6-26-10
Infiltration of Hope
“Jessica… I can’t find my shoes. Have you
seen them anywhere?” I asked. She
replied confused as well “We put them right here when we came in last
night. Maybe the kids hid them. I’m not sure.”
We walked out of the porch area to the yard to
find a shocking scene. There was our host for the week, the head surgeon
director for the entire region, scrubbing our shoes that had been muddied
during our rainy softball game the night before. Like, on hands and knees, with
a bucket of soap and water… thoroughly scrubbing our shoes to a shine.
We spent this last week at the home of this
surgeon, Maxim Tesla. He invited Bruce and our team to come reach his community
with the gospel through a softball camp. We were as much blessed by his family
as we were doing ministry with the kids in the camp.
You see, in the wake of communism and the USSR,
doctors and lawyers are actually some of the lowest paid people in the
country. Maxim reported to us that his monthly income as the head regional
surgeon was around $200 a month. Thats right. This surgeon makes less in one
month than I did in a day back home. His family, like all Ukranian families,
keeps an extensive garden to feed themselves. Though in a nice home, this
family lives very humbly, making many of their own clothes and cooking
everything from complete scratch. Honestly, it was the warmest and happiest
home I think I have ever been in. A sweet and peaceful presence of the Holy
Spirit was immediately felt once you crossed the treshold. At night they sit
around the piano and sing together. We fell in love with their children and
would spend much time picking cherries and berry berries with them, making a
game out of throwing them up in the air to try and catch them with our mouths.
(There are fruit trees EVERYWHERE here, making walking down any old street a
delectable delight). Ha–I gathered my first batch of eggs from the chicken
coup, but passed on the freshly pumped milk. I’ll wait for the pasturized
variety, thank you very much. Maxim and his wife Olya would stay up into the
wee hours of the morning talking with us (as Bruce would translate every
sentence) about their heart to see their city come to know God. Though they
could move to Russia or some other country where they could make much more
money, they choose to stay poor in Ukraine to serve their people and to see
them come to know God. We were beyond
spoiled by them, eating the best food of our lives (of which we will direly
miss in Africa :), and were inspired to become men and women who spend their
lives work serving their communities.
Monday through Thursday we would go out to a
soccer field, bust out softball equipment, and children would just come out of
the woodwork to see what was going on. Bruce uses softball because it is a
sport that no one in Ukraine knows anything about- so it has a high level of
novelty from which we can use to put everyone on a level playing field, and
just teach. They hang on to our every word about how the game is played. Most
of these children / teenagers have never left their hometown, much less seen a
group of Americans.These children, teenagers, and adults live in a dark,
hopeless, and sad environment. We came
in with our bright smiles, big hugs, and words of encouragement- and that was
all it took for them to be on us like a monkey on a cupcake. They are starving
for hope and light. In the middle of
practice we would have an opportunity to huddle up and share the gospel. We all
spoke at different points throughout the week, giving our testimonies, and
teaching different aspects of walking in the faith. We found however, that it
was the one on one exchanges (albeit through a translator) of hearing their
stories, their dreams for the future, and letting them ask questions about our
“american lifestyle”, that allowed us to minister to them the most.
By the end of the week, they just couldn’t understand why we had to leave and
wanted so much more.
At our last (scrumptiously delicious) dinner with
the Tesla, we were able to encourage and spur them on, that yes— we shared
the gospel with their communities, but now it is time for them and for the
church to come along side them to disciple, train, and grow up these newly
planted seeds. We were able to infuse
energy and practical ways to do ministry into this family who is so desperate
to see change, while they simultaneously hugely blessed and humbly served us. In big ways and small.
God is moving in Ukraine. Though there is a
massive language barrier, we are getting to be apart of that movement. Apart of
the infiltration of hope into a people lost in the price of their newly found
freedom.
