By Glen Huguenin
Associate Pastor of Discipleship
First Baptist Church, Dillon
On May 14th I embarked on a two-week mission trip to the war torn region of Kyiv, Ukraine working with a Ukrainian ministry team under the leadership of a Pastor and his wife who administrate an orphanage home for teens, engage in humanitarian aide, and pastor a church in a village outside of Kyiv that they started with this group of young adults. How and why would I go to Ukraine at this time? The answer to that goes back many years.
From 2001 to 2011 I took five mission trips to Kyiv, Ukraine teaching in a Bible Institute and also working with a medical missions team. Those trips gave me a deep love for the people of Ukraine and when the war started, though my previous contacts and team members were no longer really in place; God used one of my past students to connect me, inadvertently, with a new group in the Kyiv region who, unlike so many who have left the country, were faithfully serving the Lord despite Russia’s attempt to occupy the land and their continued bombing of the country almost on a nightly basis.
After the war started I saw a post of a group of Ukrainian believers that I’ve never met, with the exception of one of my former students who was tagged in the post. I responded to their post with assurances that I was praying for them and that I loved Ukraine. One of the worship team leaders, who speaks English well, responded to my comment with these words: “why do you care about us?” After I explained that I was a pastor and described my previous ministry trips to Ukraine, she responded with this statement: “please come over and help us; so many pastors and believers have left and most people are afraid to come here and minister.” I assured her that I was not afraid to come and after three years of praying, waiting for a time when it would work out for me, I finally was able to go.
Olya, the one who reached out to me, was also my translator as I preached and communicated with others throughout the trip. I worked alongside this group preaching in their main church ministry and also distributing aide to the nearby villages and sharing the gospel with them as well.
The main church they serve in started off as a ministry to children in the community center after the war started. Soon, these efforts blossomed into a church whose attendance when I was there was about 250 people!
What was it like to be in Ukraine? Most all of Russia’s bombing takes place at night and during the day life in Ukraine seems almost normal. The people of Ukraine are very resilient and as my translator often said: “we just trust God and do what we need to do.”
My first night in Ukraine I could hear the bombs and the Ukrainian defense systems shooting down the drones that carry them as I lay in my bed some thirty miles from Russia’s main target of Kyiv. One night the missiles and drones were so heavy and much closer so we had to sleep in the basement and the next day discovered that a village ten miles from us had been hit hard with casualties and injuries. Yet despite this these believers keep serving the Lord with joy and trust Him with their safety. How could I not do the same?
While the average person in America will only here about the attacks against Ukraine when they are extremely severe; but the reality is they rarely go one night or two a week with relative peace.
There is so much more I could share about this trip but I hope anyone reading this will be motivated to pray for these people, be supportive of any role we can have in helping them, and realize that we have so much to be thankful for! When you go to bed at night do you ever worry about how bad the bombing will be that night? That is life right now in Ukraine.
