Your People Shall Be my People

Hilary and Michelle are two of the full-time staff at the Lutsk base.  They are a married couple who have felt God’s calling to minister to the Jewish nation.  They are very passionate about what they do, and even gave us seven copies of “Your People Shall be my People”, a book about Messianic Judaism and the role of Israel in the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy.  We met them the first Thursday night we were here when we participated in the base family night.  Hilary and Michelle have been in Ukraine for about ten years and they have been in Lutsk for around five years.  When they moved to Lutsk, Hilary and Michelle adopted two children from Ukrainian orphanages, Nika and Rachel, who are now 7 and 11, respectively.

Hilary and Michelle invited our team over to their house on Wednesday to help them plant potatoes and sweet corn, and to enjoy a home-cooked meal, fellowship with some of their friends and to watch a Louie Giglio video.  Before we left to visit our new friends I was excited to get to have a chance to serve them.  For a while I had felt like I wanted to do some sort of service project and working in their garden seemed like a great opportunity.  I was excited to get my hands dirty. 

As soon as we walked into their house, seven year-old Nika grabbed me and pulled me into the family room to show me some of his favorite games.  Within five minutes Michelle asked if she could feed us lunch.  When we said we had already eaten lunch she said, “Well, how about coffee or tea and some cake.”  We happily obliged.  Though I was ready and eager to get to work in the garden, we spent a good hour to ninety minutes talking, watching Nika run in circles, and having coffee and some delicious banana cake.  Michelle loves to talk and to share her heart.  She was eager to hear more about us and to learn more about what we have been doing.

By the time we were finished working outside a few of Hilary and Michelle’s other friends had arrived.  A few of the women from our team helped Michelle in the kitchen preparing dinner and talking with the other guests.  Abby, Janina and I found a puzzle in the family room and got to work.  I had been looking for a good puzzle for us to do since we’ve been in Ukraine and couldn’t find one.  It was a lot of fun to sit together and take part in one of our favorite pastimes.  The puzzle was Rachel’s and she was very excited to have some friends to help her get started (it was one of those 3-D puzzles, an intricate castle).  As we were working on the puzzle, Michelle came in to check on us.  At one point she tenderly placed her hand on my shoulder and told us that she truly wanted to provide us an opportunity to rest.  She said she thought we were in Ukraine this month to rest.

Dinner was delicious.  Michelle made potato salad and Hilary grilled chicken over the fire (barbecue in Ukrainian is “shashleek”).  As we ate we sat, chatted and caught up with world events as BBC News was on the TV in the background.

After dinner Hilary set up a projector that cast a picture on the wall.  He showed us some of his favorite funny internet videos and then began to play a video of Louie Giglio’s “How Great is Our God” message.  I had never seen this message, but I’ve seen Louie many times and I must say he moves me every time.  He makes me want to get up and preach.  Seeing Louie projected on Hilary and Michelle’s family room wall made me homesick for Atlanta, where I used to be able to see him preach every Tuesday night and where I saw him preach at Passion08 just before we left for the Race.

Hearing one of my favorite preachers from home made me think of many of you and how I really do miss America.  Having a day to be taken care of by such a tender, loving family was comforting.  Having an opportunity to love them in return and to pour into their lives was refreshing.  I hope you all know you are loved today and know that no matter where we travel the Body of Christ is there to show his love to us.