Where is God in Ukraine?

The psalmist cries out in a time of crisis: “Why, O Lord, do you stand far away? Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?” (Psalm 10 in our English Bibles, the latter part of Psalm 9 in Ukrainian Bibles).

I am typing in the darkness of an overnight train journeying from Kirovohrad Oblast in central Ukraine back towards the West, after several long but enjoyable days teaching at a church planter training hub. There is nothing to distract me but the rattle of the train and the breathing of those asleep around me.

It seems that some of the most consequential events over the past 10 years have occurred while I have been on a ministry trip in Ukraine. The past week has been no exception: from heinous votes in the UK to decriminalise abortion and introduce assisted suicide to escalating conflict in the Middle East, there’s a lot to ponder. But whether my mind drifts to the UK or Israel, the USA or Iran, it comes back to Ukraine.

Continuing attacks

I arrived last week as the nation reeled from another night of brutal and brazen Russian attacks on civilians in Kyiv.

All day, the hearts of the nation sat with one particular man and a woman who were waiting in fearful expectation as emergency workers cleared a mountain of rubble that had buried their son. Pain gave way momentarily to praise when a rumour confidently circulated online that the boy was found miraculously alive - and then came the truth that in fact, he was dead. Footage of the man as he gasped at the news and collapsed to his knees while the women around him cried and beat the ground cannot be forgotten. “Why, O Lord…?” indeed.

Addressing a church plant at the training hub about the same question, reframed, was one of my first assignments on this trip: Where is God? I took for my text the aforementioned Psalm, and the week that has followed has only reiterated my conviction: where is He not!

Glimpses of God at work

1. I see God in the church planting team, strung along for over a year with promises of financial assistance from the USA, only for that support to be pulled after the first instalment - followed by a request to return what was already sent. Difficult lessons were learned, but none more important than reliance on God and working for His glory, not the gaze of would-be-supporters.
2. I see God in the man who preached the first sermon of the Sunday morning service (many Ukrainian churches will have two sermons in the service), on the occasion of his birthday. His text was 2 Peter 1:3-15, beginning 2 Peter 1:3-15: “His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness...” The pastor leaned over and whispered to me: “this man was a drug addict.”
3. I see God in the full congregation (this is after many, I am told, have fled!) of attentive people to whom I had been asked to preach to on the subject of reconciliation from Philippians 4. They seemed to hear the word of God gladly.
4. I see God in countless testimonies of salvation and ministry among those I was teaching. Oleksandr, the alcoholic whose newly Christian wife persevered with and prayed for him over half a decade, before he too came to Christ - he poured away 80 litres of wine and eventually became a deacon. Marianna, who cares for and shares the gospel with wounded warriors from the front line in the local hospital. Vadim, an electrician who pledged to serve God as his body fell from a high voltage shock that killed his colleague: he now pastors two churches in different villages. Vitaly, who is grateful to have been raised in a Christian family that took him every week to a “birthday party” - that being what they called the illegal Sunday school for children in the church basement. Katya, who was raised in an unbelieving family by her grandparents because her parents were drug addicts and divorced: a friend invited her to a youth group and through this she came to faith and was baptised in her late teens just last year. Viktor, who was raised with no believing relatives and thought he was surely beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness, but was led to Christ by his wife, served faithfully as a deacon for 20 years, and last year became pastor to a church of 16 in a village. I’ll conclude this list with Yulia, a 38 year-old mother of two whose husband went missing in action on the front lines: a pastor shared the gospel with her at her workplace and she came to repentance and faith in Christ - now she ministers to wives and widows of Ukrainian soldiers, even as she was ministered to.
5. I see God at the kitchen table of a pastor and his wife, as they share their frustrations, griefs, even despair, opening themselves up to counsel, encouragement, and prayer. Pulled in so many directions, trying to meet a wide variety of sometimes contradictory expectations, and longing for a miracle to bring elusive justice and peace to his nation, he tearfully exclaimed, “I am not the Messiah!” So we went in prayer to the One who is.
6. I see God in the testimony of a brother who told of about 12,000 New Testaments gratefully received across 35 schools in his region: “many people leave and not many come to Ukraine, but now is a golden opportunity. Ukraine is open like never before to the gospel.”

Which is why as another visit draws near its conclusion, I will, Lord willing, be back.

For previous articles about an ongoing initiative to plant 1000 new churches in Ukraine by 2036, see this article here and here.

To find out more about present needs and opportunities, contact Ryan at gracebaptistsineurope@gmail.com