Since Andrei moved to Ukraine from Belarus three years ago, he has learned some things.
He has learned how to plant a church.
And he has learned what to use to treat the symptoms of a tear gas attack.
Milk.
He has drunk it himself sitting in class at Kiev Theological Seminary after inhaling tear gas and being dangerously close to the Molotov cocktails going off in the city center.
“One of my ears was out, for a day probably, from the bombs,” said Andrei, who spent dozens of nights over the winter months in Kiev’s Maidan, the square where political demonstrations escalated into a bloodbath that left about a hundred people dead this past February.
Joel Ragains, Southern Baptist representative and co-director of the church-planting program at the seminary, has Andrei’s photo pinned to a wall map of Ukraine. He stares at it. Prays for him.
And prays for the others.
Andrei’s not the only one who’s been right in the middle of the fray.
“I think about two of our students who have just recently graduated from our program — young guys,” Ragains said. “One came here four years ago, single and since coming he met his wife and now has a little baby. The other fellow, Sasha, is still single.”
They planted a church in Donetsk, a city in eastern Ukraine that suddenly became the center of the nation’s violence after things died down in Kiev.
They’ve had to make adjustments, Ragains said. They’ve been targeted at times.
But “it’s been good in the fact that they are thinking outward as far as how can we serve the body of Christ as far as what’s going on here now.”
It hasn’t been an easy road, he said.
“One of my students had just planted a church in this particular area, and he told us … ‘They’ve told me I can’t use this building anymore.’”
Another seminary graduate facing threats is unsure whether they’ll get to stay or have to move.
“It’s just very disheartening to see what’s happening,” Ragains said.
But it’s not without hope.
“It’s difficult but I think, underneath all that, the encouraging thing is that their faith is strong,” he said. “They’re going to continue doing what they’re doing regardless of what’s going to happen. They’re committed to Jesus Christ first of all. They just really need our prayers right now because they are hurting.”
It’s surreal, Ragains said. But he doesn’t want to squander the opportunity. “We don’t want to ever forget that it’s really important for us to support and encourage. … We have a window of opportunity to change the spiritual landscape of this nation, and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
He’s got a band of seminary students and graduates with him.
Andrei is one. And he’s not backing down from the task.
“It’s war,” he said. “Let’s call things by their names — it’s war. But it’s a really good time for revival.”
Share with others: