Mission Trip to the Ukraine: 2001

I went to the Ukraine on a missions trip with Grace Community Church in July, 2001. Many people received this support letter in their mailboxes on Sept 11, 2001. What a time period that was---not only in my own personal history, but especially the history of the country......it's been 8 years ago already!


Sept. 7, 2001

Hello! Just about 2 months ago I left for a missions trip you supported with your prayers and your pocketbooks. I boarded “the plane for the Ukraine,” knowing somehow, my life would be different when I returned. Well, I am back…and boy, was I right! I am changed. Before, the Ukraine was just another country. Now, it has faces and names and incredible evidence of God’s faithfulness. You know me…you know how much I wish I could sit with each of you individually and tell you the stories face to face!
Here are some highlights. What a gift your prayers were to us!
· I loved teaching English to the young students there! I had a group who could not speak English at all, so I worked with a translator. (The beginning of many lessons on dependence for me!) His name is Leonid and he’s the pastor of a growing evangelical church in Eastern Ukraine. I loved learning new ways to engage the students, challenge them, and build relationships despite a major language barrier! While other groups were learning idioms and conjugations, my class learned their colors and numbers. J They were so eager…in Bible lessons we spoke at length, going back and forth so much the translator needed breaks for the water fountain.
· We used every waking hour just to be with the students—and I learned that’s a key to ministry. Don’t wait for the “perfect moment” to ask others about their lives; use meal time, waiting-in-line time, any time. We weren’t there to “shove the Gospel” at them, but to love them so well they would want to know about it. Some of the most meaningful conversations about Christ occurred during Frisbee games!
· We had evening worship services with preaching, singing, and connecting happening all at once—hearing what became a constant simultaneous mix of Russian and English. I loved hearing the sounds sung together: SLAVA BORGO—PRAISE GOD! We talked to the students about our different cultures and what they promise. To them, all Americans are wealthy and it’s hard to understand why we wouldn’t be content. To Americans, life in the former USSR might seem hopeless; with their history, how can anything be made right again? Our messages centered on Christ and his role as the Restorer of all people in all kinds of pain in all parts of the world.
· The young Ukrainian Christians were such an example to us as we worked beside them to encourage, build, and bless. Oleg, one of the students, received a New Testament from someone on our team. Since our return, he has e-mailed, saying, “I’ve read the New Testament. Can you send me the whole Bible?” We spoke to the young men especially, teaching them the term “step up.” It’s time for them to be young leaders in their churches, leave the heavy yoke of Communism behind, and worship God freely.
· In many ways, our conversations with students were about God’s purposes for the world. Even in the midst of the oppression it has experienced, the Ukraine is coming alive again. Its people are realizing God wants to restore them in His power, in spite of what humans have tried to do in the abuse of their power. Some students left camp with a new realization: God is good and He is able to be trusted.
· We visited 2 orphanages. I simply cannot get the pictures of that day out of my mind. There is no money set aside for humanitarian efforts in Ukraine; the orphanages are dependent on foreign aid. As we played and held the children, one of the Ukrainians who was at our camp saw me crying. He said, “I know, Summer. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” To him, the children are cared for. They have a roof over their heads and a meal they can count on—which is basically what life IS for people in that country now. It was too much for me and my heart was thinking of Psalm 10:14: “The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless.” The children called us Mama…running around in their underwear with sores on their bodies and smiles on their faces…They clung to us. They wanted us to take them home.

SINCE I’VE BEEN HOME

Since I’ve been home, many things have been on my heart and mind. The trip has been difficult to process. How do I take what I learned overseas and make it part of my life here? My hope is that as I tell you about some of my lessons, your heart would be moved, as mine was, to reach out in better ways to the hurting world. I kept saying to myself on this trip, “Enter into the pain you see around you—that’s love!”
· The Ukraine has very little structure anymore. Its people are on their own and only make about $30 a month, if they’re lucky enough to be employed. The roads are a series of craters. The lights go out whenever they feel like it and may never come back on. What a person wears one day, he may wear for several days afterward because he has nothing else. If you’re traveling 12 hours in a bus with no shocks, there’s nowhere but the nearest tree to use the restroom (I know this from experience)! I learned about waiting—how to practice it, get better at it, and expect to do it. I’ve come home and cried over my laundry because I have so much of it. I go into the supermarket and shake my head at all the choices. I listed to Larry King complain about government regulations and I want to ask him, “What if our government regulated virtually nothing? Do you know what that would look like?” It would look like Ukraine. I’m learning to be grateful in ways I never knew existed.
· I’ve learned that the way to minister anywhere, to help anyone, or to change anything is the old one-person-at-a-time method. One of our pastors at Grace says, “Help the person in front of you.” I can get so overwhelmed by the problems in the world (the hungry, the homeless, the oppressed, etc.) that I’m paralyzed—then no one gets help. Help has to be local, then it can become global.
· I’ve learned that to be desperate for God is a wonderful thing. In some ways, I haven’t stopped crying since I landed in America. I am crying, “Lord, USE your people. We’re frail and we forget your power so often, but please Lord, USE us for your glory. YOU alone are what matters. The reason all people were born was to worship and serve You. Show your people all over the world the work You want us to do.” Our team depended on God in completely new ways. Many things we planned did not happen and things we hoped for did not take place. But God does not exist to make our plans possible. We exist to give hands and feet to his plans—to see His glory on this suffering planet. Nothing we do could ever match what He does for us. God was calling people to Himself in the Ukraine through our camp—and you were a part of that. THANK YOU!

A CHALLENGE FOR YOU AND I

You are one of those orphans I wrote about, no matter where you live. You live in a terrible place, full of worry and suffering. No one denies that. But what ELSE is true? Earth is not the home God intended for us. God has said in His word that He wants to take us home to heaven. He’s saying to you, “Come here, _________(insert your name). I love you more than you’ll ever know and I want to teach you how to live. Will you come and follow me?” Christ picks us up, holds us close, and has the power to give us more than we ever dreamed of. But some of us, we don’t accept the offer. We stay at the orphanage, wallowing in what we do not have when God Himself has offered us His life and His Name.
I challenge you today as I was challenged: to live as someone who has been adopted by Christ. If you have given your life to Him, all His blessing becomes yours—just like a child who comes home to live with a loving family after spending years on the street. God has said to you, “Here! You can have a great home and a family and food to eat and a job and friends who love you. But those things are NOT your life. Don’t depend on them because they won’t be around all the time. Let the pain from your past go. Don’t live in it anymore. You will still have pain until you go home with me, but let me, not your circumstances, define what life is for you.” God’s given us a choice whether to stay in poverty or live in His wealth.
I learned on this trip that the kingdom of God is not just about heaven. The kingdom of God can be experienced now because God’s plans ARE taking place all over the world. It was not His plan for the world to suffer—that is a choice the world has made through greed, malice, hatred, etc. But God never gives up on us: “Because of God’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail” (Lamentations 3:22). Each of you is part of God’s work in your own corner of the world and I have been blessed to live and work alongside you. Reach out to people—they need your touch, your words, your love before, during, and every day after they live in light of the message of the Gospel. They need to hear God became a man because of His love for us! People need to know why they were born. Be the one to tell them. We were all born to love God back—for He’s been loving us since the beginning of time.