Thoughts on What is Happening Now - Reminding Myself

Someone we know here has just gone through a very difficult experience. A couple we know is unemployed and will probably have to move after the first of the year - but to where? They have no money, no job prospects at this time. Another person just spent time in the mental hospital in the hope that they would be certified as an invalid (which happened, but not quite the level they had hoped for) and is now caring for their grandmother under very trying conditions. One young woman has the burden of her whole family resting on her shoulders. Another young man worked hard this summer and his partner ran off with the profits, leaving this young man in debt for the product he was selling as well. Two young men are heavily in debt due to buying cars. A widow cares for her mother-in-law, father, two grown daughters and works full-time at a very stressful job. Another retired woman tutors a young girl many hours each week, walks several miles each day and basically cares for her adult son as well.

These are just a few of the problems for people we know and love here in Ukraine. How do I react to all these things? What can I do?

Three weeks ago, just as people were arriving for church at the building we were renting, the director/supervisor of the building came running in, hollering for us all to leave as quickly as we could. I had just finished teaching Sunday School and an American group of pastors, their wives and a couple other people had just arrived to worship with us. Mel had gone to meet and escort another couple to where we were meeting and met us as we were all hurriedly leaving the building.

We gathered together a ways down the street and decided what to do. We eventually all met up together and Jamie and Julia's home and had a very crowded worship service in their living room, Ukrainians and Americans altogether.

After all the dust has settled (we hope), it seems that the rent we had been paying had not been handled correctly somewhere. The person in charge had gotten in to some pretty serious trouble and was afraid there was going to be more, much worse trouble coming their way. Everything happened so quickly that I don't think it took more than 10 minutes for everything to get put away (chairs restacked, music equipment put away, taken down and repacked, etc) and all of us out the door and back on the street.

The following Tuesday the men in the proto-session were still in a state of shock. They discussed what to do and finally two of the guys spent the rest of the week looking for another meeting place. Nothing was found, so we went over to the proto-ruling elder's home for worship on Sunday. Sergei K. preached and it was good. It was even more crowded due to the smaller room we were in, but there were only two visiting Americans and not all of the congregation showed up. Sunday School was cancelled for that week.

This past week Sergei found a wonderful meeting place, just down the street from where we had previously met. The only drawback was that we had to meet at 1:00 instead of 10:00 because another group had rented the morning hours.

Yesterday we gathered together in the misty fog, outside the building and when the time was right, we all went inside and began setting up. This new meeting place is an old theater, kind of a community gathering place. There is a high stage, movie theater type seats (only think back to the 50's or 40's or maybe even the 20's!! Not nice comfy seats that rock and move quietly. No, not that at all! :) :) ). The meeting room is slanted so the 'choir' and the Yamaha electronic keyboard and both Mel and Sergei stood in front of the seats rather than up on the stage, way up on the stage, high above everyone else. They wanted to be closer to the congregation and we could all see them very well there. :)

My first impressions when we went in were - Wow! I like this place! It was warm. The lights were rather dim - I had to hold my Bible up under my nose to read it. The decor is old-fashioned. The stage is old. The seats are old. The floor is old wood. But - there was a feeling of warmth and welcome and 'belonging' that was instant for me.

I've thought about that a bit. The whole time we were paying rent at the other place, the supervisor/director of the building was not being honest and apparently not being legal about it. How could God continue to bless that? Even if we all did not know that for sure - we guessed it was true because it happens so often here. How could God continue to bless that kind of situation?

This new place is legal as far as we can tell. Above board. Honest as far as we can know. I wonder if that is part of what I felt and understood as I walked in? I felt God's smile on us there.

Mel and I have done a lot of talking over the past couple of weeks. About our team, about what is going on, about our calling, about our time here in Kherson. And I have many thoughts on it all.

First and foremost - you (generic you, not pointed at a specific you anywhere past, present or future) cannot take our little church out of it's historical context. What do I mean by that?

