Last fall, I was listening to a guest speaker talk about planting orphanages around the world. He must have said “Ukraine” because the still small voice of the Holy Spirit said, “I want you to go to Ukraine.” At this stage of my life, I knew it was not indigestion or hallucination!

At lunch, I pondered whether to tell my wife what I felt impressed to do. I was only a month away from my 77th birthday, and we had just finished 35 years of ministry in Vietnam a few months earlier. I decided to go for it. “Let’s pray about it,” she said, and pray we did. I’ve been home for about two weeks now, still processing what I experienced.

I doubt I can begin to scratch the surface of my 10-day trip to Ukraine. I already knew I don’t sleep on airplanes, and I learned I don’t sleep on buses either. My 19.5-hour ride from Warsaw to Kiev and the 23-hour trip back to Warsaw went fairly well for this 78-year-old guy. My trip was focused on training leaders of drug rehab programs along with Global Teen Challenge and meeting chaplains to Ukrainian soldiers.

The time spent with the leaders of the rehab programs was powerful. In the midst of war, we worshipped the Lord together, singing the same songs we sing here at home. I found myself crying a lot as the Holy Spirit moved in our midst. The first night, I shared my testimony of Vietnam and woundedness. Some of the attendees were former soldiers who had been held captive and tortured by Russian soldiers. The stories they shared were graphic, the torture barbaric. It seems decades of communism has given them ways of inflicting pain we can hardly fathom.

The next night, I was asked to speak about forgiveness. After this war is over, there will be a lot of hatred toward Russia because of the pain and suffering it is inflicting upon the Ukrainian people every day. We don’t hear much about it at home, but every night, Russia launches 600-700 attacks on the nation of Ukraine. Every night! This includes drones, missiles, and bombs. It doesn’t include artillery barrages on the eastern front.

As we were leaving Kiev to go to the conference site, we saw a huge fire off in the distance where a building had been struck by a drone or missile. Anastasia, a 25-year-old young woman, showed us video of missiles going over her apartment in Kiev, destroying entire buildings in her neighborhood.

One young man, a former soldier, told of being captured by the Russians. He was stripped naked, bound, and tossed on the floor of a cell. Two masked Russian soldiers took him to a room daily where he was tortured and brought back to his cell. There was no heat, no food, and very little water. One day, two other soldiers were brought in; the young man told the new prisoners they were going to be killed and needed Jesus. One soldier prayed to receive Christ; the other did not. The new believer was taken out, tortured, brought back in, and executed right in front of them. The next day, the second man was executed in the cell.

The young man telling the story knew he was going to die, so he prepared his heart to meet his Savior. The next day, a man walked into the cell with a knife but no uniform and no mask. He leaned over, cut the cords binding him, and told him to leave. He thought it was a trap. He waited a few minutes, got up, and saw there was no one around. He fled for his life. He believes it was an angel!

I prayed a long time before delivering the message on the need for radical forgiveness. The response at the altar that night showed me the need is great! My next trip, if God allows, will be to take the message of forgiveness to where the soldiers are — toward the front!

Something to pray about!
Semper Fidelis