Ukraine is filled with contradictions as far as women are concerned. Society gives priority to men, yet a woman currently serves as prime minister.
Still the nation exports about 250,000 women annually, officials say. Many of them end up in human trafficking.
Often men “implode” in their family life, but it is women who bear the blame for family failure.
Wives are commonly abused — verbally, emotionally and physically. Yet the final word in family decisions frequently comes from the babushka (grandmother). She is the matriarch of the household.
Unfortunately not even Baptist pastors are exempt from this culture. When one starshee (similar to a state convention executive director) was asked what Alabama Baptists should pray for, he quickly answered “the family life of pastors.”
Women constitute between 60 percent and 70 percent of the membership of Ukrainian Baptist churches. They do most of the behind-the-scenes work in churches, but their participation in church life is limited. Some say it is limited in the life of the Baptist Union of Ukraine as well. However, until the fall of communism less than 20 years ago, women’s ministry was illegal in this former Soviet republic. Not even children’s Sunday School was allowed.
Today the union’s women’s ministry — the Sisters Ministry — works with orphanages, senior adult facilities, halfway houses and rehabilitation centers. The sisters provide everything from birthday parties to clothes for orphans. They collect clothes and other necessities for the elderly. They provide direction for recently released prisoners. They offer hope for addicts.
In addition to social programs, the sisters have Bible study programs in many of these same institutions.
And they care for the church. The sisters have extensive Bible study programs within the church setting. Hundreds of Baptist women are involved in spiritual mentoring. In addition to involvement in personal prayer, the sisters have prayer programs.
“The sisters of Ukraine are a loving, caring group of Baptists,” declared Marsha Judy, a Baptist representative serving in Ukraine, who works with the women’s ministry. “They are hard working and dependable. Their love for the Lord is lived out through their extensive social ministries, as well as through their service as prayer warriors and Bible students.”
Judy wants women to know who they are in Jesus. “Society may be unkind to women, but I want them to know what the Bible says about women, to know they are loved, redeemed, anointed, blessed and so much more.”
She added that women are the key to the home, church and community. “But I remind them that they cannot make an eternal difference without Christ.”
Judy has two goals related to Alabama Baptists’ partnership with the Baptists of Ukraine. The first is to establish a national network of prayer support through the sisters’ programs.
The second is to promote missions education for children.
She said Ukrainians learn best from personal experiences. Judy said she wants the women of the union’s churches to meet the Alabama volunteers and experience working with them. That will make prayer links vital for the Ukrainian women and the Alabama volunteers who will pray for the work in Ukraine, she said.
Concerning missions education for children, Judy said Ukraine’s churches need something like Mission Friends or Girls in Action and Royal Ambassadors.
“We have Awana but children here need a program with more missions information and missions inspiration,” she said. “They need to learn the ‘why’ of missions.
“That is what the children at home have, and as a Baptist representative in another country, I can see the benefit of that training. Children here need that kind of information.”
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