One week ago I was in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine. On this cool, beautiful morning in New York I want to mention a few things for you that were answers to prayer during that amazing time. The Lord’s faithful, loving care and his shepherding voice through the whole event is too large to put in a few words but nevertheless I raise up this Ebenezer of 7 stones in praise to God. Ebenezer means “stone of help” and appears in 1 Samuel, in which the Hebrew prophet sets up a stone to commemorate the help that God had given the Israelites.

Stone of Help: Traveling Mercy

We prayed earnestly that God would enable Ukrainian ministry leaders and their families to come to the retreat. Many came west from areas directly impacted by the fighting and found refuge with us there in the mountains. In thanking us for coming, one of the leaders said, “You didn’t let the war stop you.” It didn’t stop any of them either because it was God’s mighty hand gathering us in.

Our team also witnessed God’s grace in traveling many hours. We had marvelous fellowship when together, saw a valuable, needed piece of luggage catch up with us, and avoided close scrapes with other vehicles on roads that were narrow and sometimes very rough. The large, comfortable van we traveled in is a ministry vehicle from Zagreb that has been very useful in transporting refugees and supplies during the war.

Stone of Help: Healing of Families

It was a brilliant decision to make the gathering a family conference. Various sources report that perhaps 1.5 million children in Ukraine suffer from PTSD. Roughly, 2/3 of the children have been displaced from their homes at one time or another during the war and nearly 20,000 remain hidden away from family in Russian territory.

The dads and moms at our retreat many times over expressed gratitude for moments with their family to regroup and refresh as a family. The children had so much room to play safely, the programming gave an opportunity for the gift of music that God is giving the Ukrainian people to express their hopes and dreams for a free and stable country, and budding friendships abounded!

(PBS report on music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7SdKxW1DGM&t=2s)

As an example of how the presence of children touched our team, on the last day I spoke, the ministry couple that was leading worship were sharing a song written in honor of their son killed fighting in the war. While they sang, their daughter (~5 or 6) was freely moving about and stopped where I was standing to simply and quietly hug me for a few seconds. At that point, I knew it was going to be hard to contain emotions as we were meeting for the last time before leaving.

Stone of Help: God’s Voice

In photo to the left, we have our team leaders: Rick & Diana Lowe, Alex Krapov. Check out this wonderful report from Rick on Shepherd’s Support’s webside: Ukraine – June 2024.

Throughout the traveling and the conference experience, we witnessed our Heavenly Father directing our choices in what to do and say next. Every morning our team gathered early to go over the schedule for the day, make adjustments as needed, and pray. During those times, it felt as if we were not praying alone. Rick and Diana Lowe, our team leaders, were the best of us as they listened intently for the Lord’s voice and then helped us to be ready for the day ahead.

I want to especially give thanks to God for the translation help he provided to our team. Every morning I presented bible-based messages and Jim and Arline Parris brought marriage enrichment sessions to the gathering. Each of us had a translator assigned to us for the week, and they were excellent! I came to trust Vadim implicitly with what I was saying, learning to know him as a Spirit-filled Bible teacher in his own ministry. Anna, from a town under bombardment across the river from the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant that Russia took over, is a brilliant, but unemployed educator, who specializes in Chinese. She was so skilled that she could do continuous, uninterrupted translation of the Ukrainian speakers.

Stone of Help: Physical Strength and Health

Jim and Arline, along with Rick, came from a ministry week in Uzbekistan and joined Diana and myself traveling from the US in Zagreb. The Parris’ came suffering from debilitating head colds, but God raised them up and gave them strength to bring sensitive, deeply caring, and wise counsel for the husbands and wives at the conference. I too experienced a hard hit from a head cold on Tuesday evening, but our team gathered and anointed me with oil. The following morning I was able to present and by the end of that they felt restored to full strength. Rick and Diana, though wearied (Rick did all the driving), maintain good health throughout the week.

The food at the conference was ample and tasty (lots of bread, vegetable-based salads, egg dishes, pork and chicken, yogurt, good coffee…). Rick and Diana supplied our team with bottled water (50% of Ukraine’s power grid is destroyed and no one drinks the water straight from the tap).

Stone of Help: Spiritual Fellowship

How can I describe the beautiful people of Ukraine? I know we were with some of the very best people in the country, and mostly because they love Jesus and are willing to sacrifice their lives for His purposes. They are sterling examples of what it means to have courage under fire and to pour out our lives because of the love of God shed abroad in our hearts. Their music, warmth and their smiles reflect the joy of the Lord amidst many sorrows and much suffering. God granted me special grace to get to know four families in particular. We are now in contact by way of email and phone. The people of Ukraine are no longer unknown. They are now dear friends and my heart is heavy with love and concern for them.

Stone of Help: Burden to Pray

And so, we continue to pray that God will enable our Ukrainian brothers and sisters to be strong in faith and love for God and each other. This burden to pray is a delight. It is, as Jesus said in Matthew 11, a burden that is light and easy because there is so much love where we meet at His feet and in His embrace.

We pray with Ukraine for comfort for those deeply grieving; better unity and healing of past hurts between Ukraine and Europe; sustaining grace for the military; a collapse of the Russian aggression and a just end to the war. We pray that communities and families would be restored but, especially, we pray that God would continue to unify the church and build His Kingdom of Grace in that torn and bleeding land.

Stone of Help: Hope

All praise to Abba Father! His good heart is filled with tender mercy toward His people and so we dare to hope and dream together with the Ukrainian church that He is working all things together for that complete and eternal good that is in His heart to give in these days. As we stressed in one of the lessons of the conference, “All the Father does is good, because God is good!”

Thank you so much for partnering with us in prayer and loving support!

Dave

You will hear many answers to prayer in this YouTube video sharing testimonials of those attending the conference (“A Family Retreat, Yaremche” – Anatoly Ponomarev): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2Pvu5tVaKM&t=11s.

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We are breathing by grace. We are asking God to help us stand on the rock of His faithful love and let our life be a testimony to living by grace – by His gifts alone.

Soli Deo Gloria!