From October 12-22, 1993, I had in Frankfurt, Gelmany on the retum As we arrived in the housing project

the opportunity to proclaim the Gos- nip. In Kiev and Frankfurt we walked and went to the motel where we would
pel andbring the Reformed faith to the on cobblestone streets built hundreds spend the night, I thought 1 was in a
fonner soviet Republic of Ukraine. of years ago, and swod by buildings New York ghetw. The Communists
About the size of the state of Texas, the and churches built as far back as the would literally go in and build villages
Ukraine, the "Bread Basket of Europe, " 17th century. The St. Sophia Monas- of high rise apartments for people to
lies just east of Poland, Romania, and tery in Kiev was built in the 11th live in and to work wherever they
Czechoslovakia,andnorthofthelllack CentUlY. I must say that while 1 was might create or a factory or other in-
Sea. Joe Morecraft and I were invited never so appreciative of our country dustrial plant. There was a striking
toparticipateina Pastor's Con- r----------------------, contrast between the build-
ference for Baptist preachers ings built before the revo-
organized by a Baptist Church lution and the communist
in Georgia under the auspices constructed facilities. The
of BEE - Bible Education by fonner buildings reflected
Extension. The purpose of alt, histOlY, and the beauty
this evangelical organization is of Europe; the latter were
to trainpaswrsinforeigncoun- cold, uninspired, imper-
tries so that they can carry on sonal, and functional. Com-
the work of the church in their munism had tried to create
villages and cities. a facade of glory and great-
ness by statues, monu-
The truth of the words of ments, and bUildings. How-
Proverbs 8:36 were all too evi- ever, the reality was slum-
dent in what we saw and expe- like living conditions for
denced in the Ukraine: "All most of the people. The
who hate me (wisdom) love people that we saw on the
death." The 8th chapter of streets moved about with-
Proverbs says I. All creation out smiling or talking. Out
reveals the wisdom of God: in the countryside we
The countryside was beautiful passed cute, but run down
and fruitful with vast open fields of than when I landed in Atlanta again, houses of many colors, orange, blue,
rich black dirt, wide rivers, verdant and tluly grateful for the blessing of green, red. I thought it was ironic that
mountains; II. Those who reject God's God's providence which we enjoy as in a country where everything is sup-
wisdom love death: The fruit of athe- the fruit of our Chlistian helitage, nev- posed to belong to everyone, and there
isticCommunism was devastating and ertheless, having seen these things did is no light of private property, that all
destructive; but III. God blesses those make mefeelas if ourcu!ture and lives these houses had fences around them,
who receive His wisdom: God's people are qUite superficial in compalison to the people in spite of socialism trying
wereneveltheless hopeful,joyful, faith- their lives and circumstances. to claim something as their own.
ful, and persevering in the midst of I was not prepared for what Ifound Otherthanin the hotelin which we
distress and difficulty. in this fOimer Republic of the USSR. stayed, every meal was a feast. Out in
These Christians were the only signs On the one hand, in some ways the the counl1yside where we traveled,
of life and hope for the future in the situation was not as bad as I had ex- were apples, pears, grapes, potatoes,
midst of a dead culture, ravaged by pected. As we drove from the ait1Jolt peppers, tomatoes, (unfortunately)
Communism and deceived by the into Kiev along a thoroughfare, the beets, etc. At each meal, including
empty and vain religion of the Russian leaves on the trees that lined the road breakfast, we had a new and different
Onhodox church. were golden and glorious. The cake and homemade bread. I have
This being my first trip out ofthe Carpathian mountains reminded me nevereatensomuchinmylife,evenin
country and oversees, I was captivated of the Appalachian mountains of south- the South!
by the sense of being in another world, west Virginia. The people were ad- However, the conveniences that we
of literally going hundreds of years equatelytowellclothed. Thereseemed enjoy and take for granted were sadly
back into history. We spent one night to be plenty of food available. lacking. Public bathrooms were atro-
December, 1993 l' THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon 'i' 17
c;ious. The stOres have little to sell and
buy. I became acutely aware of the.
problems arid implications of trans-
ponation. Gettjng from place to place
isa majorconcem, and having a means
of transportation is a major necessity
and blessing if you can get one in the
Ukraine. Walking was a primary means
of getting around. We dropped one
Ukrainian pastor off at an intersection
who still had to walk another 8 km. to
geno his home. Other forms of trans-
portation were bicycles, then motOr-
cycles (with side cars), horse
drawn wagons, trolleys, trains,
and cars.
