Miracles we experienced related to Ukraine

 Pathway made straight        

How God led us to Ukraine

A change of careers

In 1997 I retired from the US Navy, completed my undergraduate degree and began my Masters in Divinity at Fuller Theological Seminary.  We also moved out of our home of 17 1/2 years.  If you had asked me in March of that year that I would be moving into a travel trailer parked behind our church and would be going to seminary, I would have answered, "No way!" I had made plans to go work for Bill Gates.  Yet by that summer God hand completely redirected me.

While God was working on my and training me up to be a preacher/pastor friends from our church were called to Ukraine to serve.  They would email us and tells how much we would love it in Ukraine.  But my response was, "That may be fine for you, but I have not interest."

A call to learn Russian

So in my third year of Seminary, our friends who were serving in Ukraine came back for a visit with another couple an American married to a Ukrainian girl.  I thought it would be fun to greet them in Russian (I didn't know that Ukrainian was the national language of Ukraine). So I looked up how to say "Good morning," in Russian and I was hooked.  God birthed something in me and I started trying to teach myself Russian.
We still had no desire to move to or minister in Ukraine.  But here I was studying Hebrew in Seminary, but I would be listening to Russian tapes on my way to my seminary classes in Seattle.  I had taken Koine Greek previously which was fortuitous because the Greek alphabet shares a lot of common letters with Russian.
I checked out this course from the Library that was called 'The Ultimate Russian Course", it was terrible.  The only thing I learned was a few phrases.  I continued looking for materials and I got this little booklet of Russian phrases with pronunciation helps.  I started making flash cards for myself.

A Trip to Ukraine

I finished Seminary in December of 2001 and began serving as an associate pastor our our home church.  I continued studying Russian (unfortunately I was learning many things wrong).  Then in 2003 one of my spiritual heros, an 80 year old former missionary to The Congo decided that we should make a mission trip to Ukraine to help that couple who was now living in Ukraine.  I threw up a quick prayer and asked if God wanted to me to go and I received a resounding, "YES!"  So I told my wife we were going on a mission trip to Ukraine. No discussion just me stating a fact that we were going.

Our team ended up being 6 adults where my wife and I were the youngest at 57 and 59 years old.  Dick, our leader was 80 years young.  It is notable that he and his wife went to Africa yearly to do outreaches and missions conferences.

We spent several months, praying, seeking God's will for this trip.  There was a lot of talk about what each person wanted to do until someone suggested that we asking what the needed us to do.  I tried to help with Russian, I gave copies of the flash cards I made and the booklet I had purchased.

This was the first time for some of our group off the North American Continent, let alone Eastern Europe.  I really had no expectations about what  it would be like apart from another language.  I have visited every continent except Antarctica and South America, so I was open to whatever God had instore for us.

How God turned our hearts to people we really hadn't met

One night that changed everything

We arrived in Kyiv late one day in May of 2004.  We were picked up at the airport by Uri Malishkin the leader of Rhema the music group who would accompany us during our three weeks in Ukraine.  He took us straight to the hotel, Hotel Slavutich.  Our room was basically two small twin beds and a bathroom.  We were pretty exhausted after 14 hours in the air plus a lengthy layover in Amsterdam.  So it was off to bed.  But we woke up the next morning and found are hearts broken for the people of Ukraine.  Tears streamed down our faces and we kneeled and lifted Ukraine and her people up in prayer. 

How our hearts were touched  by a song we couldn't understand

We were changed by our Mission Trip

God called us to a new life

How we had peace in a foreign culture without cultural shock

How God provided a place to stay in Budapest 

How God granted us favor with officials when our visas were expired

Ride back to the consulate 


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