrainian Christian paired out together to talk to people in the streets. And and two of those guys came up and talked to Masha over 20 years ago, and that was her introduction to faith. It was also in her introduction to her husband. She actually ended up marrying the Ukrainian that was one of the ones who shared the gospel with her. So she's been a real asset um to that church for a long time. Um, and and has been really important as well in these um these relief efforts going on at the church.

David Nakhla 50:13

It was interesting to hear from uh this couple, uh, Misha and and Lena and that them talking about the decision that they had to make whether they were gonna stay or whether they were gonna go. And even whether they were gonna stay in the city or go to the uh to the country. Um, I mean, historically, you know, World War II, the cities were not the place safe place to be. You go to the the villages, that's where you know you'd send your kids off to, and that type of thing. And actually they chose to stay in the city, and they feel like that was the wise in God's province, that was the wise thing to do. They talked about how in this war it's actually the villages that have just been ravaged. And the cities are pretty tough to take, but uh, but the pretty much defenseless villages have just been ravaged. But you know, and they they talked about how Odessa was a city that was very much desired by the Russians. It was a it's a warm port city that was uh built by Catherine the Great in the 1800s, a newer city for Ukraine. Um and it's essentially a border city, it's right on the it's right on the the Black Sea, and they could have had a a naval invasion. And uh there's troops there also in the uh Transnistria region, kind of an unsettled region of Moldova, not far from Odessa. And so for them to stay in Odessa, this pastor and even this this couple um was really at great risk, but that's where what they chose to do. And as such, it's really given them the opportunity to be a significant part of the ministry uh that has gone on. That really definitely struck me as a positive thing. I think Valeria, the pastor, he's if I remember right, he's now been apart from his family for a long time as they've left. Is that did I do I remember that correctly?

SPEAKER_02 52:05

I think that's correct. Yeah. I'm not sure that his wife is full. I mean, he may have seen her. They may have visited it, but I don't think she's been fully back, not living in Odessa anymore. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, you know, he's another one who didn't leave the city when he could, and and like we know what you're talking about, a real true threat to that city um early on. And and then and then it has taken some hits, actually. I mean, Odessa has you don't you don't see that in the streets, but there have been some outlying areas where they've taken some hits. And you know, it's interesting too how he just kind of carried on with ministry as well. I mean, under these circumstances, you know, first Sunday they have a church service. And, you know, I think there's like a handful of people, I mean it may have been four. I mean, I can't remember if he was the one who told us it was four people and him, but it was a hand, whatever it was, it was a very small handful, including an elderly lady, you know, that came. And I remember him saying, you know, I stood up and I told them the first Sunday that we met, this is our victory day. And it actually confused the elderly woman at first because she thought maybe the war had ended and she didn't know it. He said, Oh, no, no, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. No, he didn't mean that the war had ended, he meant Sunday is the day of Christ's resurrection. And so whatever was coming, they were meeting on their victory day. So, you know, they're seeing encouraging developments in in that congregation. Misha, who's kind of like a pastoral intern, um and and who's directing a lot of this aid, uh, he told us it's been the best year on record for church attendance in Odessa. Uh, that they're just seeing lots of visitors, the people who come to get some of the relief or visiting. And he said, and they're actually really staying and they're wanting to hear good, solid teaching. So, so they're very encouraged by that.

David Nakhla 53:54

Yeah, for those again, kind of going back to just what we talked about a few minutes ago, for those who are not in the Lord and their future is very uncertain. Yeah, there's there's a just a real real occasion and opportunity that the Lord could use these awful circumstances to to draw many to to himself. So then we the next night we took the 11-hour train ride back up to Lviv uh in time to arrive on Sunday morning. To what a what a great way kind of end to end our trip to basically join the the saints there in Lviv for their worship service and uh with Hero preaching. Uh Hero provided us with a translation of the sermon in English. That was wonderful. But to really just be blessed by the the household of faith, the the hubbub of the church. Um it's a full building, they overflow upstairs, and just a lot of warmth that we experienced um just in that in that time.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Yeah, they were a really joyful group of people, I thought. A young group of people. Boy, it's a young church, isn't it? Lots of young people and lots of young men. I mean, right before the service started, I had gone upstairs to do something, and there's a kind of a library. And Hero and Doug were praying with some of the young men of the church who helped with all the logistics, you know, with sound and with music and with taking up the offering and counting the offering, and I don't know, all different kinds of things. And there was this circle of probably, I mean, it's probably 10 young men who they seem to be really intentionally discipling and working with. And you just think, you know, you're kind of looking in on the future generation of that church right there. And it was really, it was great to see those, those young men there and and the rest of the church as well. I mean, they do seem really joyful. And and I think part of that is, you know, you don't want to make it seem easy, but they but they look beyond their current circumstances. That's what they're having to learn to do. Um, and and Hero actually talked with with us about that earlier in the week, um, just about living with that kind of uncertainty and what it means to find joy um in Christ.

SPEAKER_00 56:04

Right. Yeah. I mean, yeah, and in that sense, is it's good for us, for all of us, to experience the, to put it mildly, the discomfort of the war and everything it brings, the uncertainty. Um we're we're longing for the war to end, but there is also that sense of even when we are comfortable, this is not the way it should be. This is not what it is all about. You know, my comfortable home, my comfortable life, my plans for the future. Uh, this really is a very pale reflection of at its best of what we will experience in eternal life. So that doesn't make you yearn for Jesus to come back sooner. That's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 56:47

And you could certainly tell this group yearned for Christ just in the way they sang. And it was really wonderfully robust, I thought, Christian singing. Um, we actually have a little bit of audio of them singing one of their closing songs. And I think most people will probably catch this tune and be able to figure out what this song is.

David Nakhla 58:05

Well, thank you, Jamie. It was a fun, fun walk through the the trip. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 58:10

Yeah, thanks.

David Nakhla 58:13

Thanks for joining us. Go to our website, thereformdeacon.org. There you will find all our episodes, program notes, and other helpful resources. And please make plans to join us again next month for another episode of the Reform Deacon podcast.