The area of Crimea Ukraine has been owned by Turkey, Greece, and most recently Russia, now with Ukraine having full access and ownership to it the people are proud to say their residence is with Ukraine. Although if you talk to anybody here they will say that they are Russian with Ukraine citizenship. The beautiful people here are full of stories, whether it’s stories of their lives growing up here, stories about their families, stories about travels, or stories about relationships, we have had the privilege to develop relationships by hearing sound clips and getting quick glimpses into our new friends lives thanks to their stories.
This is some of the family that we get to live and do ministry with this month. Four of the people in this picture we live with and the others are cousins. These people are awesome, if you can’t already tell. Cool story about these amazing people is that they all are really musically talented and play basically every string instrument along with the piano. And who taught them all these things? Their grandmother did!
Church here is at Babushka’s house (yep a real babushka!) On the walk to church there’s about 6 guitars ranging from baby size to giant that come along with us.
This is hero’s Village it’s an old village that has WWII monuments in it. The first week we were here we helped with a VBS that Pasha and some of his cousins were putting on for the children there.
The lady in this bed is a friend of Nellia’s, our contact, She been sick for a few years and hasn’t been able to really move on her own or get out of bed much. With Nellie, and Pasha and some of the cousins (Daniel and Anya) we went over to fix and paint her fence and just have fun and visit with her. The family tries to visit her whenever they can.
Like I said before Church here is at the grandmother’s home. They have somewhat of a chapel constructed at their home that the whole family and some friends in the community come to on Sunday mornings or during prayer services throughout the week. We were asking Nellia when this chapel was built and for how long they had had church in grandma’s house. The story that we were told was one that I found really special. When Nellia and all her brothers and sisters grew up the Ukraine was under the Soviet Union and religion was outlawed. Her mother was going to a government owned church until one day she come to the front doors and they told her that she couldn’t come in with her children, so she had to go back home. No one under the age of 18 was allowed in church. Many churches were shutting down, so they decided to start holding church in their home for anyone who wanted to come. On a Sunday there would be around 80 to 100 people crammed in the little chapel/living room. Sometimes they would open the doors to other rooms so people could sit there and listen. Police officers knew where the house church’s were and would come at times and shut them down on Sunday mornings, in which case everyone would have to go home. But Nellia said that some of the nice ones would tell her grandfather, who was the pastor, that he could continue but they would have to write down everything he said, which she found funny cause then the police officer would go back and share the message with other officers. One of the worst times was when they stood at the windows with fire trucks and threatened to pour water from the hoses in on them. Nellia said she was a small child then, and her mother just took her in the kitchen and they prayed and the police left and nothing happened. She shared stories of God protecting her father from prison multiple times.
Many times on the race you have these moments of just feeling overwhelmingly lucky to be where you are. This is one of those times. I am so lucky to be working with the people I am and to get to hear their stories and hearts behind ministry. They are simply a family working where they can and helping who they can. They see a need and then they act. It’s been a powerful message for me in the short time ive been here so far.
I leave you with one more good story. This is Vladimir and Nadia.
They have been married for 59 years, Vladimir was joking with us girls about getting married and he shared with us how they met. At the end of the story he told us that in his life he’s been around a lot and traveled all over Ukraine, but he knows for sure that there’s only one Nadia for him and she’s the best. He said he has trusted her all this time and has always remained faithful, besides if he wasn’t his father had promised to sneak in his bed at night and kill him, so that’s a good enough reason. Haha cute right.
