Spotlight on Ukraine: From Receiving to Sending

GLOBAL VOICES

From Receiving to Sending

ANITA DEYNEKA

Ukraine has been a part of my life ever since I married my husband, Peter, back in 1968. His parents were born in neighboring Belarus, but Ukraine was also connected to his mother’s family heritage. After the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, Ukraine became one of the republics of the communist Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). In the 1920s during the famine that swept many parts of the USSR, my mother-in-law, Vera, and her family walked many miles into Ukraine, and on these trips seeking food and survival.

At age 16, my father-in-law, Peter, had been sent by his parents to Chicago to earn money to send home to his large, impoverished family. Another immigrant told him he could learn English at the Moody Church, where he found Jesus, and soon wanted to share more than money with his family—he wanted to share the good news of the gospel with his family and others in Belarus, Ukraine and beyond.

Peter Sr. returned home and met Vera, who would walk 12 miles one way to attend church. The two returned together to Chicago and started a mission, the Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) to serve their own people, as communism sought to stamp out religion. Later, my husband, Peter, and I also worked with SGA during the communist years, as that ministry focused on printing and delivering Bibles and Christian books and producing broadcasts transmitted into the USSR from 11 shortwave Christian radio stations. During that period, Peter and I were permitted to travel to the USSR for a few times, until we were later denied visas for 13 years—particularly after writing books documenting the persecution of Christians.

When communism began to collapse in 1989 and it was possible to return, Ukraine was our first destination. We returned with great joy to again be with Christian brothers and sisters in this beloved country. With religious freedom, followers of Christ could now share their faith without fear of restriction, repression--and even prison or death as had also happened under communism. There was cavernous spiritual hunger and the gospel spread widely in Ukraine—now a country in the former Soviet Union, which came to have the most Christians in proportion to the population.

After Peter’s death in 1991, evangelism, church-planting, theological education and many ministries for children, which had just begun, continued under Ukrainian leadership and a headquarters for Russian Ministries (now Mission Eurasia) near Kiev. In the late 90s the light of the gospel shone globally from Ukraine, as that nation became a leader in believing that orphans and vulnerable children should be best cared for by Christians—by families in their own country of birth. One young Ukrainian leader, prayed that “Ukraine would become a Ukraine Without Orphans.” That prayer became the momentum for churches and Christians across the country to unite around the vision of “One Church, One Family, One Orphan.” And soon, the alliance of Ukraine Without Orphans became a paradigm and challenge to many other countries, even as Ukrainians took leadership helping establish a global network, World Without Orphans.

The Ukraine Without Orphans movement first took root in eastern Ukraine in Slavyansk and Mariupol, cities which were devastated during Russia’s attack on Ukraine in 2014. I remember being with Christians there in 2011 and hearing how followers of Jesus were opening their hearts and homes to orphans—which had not been permitted in communist years. Then came the attacks from Russia against Ukraine in 2014, with suffering and some fighting that has continued ever since. At that time, Ukrainian Christians took the lead in evacuating orphans and vulnerable children. My Ukrainian friends told me that the government in Slavyansk looked to them to help in other ways with organizing evacuations and humanitarian assistance during the heaviest days of the battles.

In these especially uncertain days, I am thinking a lot about Ukraine—and praying, and so much prayer is needed as God’s people care for the vulnerable and at-risk far away from the world’s geo-political stage.