Thankfully, the homes
where we stayed had hot and
running water and Indoor
bathrooms. A couple of the
churches that we visited only
had outhouses, however. We
slept on fold-out couches in
the apartments where we
stayed. We were told that most
apartments did not have bedrooms
since they only had two orthree rooms;
the people just have palates that they
roll out atnight to sleep on. We stayed
mbstoftlie tiineina "flat" with a family
whiCh had nine children. They had
been able to move up from a tWo-room
to a six room apanment. One of our
translators said she lived in a two room
apanment with her husband and two
children. A couple of tiines in churches
children asked me how many floors
my home had. It didn't dawn on me
what they were asking until I realized
that they were living in dirty high rise
apartment buildings of ten to twelve
stOries.
The economy is in desperate straitS.
When we arrived a dollar was wonh
16,000 of their "Coupons: their tem-
porary unit of money. By the tiine we
left their money had inflated to over
20,000 coupons per dollar. Wewere
literally millionaires for a week! We
were told that all .Americans are rich.
By rich they mean that if you own a
house and a car, you are rich. One of
our translatOrs lamented that she would
probably never have a house or car.
(By the way, we paid for our food,
drivers, and translators out of the funds
that were raised for the trip.) On our
last night in Kiev our mission tearns
went to a nice hotel for dinner. The
waiter wore a tuxedo. There was live
music. We had a four course dinner.
The cost in dollars? $3.501 However,
most of the people have very little
money to begin with. The average
monthly wage is $10.00 and generally
there is no relation between wages and
prices. A pair of shoes could cost $30.
One kilo of meat could be $5. We
asked one of our translators what a
chicken might cost. She said she had
no idea since she hadn't had one in two
years.
During Communism the Russian
Orthbdox Church was allowed to op-
erate (I could understand why since
they posed absolutely no threat to the
political goals and policies of the com-
munistS) and each town could also
have one PrOtestarit church. Since the
Baptist church was already the largest
denomination, each town could have
one Baptist Protestant church. So, if
you dared to go to church, it was to a
Baptist church that you went. Thus,
the Baptist churches are still the pri-
mary Christian churches there. Even
these churches, however, had to meet
outSide the city and away from the
transportation lines in order to make it
more difficult to attend.
18 f T ~ COUNSEL of Chalcedon t December, 1993
Four ministry teams spread out
from Kiev, the capitol city of the
Ukraine and the mother city of Russia,
to various cites to hold pastor confer-
ences which had bttn planned in ad-
vance. Joe and I were sent on an
eighteen hour train ride to the city of
Chernovrsy, called "Little Paris" we
were told, in southwestern Ukraine, a
City with a population of 300,000 ..
The (irst two days there Joe and I,
through translatots, taught 200 Bap-
tist pastors. While the stated purpose
of the conference was to ad-
dress pastoral issues such as
homiletiCS, hermeneutics,
husband and wife relations,
how to establish a "Sunday
School", working with chil-
dren and youth, etc., we used
the opportunity to present a
Reformed world and life view,
interjecting systematic theol-
ogy under the content of
preaching, arid teaching the
Reformed implications and principles
that set forth the purpose of the church,
civil government, family and worketh-
ics, and bearing and rearing children.
We were told that there had been a
pastor's conference in Kiev recently
with John MacArthur speaking, but
they got much more out of our confer-
ence. Our goal was to sow the seeds of
Reformed theology so that after we
were gone they would recall these
things as they read thdr Bibles and
continued to study. "One man sows,
another waters, but God gives the in-
crease." That was our confidence,
we were also able to take With us
25 copies of] ohn Blanchard's evange-
listic booklet, Ultimate Questions, trans-
lated into Russian. Providentially, I
had just seen Dr. Morton Smith the
week before (left who sent me Russian
translations of the Shoner Catechism
and the first ten chapters of his book,
Testimony, to take withus. Wewereable
to leave these with one of the leaders in
Chernovrsy. Pray thath.e will use them.
From Saturday evening through
Sunday evening we separated and each
preached in three different churches
in different villages. On Monday our
team went together to a distant church
in the Carpathian mountains which
border Romania. OnSundaymorning
before we went to preach we stopped
to visit a woman whom we were told
was dying. She had recently had sur-
gery, but was at home now to die. It
made me very grateful for the medical
advances, blessings, and care that we
have.
