Dear Ukraine,
It’s been a month and I want you to know, I see you.
I see the way you struggle toward greatness. The way your people live in this world strattling old and new, east and west, war and peace.
I’ve spent a month working, hard, elbow deep in dirt and paint and cleaning supplies. And while the work encourages heads down and eyes fixed, I’ve tried to look around and see you– the true you– in the faces of your people.
—-
I awoke early on my first morning here, and headed to spend the weekend with some of your beautiful daughters attending a camp. These girls shared laugher with us and we shared our testimonies. I told them about how the scars on my heart healed as the scars on my thighs did too thanks to The Lord’s balming love. One of them asks me “did it get better right away?”
I looked her in the eyes– blue like the clear sea, young, seeking– and told her “No. It took a while and some times it was difficult. But God is faithful and he will carry you.”
I’ll never forget the soft disappointment on her face as the truth of my experience got translated to her. Her eyes darted away and I wondered about her wound. Alcoholic parents? An abusive boyfriend? Depression?
They told us how many of the village girls who come to camp have horrible home lives. They told us how high risk it is now for girls such as these to get caught into prostitution or the pornography industry– almost all of them end up selling their bodies in some way.
“Seek Him. He will carry you.” I repeat, her flickering eyes hurting, her young face turned down. Me, hands in fists, frustrated that I cannot save every girl and woman on this planet but God if only I could–
—–
I met the babushkas in our village who sat on their benches in front of their houses when not working their fields. On the way to and from the farm property, we would stop and sit. They would talk to us and us to them, neither having the slightest what the other was saying.
I liked their heavy woolen skirts, head scarves tighed under chins, and hands rough from years of working.
All the babushka farm in Kolentsi. Old women stooped and singing as they plant their fields, putting our uneven rows in the dirt to shame.
One of them, on the rare occasion we had a translator, told us she loves that we always say hello when we pass. She remembers when people used to always do that, but in recent years strangers don’t greet one another like they used to. She blames the war and the changing times.
They are you, Ukraine. The old world working hard but slow. Crawling toward survival with all the time in the world. They have lived through wars unimaginable, the Soviet Union, independence, and now a new war front knocking.
Another change, they shrug, returning to singing as they dig trenches for potatoes as their mother did, and their mothers, and their mothers…
—–
I spent time in your heart, Kyiv. I walked your streets, attended an afternoon liturgy at an orthodox cathedral, and sat in cafes watching your people. East and west– the elderly man selling flowers outside the McDonald’s on the main square, the big circus of the Eurovision Song Contest set up in the shadow of the St. Sophia cathedral, the friendship arch painted rainbow in LGBTQ solidarity visible behind the soviet style art instillation I’m observing– meet here.
The contradictions spin my American hearted, African lifestyle mind into a frenzy and I feel the tightness of a panic attack building in my chest as I cannot reconcile your opposites with my broadened world view. So I get a coffee and I walk, seeking the hidden parts of you despite what my eyes are initially taking in.
I know I’ve found it when, by chance and very lost, I walk around the back of St. Michael’s cathedral. All along this wall, there are photos and names of those who have died serving in the war with Russia.
As a member of the human race, taking in each face suddenly feels like the most important thing in the world. I look at these men and women and the flowers, candles, and notes left here by your people and I do as I do when I’m overwhelmed with hopelessness– I pray.
I pray for their families, for their children, for the gaping hole their absence has created in the fabric of the universe as they have been snatched away by death.
Every so often, someone comes by and finds a specific photo, stands for a moment and leaves on their way.
One man, in the baggy business suit with the thinning gray hair, reached out his hand, lingering on a photo for a moment before leaving.
I pray, growing frustrated in the midst of my struggle. It’s not God’s fault but gosh it would be easy to blame Him, wouldn’t it? All this loss. All this loss. A shard of pain lodged in the country’s very heart.
Once, I would’ve grown numb to protect myself. Now, He’s changed me, and taught me to love human beings more than I ever thought possible. So I wept. And I weep even now. All this loss.
——
I’m at the bus station in Zhytomer with Abby, both of us suffering from full bladders and lacking knowledge of the Ukrainine or Russian word for toilet. This station is a bustle of afternoon activity and nobody gives us a second glance. Finally it’s one of the dozens of soldiers waiting at this station who hears our repeated question of “Toilet? Toilet?” and comes to our rescue.
He doesn’t know what we need at first, but our desperation is enough for him to come over away from a group of his buddies all dressed in fatigues– green camouflage, combat boots, the blue and yellow of your flag stitched on his shoulder– to see how he can assist us.
Abby finds a common language with him in French and our new friend personally escorts us down and around the building to the toilets. As we both throw a “merci” over our shoulders as we walk away, he smiles wide reveling golden front teeth and raises a hand in farewell, wedding ring glittering.
I’m almost sick in the toilets thinking of this war and the human faces behind it all. And I pray that God is sending him back to his family, far from the conflict in the east. I pray that his face never ends up on that wall.
Ukraine, your sons are brave.
——
I’m here on the last day. A new child arrives to the children’s home, one of your far too many children lacking in stable family life. I go to say hello.
At two years old, her eyes are as exhausted as one of the Babushka’s. She stares at me with blank intensity, not responding to any of my silly voices or faces. Finally, a tickle, and she smiles wide, reveling a row of rotten black teeth.
Her two older sisters are here too, all of them orphaned by parents who are unable and unfit to care for them despite still living.
They are three of far too many who find the same life fate. Will these girls grow up to be hurting young women carefully concealing wounds and asking questions with darting eyes?
I hold the baby and she will not break eye contact, so I don’t.
—–
Ukraine, these people are you. The young, the old, the warriors, the orphaned. Humans, and some of the most excellent ones I’ve ever met in my life.
As I’m leaving you behind, Ukraine I pray greatness and peace for you and your people. I pray for listening ears and soft hearts to accept change while remembering the lessons of the past that have carried you so far.
You’ve caused me to struggle. Here at the end of the month, I’m wrestling the worst of all. Thank you for being the place of my struggle. Thank you for the nameless faces who have taught me lessons and given me reason to fight for life and truth.
Thank you for the excellence.
Love always,
Kayla