- This is a church being formed, developed, grown-up with love in a former Soviet country. Yes, the wall came down many years ago. A lot of water has flown under the bridge. BUT this is still a former Soviet country. The people here are Ukrainian, they are NOT Americans. Their history is Ukrainian/Russian/Soviet/Orthodox/Athiest - not pilgrims who immigrated to a new land and built up a government for the people and by the people, one nation under God and so forth and so on. We know several people who wish communism would return. We know many people who say their lives were better under communism than they are now. The fall of the Soviet Union meant freedom in many different ways for people young and old. But many things have remained the same or have even become worse. Crime is one of those things. Corrupt government is another. I could go on and on about the pro's and con's, but I'll just leave it at this: Ukraine never was and never will be the United States, people never have and never will think like Americans, things have never been and never will be the same here as they are in the United States. As much as I love my country, Sweet Land of Liberty - not everyone wants that. People do not look at life, at government or at Church with American eyes (or British, or Western European, or Protestant or Catholic eyes).

You have to put our little church into it's own historical context. This little church is in a small city, a city where a lot of the younger people just want to get their education as quickly as they can and then leave. A small city in one of, if not the poorest oblasts in Ukraine. People want out of this area. Because of this we can look at the young people we have worked with over the past 10 years and find some of them in Canada, some in America, some in France, some in Portugal, some in Germany, and so forth. The good news is that we are finding more young people who actually want to stay here in Ukraine rather than leave! Our little church has had several people die over the past few years. The good news is that more children are being born. The bad news is that as children are born, the parents end up with more debt and try to work more hours which means that more than one family rarely comes to church because the husband/father is away working. A couple of the young couples have moved to a nearby village because they could get more affordable housing there. No cars means public transportation and some day I'll just go on a rant about the stupidness of pushing public transportation on the American public because I can see how it only partially works here and is getting more and more expensive to use - but I'll save that for another post. Ha!

Our little church has gone through a church split. A very painful church split. Our church leadership is only partially healed from all that happened. A long story that I cannot go into here. But - there are scars on several lives. There are ramifications from sin that happened and still is happening. Sin that affects several people in the congregation. People have been hurt and hurts like these take a long time to heal. People do not trust as quickly. People tend to be 'gun shy' about new things or people who are really excited about something because they have gone through all this before, gotten excited about it and BAM - been hit in the face, so to speak. The good news is that our time at the other place was a time of healing in many areas. Oh, there are still ramifications we deal with on a daily or weekly basis and will be for years to come. Yet, a core group of people remain. They are less willing to step out and take risks, but they remain faithful. (What have I personally learned from this? That the Bible is true when it says to 'stand firm' over and over, and that God thinks faithfulness is pretty important, and so is loving people, I mean really truly loving them, warts and all, even when they don't do what I want them to do. heh heh)

This is only one part of the historical context of our little church. Each of the people involved, including Mel and me, Melinda and now Jamie and Julia - each of us bring baggage into the mix, our own expectations, our own disappointments, our own hurts, our own human wisdom, our own relationships to God. Too often we want it to be a church in our own image, a church we like, a church that we approve us. Each of us struggles with this, I think. I wish so many times this or that was different. I wish so often that so-and-so would stop doing this or that, or that this other person would actually DO something. I wish that I could stop the hurts that people have (see first paragraph). I wish I could help them financially. I wish God would stop doing what He's doing to some people and instead do it my way! I wish we had 50 more people coming. I wish it was the church that I want it to be, that I dreamed it would be, that I just knew it would be by now.

But you know what? Instead - we got kicked out of the last place we were meeting, suddenly, shockingly. We have moved our meeting place 10 times in 9 years (and we wonder why it is taking the builder so long for the church building to be built so this won't be a problem ever again - we hope!!!) We may lose more people - and we are a small group to begin with.

Or -
Or -
Well, or - we could look and see what GOD is doing in this situation. I have my ideas and plans and dreams - but are they God's perfect plan or simply my own? Oh, I have had to ask myself this question a number of times recently. I wish things had gone differently - but they didn't. They went the way GOD wanted them to go.

You know, that is pretty amazing all in all. I would have made the perfect church here in our little city. Then I could have sat back and basked in the glory of what I did, what we as a team did. Instead, God is saying - Look at what I, the Lord God of heaven and earth am doing. It isn't at all what I expected - but it is what He had planned from the beginning of the world and before.

So, I look at this new meeting place, I go in and I feel at home. I look around me and I see possibilities. I ask myself, "Wow! What is God going to do now?!"

I am wise enough in my old age at 54 to understand that I am not God, nor am I nor will I ever be as wise as He is - and so whatever happens may or may not be what I want, what I hope will happen.

But God is at work among His people in this little church. Of that I have no doubt.

And I am really excited to see what He is going to do!