Our visit was such an encourage-
ment to the Christians. Our being
there seemed to give them hope, let-
ting them know that they weren't for-
gotten, and that we cared about them.
The churches where I preached said
they had never heard an American
preacher. One 84 year old man, who
had been in plison for 10 years as a
Christian, said that if angels had told
him he would see this day he would
not have believed them. All the wor-
ship services were at least twO hours
long, some people having to stand the
whole time at one worship servioe.
There were three selmons dUling each
service. Before the services began,
while people were still coming, the
women would start singing hymns. (I
was asked to sing "Amazing Grace"
along with my translator at one church.
Judy may have the rest of the world,
but I'm famous in the Ukraine!) Many
of the people greeted each other with
a kiss on the lips, men to men and
women to women. I got kissed four
times myself -thankfully not on the
lips however! (Or, come to think ofit,
was it me they didn't want to kiss?!)
When they prayed they knelt or stood.
During the service at least a couple of
the children and young people read
poems that they had composed. I
couldn't understand what they prayed
or said, but that didn't matter. They
spoke with such fervent passion and
earnestness that I was deeply moved
by the manner in which they spoke,
obviously expressing deeply heartfelt
praise and thanks to God or celebrat-
ing his grace, goodness, and glOly.
Their term for someone becoming
a Christian is that someone has "re-
pented. It was reported at one church
tllata former KGB offioerhad repented.
In two services, after preaching, and
dUling the hymn, women came for-
ward, not as the result of an "altar call,"
but on their own, and said theywanted
to repent. The service stopped and
they made public confessions of faith
as their friends or family wept and
embraced them. It reminded me of
Acts 2 where the people having heard
the word cried out "What must we do
to be saved?" At the end of the service
we gave out Bibles to those who did
not have them. We were told that now
Bibles were available for any who
wanted one. It was convicting to see
how grateful they were to get a Bible,
receiving them with tears. Many of the
people asked me to sign their Bible.
DUling Communism, when Bibles
were rare, we were told that if a local
church had a Bible it would often be
loaned to a different family each week
and they would take it home and furi-
ously copy as much of it as they could.
The preacher would come and get it
on Saturday so that he could study it
for his sermon.
One thing evident in the people
was a deep and humble reverence for
God and appreciation for preaching.
Some bowed and prayed upon enter-
in g the building, probably a carry over,
however, from the infiuenoe of Rus-
sian Orthodoxy, which is an empty
religion of litual and ceremony, ring-
ing bells, buming incense, and pray-
ing for the dead. Men were expected to
button their coats, not put their hands
in their pockets, and not pelmitted to
cross their legs in worship. Women
wore head.scarves. In the Pastor's con-
ferenoe, the men asked theological
questions which revealed a deep con-
cern for holiness, godliness, and truth,
a desire to do what the Bible says.
In some ways, they were more theo-
logically concerned than most churches
in Ametica. In a question and answer
time they began to ask questions like:
"Is itasin to drinkwinei" "How much
wine can one dlink?" "Can a man be a
pastor if he has been divorced?" "Can
a man be a pastor if his children are
unbelievers?" "May Chtistians prac-
tice birth control?" "At what age should
a person be baptized?" "Shouldn't a
church member who maDies a non-
Christian be put out of the church?",
etc.
There is, nevertheless, an obvious
tremendous lack of theological dis-
cernment and understanding. They
are like sheep without a shepherd, or
shepherds who are not adequately
trained themselves. People and preach-
ers have almost a priestly view of the
pastor, probably another carry over
from "Orthodoxy." There has been no
concept of Christians evangelizing
other people. Some of the questions
and attitudes expressed by the pastors
were almost Pharisaical. For example,
"Can I beat my wife if she is not sub-
missive." They also have a strong em-
phasis in getting church buildings built.
In a land where Russian Orthodoxy
has beautiful basilicas, the people as-
sociate religion and worship with
buildings. One pastor told us that he
can't get people to come to a house for
worship. In a land of poverty, people
still seem to believe that it is important
to invest a lot of money in bUildings.
Joe and I told them in a couple of
churches that their building was nioer
than many church buildings in
America, which surprised them, I
think.
