Ukraine Trip - Part 2 of 4

Prayer-walking was not the only thing we did in our first six days. At 7 am the morning after we arrived we went to a neighbouring village to lead a children’s program. After a few short hours of sleep, Tolik, our 21 year old driver and pastor of a church, drove us out to the garage where this took place. It went quite well, and ended in all the guys playing football with kids on our backs. The rest of that day we spent doing some orientation and preparation for our ministry. On Sunday we attended Kiev International Bible Church of which Bob is the senior pastor. Here, John Marlowe and Rosemarie led the worship with Svyeta, our translator. In the afternoon, we went over to Debbie Ash’s place for a big Easter meal. It was great to be able to relax for a while before our busy schedule in the coming week. That same evening we made our first visit to Independence Square. On Monday morning we visited the Chernobyl museum which gave us a good idea of the immensity of the disaster. Even 20 years later people are still dying from the results of this nuclear accident. On Tuesday, while Jean and Heidi visited an orphanage for children with Down’s Syndrome, the rest of us either worked on painting KIBC’s new church space or prayer-walked around the church’s neighborhood. In the evening we met with the Spanish group where those of us who spoke Spanish (that doesn’t include me I’m afraid) were able to communicate, the rest of us needed a translator. It was good fellowshipping with these people and teaching each other songs in our different languages. On Wednesday evening the guys met with Bob’s “Timothy Fellowship,” a Bible study on the doctrine of Salvation with some new believers. Meanwhile, the girls met with some single girls and cooked us apple crisp before we came up and ate it all.

On Thursday morning Becky, Katy and Joannie Jorash joined us as we set out for a village called Brusilov. After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, this village grew from a population of two thousand to twenty thousand with the refugees. This is evident from the poverty and the countless hastily built simple houses. After arriving there, one of the pastors told us about the church over a very good Ukrainian lunch (Ukrainian meals nearly always include mashed potatoes and pickles). We were then informed we would be leaving soon to lead a VBS at three o’clock in a nearby village. Meanwhile, John Tucker was told he would be delivering one of the three sermons at the service at six o’clock. At VBS, John Tucker and Kara made balloon animals for the kids while Rosemarie and Katy did some face painting, both of which the kids loved. In the meantime, the rest of us attempted to set up the back drop for the puppet show. It didn’t end up quite the way it was supposed to be, but it stood. As we started, we played a game of Duck Duck Goose with the kids (in Ukrainian). John Marlowe taught the kids how to sing “This is the Day” after which they and Svyeta taught us how to sing it and another song in Ukrainian. Ryan, John Rogers and John Marlowe did an excellent puppet show and we did a craft. At the end we quickly had to clean up and rush to our church service.

This Pentecostal church was set up by four people following the fall of Communism and the independence of Ukraine. With an original aim of reaching seventy surrounding villages, they are currently ministering in some way or another to forty of them. Pastor Sergey, one of our hosts, told us a story about an old man who realised he was dying. He asked a young man to take him to the villages on a horse-drawn cart so he could pray for each of hem. Eventually the young man got tired of doing this and the old man agreed to go back, though he had not yet prayed for all of the villages. Today there are churches in every village he prayed for.
Although a Pentecostal Church, it followed the Orthodox calendar, meaning we remembered Maundy Thursday again that night. They followed a flexible schedule, if someone had something to say they would just come up and say it. In between songs and messages, the whole congregation would suddenly burst out in prayer, usually ending with the Lord’s Prayer and everyone saying “Sla-va-bo-goo” meaning “praise God.” John Marlowe was asked to come up several times to lead some English songs which Svyeta translated for the congregation. The Jorash girls also did some special music. Sometime halfway through the four hour service John Tucker delivered his hastily prepared sermon. After that, at about ten o’clock, we were served dinner in the basement of the church before being brought to our different hosts families.

Rob van Leeuwen