William and Wynna Withers never expected to fall in love with the people of Ukraine. In fact, for most of their married life, the Witherses never pictured themselves leaving their nice little nest in Buna, Texas, and moving to Ukraine for three years, especially at ages 65 and 64, respectively. But they did and now they are back in the United States and telling everyone they can about the missions opportunities there, including those who attended the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions’ Acts 1:8 Challenge events across the state in September.
William, who grew up on a farm in southeast Texas, and Wynna, who was born in Arkansas but moved to Texas, as a child, liked their quiet life. He was a basketball coach and teacher for many years before going into the insurance business. She was a stay-at-home mom but later served as the office manager for her husband’s business. The Witherses were faithful church members of First Baptist Church, Buna, and served in various capacities.
But God wanted something more from them.
“I was sitting at my breakfast table the second week of February 1992 reading Open Windows (a devotion guide put out by LifeWay Christian Resources),” William said. “(And I was praying for) a team (that) was going to the (former) Soviet Union (with a pastor from San Angelo, Texas). I was sitting there and very clearly I heard, ‘William, I want you to go.’ … I knew it was God and I was excited.”
After he returned from his first trip to the former Soviet Union, William couldn’t say no to going back. He began going on missions trips to that area of the world two to three times a year. It was during this time that God was “training me to be a missionary,” he said.
For Wynna, the call to missions came a little later.
“When God spoke to William at that kitchen table in 1992, He didn’t say anything to me,” she said. “When [William] told me he was going and asked me to go, I said, ‘No, thank you.’ I didn’t want to fly; I didn’t want to leave my kids.”
While taking a discipleship training class based on Henry Blackaby’s “Experiencing God,” Wynna said she realized that without faith, it’s impossible to please God and He rewards those who earnestly seek Him.
“I didn’t want to fly; I didn’t want to go to a country that possibly didn’t have electricity and running water. But (to put) this faith in action, I needed to have that reality,” she said. “William was having all these wonderful experiences, and I wasn’t in any of that. It slowly began to come to me that I was missing out. So I prayed, ‘God, enable me to go wherever you want me to go.’”
About three years later, Wynna went on her first international missions trip to southern Ukraine with William and stayed for two weeks. From 1995 to 2005, they took about 15 trips but never very long ones. Then, one day, Wynna told William she thought she could stay for a couple of months next time. But as they were discussing going for a couple of months, William came across the International Mission Board’s Masters Program.
The program allows adults 50 years of age or older to serve overseas for two to three years.
“All the sudden … we were talking about a two- or three-year commitment,” Wynna said. “I had a peace that I can do this — leave my children. I got the same peace like when I was saved.”
The Witherses were assigned to Odessa, Ukraine, in October 2005, and their assignment was to assist local churches, especially in regard to evangelism, and coordinate American volunteers who came to work in the area.
After receiving training in Richmond, Va., they went to Odessa in January 2006 but had to return to the United States after only a year for Wynna to have neck surgery. The couple were allowed to start their term over halfway through 2007.
In 2009, they were asked to move to Transcarpathia, an area in the western part of the country that is home to mainly Hungarian-speaking people. At first, William and Wynna were reluctant to leave the relationships they had formed with only a year left in their term. But once they were told that there had been only two teams that had gone to work in Transcarpathia in the past five years, their hearts were broken, they said.
The Witherses moved in August 2009 and worked with the Roma (Gypsies), university students and missions teams from Alabama.
Now back in Texas, the Witherses, who well up with tears every time they speak of Ukraine, plan to travel across the United States sharing about God’s work in Ukraine and rallying volunteers and support for Ukrainian churches.
The couple believe they are a testimony that God can use anyone no matter how old or settled in life one is.
“I’m not a goer,” Wynna said. “I like my nest, my ‘mesta’ (the Ukrainian word for ‘nest’ or ‘place’). I didn’t want to leave my mesta. My home was my mesta. But God enabled me to do it, and the more I did it, the more He enabled me and the more His grace grew and [Ukraine] became my mesta.”
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