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 in­Sea. 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 sup­wisdom 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 trans­ponation. ·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 trans­portation were bicycles, then motOr­cycles (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 tem­porary 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 op­erate (I could understand why since they posed absolutely no threat to the political goals and policies of the com­munistS) 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 pri­mary 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~E 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 confer­ences which had bttn planned in ad­vance. 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 Bap­tist pastors. While the stated purpose

of the conference was to ad­dress pastoral issues such as homiletiCS, hermeneutics, husband and wife relations, how to establish a "Sunday School", working with chil­dren and youth, etc., we used the opportunity to present a Reformed world and life view, interjecting systematic theol­ogy under the content of preaching, arid teaching the

Reformed implications and principles that set forth the purpose of the church, civil government, family and worketh­ics, 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 confer­ence. 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 in­crease." That was our confidence,

we were also able to take With us 25 copies of] ohn Blanchard's evange­listic booklet, Ultimate Questions, trans­lated 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 sur­gery, 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 encourage­ment to the Christians. Our being there seemed to give them hope, let­ting them know that they weren't for­gotten, 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 wor­ship 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 celebrat­ing his grace, goodness, and glOly.

Their term for someone becoming a Christian is that someone has "re­pented.» It was reported at one church tllata former KGB offioerhad repented. In two services, after preaching, and dUling the hymn, women came for­ward, 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 furi­ously 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 enter­in g the building, probably a carry over, however, from the infiuenoe of Rus­sian Orthodoxy, which is an empty religion of litual and ceremony, ring­ing bells, buming incense, and pray­ing 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 con­ferenoe, 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 theo­logically 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 prac­tice birth control?" "At what age should a person be baptized?" "Shouldn't a church member who maDies a non­Christian be put out of the church?", etc.

There is, nevertheless, an obvious tremendous lack of theological dis­cernment and understanding. They are like sheep without a shepherd, or shepherds who are not adequately trained themselves. People and preach­ers 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 sub­missive." They also have a strong em­phasis in getting church buildings built. In a land where Russian Orthodoxy has beautiful basilicas, the people as­sociate 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 Re­given 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 inter­will 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 Chris­whom 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 ev­been 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 Com­go 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 con­tinue 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