Ukraine December 2022: A Recounting of My Time There by Spencer Stith
Mission Coordinator Spencer Stith traveled to Moldova and Ukraine in December with Pavel Horev, the pastor of International Community Church (a primarily Russian-speaking congregation that worships in Holmeswood Baptist Church's building). They met with local Baptist churches and several non-profit agencies that are aiding refugees. Following is an account of his time in Ukraine. Another article will be coming out soon that describes some of the refugee work occurring in Baptist churches in Moldova.
Christmas Tree Lights Necklace (December 2022)
There were no lights nor heat in Ukraine's third largest city, Odesa, as residents continued to grapple with extensive blackouts due to the daily shelling and drone attacks on the city's regional power infrastructure.
"Here, you'll need these," Katya explained as we entered the darkened apartment while handing each of us a package containing a small strand of battery-powered LED Christmas tree lights. Looking at the package, it struck me right then that Christmas Eve was just a week away. "These work better than flashlights if you need to use the bathroom during the night." As demonstrated by hanging one around her neck, "See. Now you can move around freely like this."
Later, as I struggled to get to sleep, I used my Christmas tree light necklace to inspect the posters, musical decorations, maps, and school accolades on the walls of Katya's teenage sons' bedroom that had been vacated so that my new Ukrainian friends could host me.
I thought of my own teenage son 5,600 miles away in Missouri and the Christmas we would be celebrating together in a week's time. Then, I began praying for the thousands of families whose dark apartment buildings we had driven past in this port city of over 1 million people.
Earlier In The Evening
Earlier that evening we shared an enjoyable dinner of Ukrainian borsht, grilled chicken, and potatoes with our Ukrainian hosts hearing about their experiences since the conflict began and their attempts to figure out how they could best respond as Christians. Our hosts, Katya and Dimitri, were staying at a friend's house who had left the country months earlier during the conflict and needed someone to check in on their property regularly. Fortunately, the home had a generator that our hosts occasionally ran to provide heating and electricity during blackouts.
Katya is a physician (OB-GYN) married to Dimitri, a businessman. Dimitri's mother was close friends with Pavel's mother (Pavel is the pastor of the International Community Church, KC) since the two women were students back during the Soviet era. Dimitri and Katya own some small café/ restaurants and a large meat processing factory in Odesa. Dimitri also owned a meat processing factory in Crimea, but when Crimea was invaded years earlier, he lost all his property there. Katya practices medicine several days a week and also is actively involved in running the cafés.
The Role of Christians During War
During dinner, there was a friendly, earnest, and occasionally heated discussion with Pavel and Vacile, with whom I was traveling, about whether Ukrainian Christians should volunteer to join the military efforts responding to the conflict. Vacile is a Moldovan pastor that has also been a long-time friend of Pavel and Dimitri.
Dimitry and Katya agonized over witnessing the ongoing destruction they saw around the country and wondered if it might be more appropriate for more Christians to voluntarily take up arms and join the fight. Dimitry wondered aloud if he, personally, was doing enough.
"If the Russian forces are evil, as they seem to be by their actions, wouldn't that be an appropriate response," he contemplated. Pavel and Vacile who had both served in the Soviet army when they were younger before the breakup of the Soviet Union reminded Dimity that there were undoubtedly Russian Christians among the forces in Ukraine that did not choose to join the fight but were forced to fight. "They can't all be evil," Pavel and Vacile suggested. "Also, the Lord's prayer reminds us that we pray not to be led into temptation… would Christians voluntarily joining the fighting not have the potential to get swept up into evil that they hadn't anticipated before joining," they shared.
The discussion continued for hours without a clear resolution. However, it was clear to me that all at the table agreed that one of the best Christian responses was to continue helping any and all in need that had been hurt or displaced through these difficulties.
To that end, Dimitri and Katya, through their businesses, already supported large numbers of internally displaced Ukrainians as they offered them jobs in their cafés and their factory. They also provided truckloads of relief to the refugees displaced from Ukraine into Moldova, which Baptist churches in Moldova had distributed. They also helped run a weekly food distribution ministry for those in need in Odesa based out of a Baptist church that fed hundreds.
Why We Were There Right Then
Pavel, Vacile, and I completed the four-hour drive to Odesa, Ukraine, from Chisinau, Moldova, earlier in the day to meet up with a retired couple from Kherson, Ukraine. We were going to drive the refugee couple back across the border into Moldova with their belongings as they were scheduled to leave for the US in two days to begin living with their daughter, a member of Pavel's church in South Kansas City. After struggling for a long time, they realized it had become too dangerous to stay in their home in central Kherson, where daily exchanges between Russian and Ukrainian forces had wreaked devastation on their neighborhood. It was time to leave for the foreseeable future. They had a son who would be unable to go with them as he was of fighting age and could not get permission to leave Ukraine at that time.
The Next Day
The next day we visited some of the businesses that Katya and Dimitri owned and met many displaced Ukrainians who Katya and Dimitri employed. We also toured the port city, where we witnessed hundreds of lorry trucks filled with grain waiting to be loaded onto cargo ships as part of the grain export agreement in place as well as the consequences of the shelling in the nearly year-long conflict at that point.
Besides being a port, Odesa is a popular tourist destination for people around the region who come to visit its sandy beaches on the Black Sea coast. In the early days of the conflict, Ukrainian forces mined their own beaches to prevent a sea-to-land invasion that could cut off Ukrainian access to the Black Sea. While the invasion by sea was thwarted, the Ukrainians we met lamented that people were regularly killed when they accidentally stepped on mines on the beaches. They fear it will be decades before all the mines are uncovered after the conflict ceases.
Later in the day, we met up with the refugee family we were escorting back to Moldova for their flight to the US the following day. It was clear they were emotionally devastated to leave their home days before and now preparing to leave their homeland.
We all prayed together before we crossed the border out of Ukraine for God's provision on the next part of their journey. However, it seemed hard for us all to find encouraging words when the immediate experience was only one of loss.
Prayer Requests
Pray for Katya and Dimitri and their ongoing commitment to helping their fellow Ukrainians who have chosen to remain in Ukraine. Pray for those who have not had the option to remain and have fled out of necessity, not choice.