Prior to making the long journey
to Ukraine, MDI's staff prayed long and hard as to whether it was right for us
to travel to Ukraine. We knew that our
friends had erected a prayer tent right in the middle of the "action"
and were heavily involved in providing food, tea and prayer support for
battle-weary protestors. The prayer tent
was also open to all faiths including the leaders of those faiths. We decided if we could provide comfort and
support to our leaders we are in relationship with, we would go. Their response to our asking was,
"Please come!" So, on a Monday
morning we left.
When arriving on Tuesday, we were
a little overwhelmed with people saying to us, "We are so glad you are
here. Everyone else has canceled their
visits to Ukraine. It once again, shows
us your deep love for us and the country of Ukraine." For us, it was affirmation we had made the
right decision to come.
What no one realized, was that the
very minute we walked through customs, the protests turned from peaceful to
very deadly. Even driving in from the
airport, we heard a report that eight people had just been killed.
Upon arriving at our apartment, we
walked to the window, which overlooked the downtown area of Kiev where the
fighting was. We could easily see a
large wall of black smoke building in the sky and could hear explosions and gunshots
ringing through the air. It was a very
sobering sight. We realized this was not
a movie or a news report of somewhere else in the world. It was about two miles from us and it was
happening in a country we call our second home and our friends were right in
the middle of it. We called Anatoly
Kaluzhny and asked him for advice as to how we should conduct ourselves. He told us, that at that moment, the fighting
was confined to the downtown area, and we were safe where we were but to not go
beyond several blocks of where were living.
During dinner, Anatoly called us
and asked if we would come to the New Life Church office (about six blocks away)
to pray with him. Upon arriving there,
the stress of the day was clearly written on his face. After a season of prayer, he told us he was
worried about his sons going to Maidan to fight. He needed to leave to try to talk them out of
going. We left him promising we would go
right home and stay there.
We were to learn later that
Anatoly had been unsuccessful talking his boys into not going. He decided if they were going he was as
well. That night, twenty-six people were
killed. When we communicated with our
friends to confirm our meetings with them, the shock of the reality of what was
happening was evident in their voices.
This was the beginning of when our timely arrival was now turning into a
distraction for our friends. They were
not only focused on the conflict, worried about the safety of their families,
but were now having to also worry about our safety as well.
The next evening came the news of
a truce! Praise God, the conflict seemed
to have found way to end. We started to
relax thinking we could continue working with our leaders in a normal fashion.
We woke the next morning to find out that the truce had not lasted more than a
few hours. We had a full day of meetings
planned and decided we would process what to do next while having our
meetings. During the day things started
to happen:
1. More than sixty people had been killed that day.
2. Most grocery stores were running out of food.
3. Huge block-long lines were forming at gas stations with
stations running out of gas.
4. ATM's were no longer working.
5. Credit cards were no longer working due to a communication
shutdown.
6. Rumors were going around they were going to block all
bridges including the ones between us and the airport.
We were having a late lunch with
Anatoly at a huge mall, when we received a call from one of our leaders (Lena)
saying, "I can no longer tell you that you are safe in Ukraine." We made the decision to leave, so I was
calling Delta trying to figure out how we could leave the country. Suddenly we realized that there was no one
around which seemed very strange due to it being only 3:45 in the afternoon. We got up to leave and found security people
waiting for us. They informed us that
the mall had been closed and we were the last people to leave. They then proceeded to escort us out of the
building. Delta had told us we could not
get out until the next morning. So we
called our missionary, Heather Harris, and asked her to get her passport, pack
a bag and have a friend drive her to our apartment.
When she arrived, she was not
happy to be leaving. She wanted to stand
with her friends. She did realize
however, she too was a distraction to those same friends so agreed to leave
with us. A few minutes later I heard,
"Hey Steve, look at this!" I
walked over to the window where she was looking out and there stood about
twenty-five men, dressed in black, holding sticks/clubs. She said, "I can't tell whether those
are good or bad guys." I said,
"We are not going to go find out."
That was affirmation that it was, indeed, time to leave.
We all got up at 3am to get ready
to be picked up at 4. We had heard
rumors that there were 5,000 protestors blocking the airport to prevent government
officials from leaving the country. On
the way to the airport, there was a large roadblock, run by armed young men,
which stopped us. It turned out that
they were with the opposition and our friend/driver, Anya, said “Слава Україні”
(“Glory to Ukraine”) and let us go.
We are now safe in Madrid. We so appreciate all of your prayers during
this time. We are asking that you
continue to pray for the country of Ukraine and our friends there.
Blessings,