Before we left the leaders of the
local First Baptist Church and their
Christian School, which by the way is
using the ACE program in English,
they wanted to share with us a buiJd-
December, 1993 t THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon 'I 19
ing complex project that had been work with them in helping them to right now. However, unless a Re-
given them by the city. Under Com- obtain basic needs like telephones, for fomed world and life view penetrates
munism plans had been developed to example, to establish new churches the hearts and lives of the people and
build a modem school complex in the and support pastors for them. It was the Christians there, lasting change
center of the city. When the USSR very difficult to think ofleaving them will not be achieved. I was convinced
broke up, they could not proceed and in their desperate circumstances. I did that the mission field needs more than
offered the plans, architectural designs not apologize for our national wealth, men who are evangelists, they need
and all, which had cost thousands of but told them that our blessings were theologians. The greatest theologian
dollars to develop, to the Christians, the fruit of the faith of ourfathers, that of the Christian church was its greatest
saying you represent the values and the answer to their problems is not missionary, the Apostle Paul. We must
hope for the fumre, and we will give capitalism but Christ, and that God not think that evangelism is the only
you the plans and the land in the city has called them to continue to live and goal, but the establishment of the
to build this if you will. The ,-________________ ---, church of the Lord Jesus
church wants to take this and "the Ukraine .. , neede the Christ which is Apostolic in
build a church, Christian doctrine and practice. (I un-
School,andseminarycomplex. Goepel of the glory of God derstand that Presbyterian
For me personally, the which hae been revealed in the mission work is going on in
trip was physically exhaust- Odessa, which is on the Black
ing, butspirimallyexhilarat- face of Jeeue which proclaime Sea.)
ing.Iwouldhavenevercon- Hie eovereilJn rule and Lord- TheCommunistconstim-
ceived that I would ever be '1:1 tion taught "the separation of
allowed to preach in the ehlp over all natiom:; and church and state." It seems
fonnerUSSR. Preaching the f /'./: " theChristianshaveignorandy
Gospel and the Refonned every area 0 Ill::. and unknowingly adopted
faith there was one of the and embraced that under-
greatest privileges of my life as a ser- serve Him there. But, we ought to ask standing of the relation between church
vantofChrist.I'tnsuretheexperience what is ourresponsibility and oppor- and state. They seemed to be inter-
will affect the rest of my life and umity to advance God's kingdom in ested only in "spirimal" matters with
ministry. It was very sobering, sad- places like this. reference to the church; and to make
dening, and sanctifying. I felt as if I What is the future of the Ukraine? no connection between their political
had looked into the faces of those The Ukraine is an important and ripe and economic concerns and the Chris-
whom God had allowed Satan to test fieldfortheharvest. This is the land of tian faith and their future. So, the
through the fires of affliction and per-the "Cossacks" which refers to the Ukraine needs the gospel, but itneeds
secution, arid they had prevailed. early setders who were independent, the Gospel of the glory of God which
Would I go back? Everywhere I free spirited, fighting men. Of you are has been revealed in the face ofjesus
went, they asked "Will you come back interested, the old movie "TarusBulba" which proclaims His sovereign rule
and visit us?" I could tell that it had with Yul Brenner and Tony Curtis is and Lordship over all nations and ev-
been a tremendous encouragement to about the Cossacks in the Ukraine). ery area ofllfe. It needs for Christians
them forme to be there. Yes, I would That spirit is still evident. Numerous to come and to fulfill the Great Com-
go back if the opportunity presented Christians are going there for mission mission which is to disciple the na-
I
tself. I can see the temptau'on,l'fyou d I" k M 1 tions and to teach them to observe all
an evange lStlC wor . any cu ts are
will, and desire to go to the mission also taking advantage of the current that He has commanded us!
field. Unlike too many American Chris- open door. (We were told that 80,000
tians, the people are so eager, hungry, Jehovah's witnesses had recently
and thankful for the ministry of the blitzed the Ukraine for two weeks.
Word of God. They had bought up every motel room
What the churches, Christians, and
pastors whom I met want is to develop
on going relationships with Christian
churches in America who will con-
tinue to visit, to encourage, and to
and train ticket in the country for that
period of time.) There is also a concern
that the doors may not be open much
longer or at leas inuch more strictly
. limited. Yes, the "welcome mat is Out"
10 THE COUNSEL of Chalcedon December, 1993
Pray for the ChriStianization of the
Ukraine. The fumre of the Ukraine,
like the United States, and every other
nation, depends upon its bringing its
life and faith into conformity to the
Word of God in every area of life, or
acknowledging and worshippingJesus
Christ as King of Kings and Lord of
Lords! n