I often joke that cold and I have a love-hate relationship. I love the beauty of the snow, especially when the sun creates a bright blue sky and fresh glistening snow blankets a forest of spruces and pines in the mountains. Snow connects with my heart; I even remembering crying as a kid when we only had two feet on the ground. But here in Ukraine, I only hate the cold. India was chaotically colorful; Ukraine feels gray and dead. At night, I look forward to heading to bed simply to get warm. A small electric heater struggles to fight the freezing temperatures in our large, empty room. And four blankets simply keep me from being too cold to sleep. But real warmth never comes.
In Луга́нск (pronounced “Luhonsk”), the closest large city, the few people we see outside only wear gray, brown, or black. All around, aging Soviet-era factories pollute the environment. Most hardly produce anything, and they themselves and their unused products rust away outside, as their former workers rust away from the inside.
Not surprisingly, most of the people in the villages surrounding our camp are spiritually dead. People overeat, drink to solve their problems, and turn to sex to feel a bit of any life and intimacy. We’ve been told that roughly 85 percent of the people here struggle with alcoholism, and that AIDS is growing faster here than in Africa. Most of the men are lazy and rarely think ahead, leaving the women to provide for basic needs. And many of the men that do work, work in coal mines, retire in their 40s and don’t live past 50. It feels like depression, hopelessness, and despair prevent these people from being freed beyond anything but survival. And the sin they turn to only continues to trap them in the never-ending downward spiral of death, both physical and spiritual.
In our Western society, we’re taught to understand the world around us only from the physical. Even within the church, we acknowledge that the spiritual world exists in theory, but I don’t think we really believe that it does. It’s like we live within “The Matrix” – our real enemy has pulled a blind over our eyes to make us believe he doesn’t exist. But the trouble is – the world we live in doesn’t make any sense without understanding the spiritual.
And as we go into new places here in the World Race, I think God allows us to feel how the enemy is working in a place. We become part of the battle rather than just spectators. And often it sucks, because it feels like we’ve been hit with a barrage of feelings and temptations without knowing where they’ve come from or sometimes even realizing they exist.
And for me, Ukraine is no different. The past week, I’ve felt dead. Two nights ago, I couldn’t sleep for hours as I fought a barrage of temptations to feel bitter towards people on our squad and even back in the United States. And last night, life felt painfully hopeless as I longed for God to breathe any life into my chapped heart.
I know that as followers of Christ, every one of us is to bring life wherever we’re at. But what does that look like? I fear that sometimes I only bring death. This month, I long to know what it means to bring life – the life that Christ brings – to a person, or a community, or even a nation. We’ve laid concrete in the Philippines, prayed for people and shared when we could in China, preached and shared all over Africa. I’ve often felt used and have wondered what is and isn’t good. Have we created more division in the church or created bitterness towards Christ? Sometimes I feel like the enemy of joy, almost as if I’ve sided and given in to the enemy and his bitterness, becoming his agent rather than his foe.
This past month in India and Nepal was a turning point for me, though. I’m beginning to understand how much the spiritual really does affect people. And how to fight for others through prayer. I’m learning to believe that prayer and love
really does affect and bring life to people.
But now I want to make this my own, to begin leading rather than simply following because I have no idea what we’re doing. I have a map on my wall of Nepal, and have begun praying for various villages as I learn its topography. And I’m praying for people God has put on my heart around the United States. I’m being challenged to love others on my squad and team right now, even though I don’t fully know how, it’s kinda scary, and as my imperfection, selfishness, and sin are being exposed.
This is war – the most important war of our lifetime – the war to love and bring life to one another.
