[Asec] Ukraine in Agony

Thu Mar 31 23:53:22 UTC 2022

Family, friends, and colleagues,

The photos below show the Mission Eurasia headquarters in Irpin, near Kyiv,
before and after its destruction this week by Russian forces. On my last
trip to Ukraine I had a meeting in this beautiful building, and I have been
associated with Mission Eurasia and its predecessor, Peter Deyneka Russian
Ministries, for 37 years. Former president Anita Deyneka and current
president, Sergey Rakhuba, are good friends with whom I grieve over this
terrible loss. What possesses Russian soldiers to burn Bibles, some portion
of which are the Synodal Version approved by the Russian Orthodox Church
Moscow Patriarchate? I am baffled by this senseless desecration, not to
mention the destruction of a building dedicated to  serving all  the
peoples of the former Soviet Union in Word and deed.

[image: 8ed6db69-6e41-46b1-856a-e05b71b35056.jpg]

[image: after fire fight.jpg]

[image: burned bibles.jpg]

Here is an excerpt from Sergey Rahkuba's email of today, March 31:

Thank you for your outpouring of prayers and support in every way. Our
hearts are deeply saddened by the destruction of Mission Eurasia's field
ministries headquarters in Irpin, near Kyiv, even as we thank God for the
safety of all our team members and evacuees who had been sheltering there.
...  I thank God for you and countless others who have stood with us in the
past and are standing with us now.
        After our building was destroyed in tank crossfire, Russian troops
threw any remaining stockpiles of Bibles and Christian books from our
warehouse at the back of the building on the ground and burned them.  From
our headquarters warehouse, millions of copies of God’s Word including
Bibles and other Scripture versions filled with the truth, love, and hope
of God have gone out across Ukraine and all of the former Soviet Union over
many years. This will continue.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On March 13 Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko, founder of a home for orphans in
Mariupol, lost an adopted daughter to Russian shelling.
His lament is understandably raw with emotion: "Putin's scum killed my
daughter....They fired from a tank into the apartment recently received by
Vika, a former orphan...my 27th adopted daughter...as part of
demilitarization.... Do you hear it all, Russians?....They will tell you on
TV that this, like the aerial bombs that are raining down on Mariupol right
now, is just a Ukrainian fake....And my daughter is not an orphan but a
dummy fashion model....And your tanks naturally 'save' us and our
children....Heaven will present you with a bill....for lies, for silence,
for cowardice...agreeing to be deceived by propaganda.... Forgive me,
Daughter, that I could not protect you. I really tried."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sylvia Cortez  and her husband, Vova M______,  who is the head of the
Nazarene Church in Ukraine, fled to Poland after the Russian invasion.
Sylvia, whom I met in Kyiv a few years ago, writes, "I think it is hard to
be in Kyiv right now. We hit the one-month mark today and I can imagine
people are getting weary."  Later, she continues, she and Vova and Vova's
mother made it to Poland: "The Polish community has been incredibly
helpful. Thank you for your concern." Sylvia's  further reflections are
haunting and soul searching:
"The theme of my doctoral dissertation (which is now on pause) is 'Ukraine,
Trauma, and Eucharistic Hope.' My research has highlighted a series of
events --- Holodomor [the Soviet forced starvation of Ukrainians in the
1930s], Chernobyl, and the Revolution of Dignity [the 2013-14 Maidan
Revolution that overthrew the pro-Russian president, Viktor Yanukovich] --
and how those events caused significant intergenerational trauma.... Never
did I imagine that I would be a part of those ongoing traumatic events that
we are all witnessing these days.... I believe God is present with us and
is for us. I don't know how to completely reconcile that with all of the
violence, terror, and genocide we are witnessing. I know that if the
Russian military takes over, history will repeat itself.... During the
Holocaust, this prayer was scrolled on the wall of a concentration camp:
'I believe in the sun, even when it is not shining.
I believe in love, even when feeling it not.
I believe in God, even when God is silent.'

I know that many are currently struggling in their faith at such horrors.
They wonder why God is silent.... Is God uninterested? But I don't believe
that God has been silent. I think God is listening and responding somehow
to the millions of prayers. I believe that there have been miracles. I
believe God has been speaking and acting and comforting and changing the
trajectory of evil men and women through the people of God. 'We are not to
simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we
are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself'' (Dietrich Bonhoeffer). I
believe there are numerous men and women attempting to figure out how to do
just this."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lord, protect and encourage and comfort Anita and Sergey and Pastor Gennady
and Sylvia and Vova and the millions more struggling to cope with this
senseless war. Lord have mercy.

-- 
Dr. Mark R. Elliott, Editor Emeritus
East-West Church Report
Asbury University
One Macklem Dr.
Wilmore, KY 40390
859-858-2427
emark936 at gmail.com
www.eastwestreport.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://easternchristianity.org/pipermail/asec_easternchristianity.org/attachments/20220331/c5b2690b/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: 8ed6db69-6e41-46b1-856a-e05b71b35056.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 133087 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://easternchristianity.org/pipermail/asec_easternchristianity.org/attachments/20220331/c5b2690b/attachment.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: after fire fight.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 108373 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://easternchristianity.org/pipermail/asec_easternchristianity.org/attachments/20220331/c5b2690b/attachment-0001.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: burned bibles.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 109762 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://easternchristianity.org/pipermail/asec_easternchristianity.org/attachments/20220331/c5b2690b/attachment-0002.jpg>