Something To Think About

I’m not really sure where to start. The time we have spent here in Odessa, Ukraine has truly been a wonderful experience. We have learned a lot; about another culture, other customs, other ways of life and about ourselves. What strikes me is how comfortable our lives in the US have become, how much we take for granted, how little most of us really sacrifice for our faith.

I want to tell you a story, a true story that happened here in Odessa on the night of December 26. After attending a Christmas party of Vineyard Church members and friends, this young couple was returning home. As they were walking, they encountered two young boys, street kids. Realizing the situation, they began talking with the boys and learned that they were brothers from a small village outside Odessa. They learned that the older boy, age 13, had been living on the streets for quite a while. His brother, age 12, had been living in an orphanage in their village, but apparently was at home for the holidays and was convinced by his older brother to run away with him. This was the first time that the younger boy had run away. After talking for about an hour, the couple took the boys with them to their apartment, fed them and gave them a place to sleep for the night. They got the boys to agree to return to their village and in the morning, Sergey bought three bus tickets and accompanied the boys on the four hour bus ride home. The boys’ parents are very poor. They do not have electricity in their home. They do not work and live on the government assistance money they receive and do not appear to provide much guidance or supervision for their sons. They placed the younger boy in the orphanage, so he receives better care than the two boys still at home. The 13 year old lives on his own on the street more than he lives at home. Hopefully, at least the 12 year old will stay at the orphanage and have a chance at a better life.

After taking the boys home and talking with their parents, Sergey prepared to go back to Odessa. He wasn’t certain how he would get there. It was night and he was not even sure which direction that he should go. He began walking and stopped a house to ask directions. When he knocked, a woman answered the door, so he explained why he was there and asked which way to Odessa. She told him and he began walking and praying. After 15 or 20 minutes, a car approached and stopped. It was the woman who had given him directions and her husband. After Sergey had left, the husband had asked who was at the door. The woman explained and the husband said that they should help him. They were Christians and understood that prompting from God was the reason Sergey had gone to the trouble and expense to bring their neighbor boys home. Since they were poor and didn’t even have gas money for the car, Sergey paid for gas and the couple drove him to the main highway leading to Odessa, so he could get a ride from there. As he was talking to the couple, Sergey discovered that they were possibly the only Christians in that village. There is no church in the village for them to attend. They said that they wanted to send a Bible to their son who is in the army, but had no place to get one and no money to purchase one. Sergey gave them the Bible he always carried with him. It was a leather-bound gold-edged page Bible that had been a gift from his wife Julia. The couple was reluctant to take this special gift, but Sergey said that Julia also would want them to have it. The couple was extremely grateful to have a bible of their own.

Sergey was able to get a ride with a truck driver. He arrived in Odessa very late that night and had to tell Julia that he had given away the gift she had given him. She was a little surprised at first, but agreed with his decision.

As I think of our lives as Christians in the United States and what we sometimes think of as sacrifices for our faith, I feel that often my Christian walk is pretty wimpy by comparison. When Jeff and Tonya Filleman came to our church to talk about Youth of Ukraine, the ministry in which they partner with Sergey and Julia, I thought that this ministry to the orphans was a very good and needed thing. But until we came to Ukraine and actually saw the need and came to understand what this ministry is really about and the total commitment of Sergey and Julia to serving these children, I didn’t have a clue what it was really about. They do this because they God called them to do this. I wonder how many times God has called me to do something and I didn’t even hear Him amidst the clamor of everything that goes on in my everyday life.

I think I need to give you a little background here. First of all, Sergey and Julia didn’t feel comfortable about me writing some of this. They don’t feel that what they are doing is sacrifice compared to the young man in Belarus who recently was imprisoned for two years for handing out invitations to an Intervarsity Christian event. Sergey and Julia live in a 100 year-old apartment, which until recently didn’t even have hot water. They have done most of the conversion work themselves. This has been a lengthy process, because, when they see kids who need help, they use their own money to help them, thus further delaying the remodeling. They do have a computer, but have put off purchasing a printer because there were more important uses for the money. Their priorities are where mine should be, but usually aren’t. Money should be used to make an eternal difference, not a material difference. We have such a good life, that it was difficult for me to comprehend what real Christian commitment is all about. Julia and Sergey have forever changed my thinking on a number of things and I will always be grateful to them for that.

Sergey is a street preacher who ministers mostly to street kids, who also sometimes preaches at the Vineyard Church in Odessa. Both he and Julia minister to the older kids in Orphanage 4 and the ones who have graduated from the orphanage. Julia also teaches English to some of the kids who are being adopted and to some who are too old for adoption, but want to learn English to help them in furthering their educations. They want to also travel to orphanages in surrounding cities and villages, but they do not have a vehicle and it costs $100 to $150 to hire a vehicle and driver for a day to make these trips plus the cost of the gifts and other items they take for the kids. So, they are not able to make very many of these trips. They are also closely associated with Intervarsity and invite orphanage graduates to attend Intervarsity events and workshops with them. This gives these kids the opportunity to associate with Christians and encourages them to stay away from all the negative influences that constantly surround them.

Sergey and Julia have friends and family who don’t understand why they do this and think they are crazy. They wonder why they don’t get real jobs where they can make more money. But Sergey and Julia take very seriously Christ’s admonition in James 1:27 “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” If you have not done so, please check out their website at www.YouthOfUkraine.org