praying for peace

The other evening I met with a small group from my church here in Chattanooga.  They’d asked me to update them on Ukraine, and on what our plans are after my fiancée and I marry in July. I told my friends how so many of my friends in Kyiv prayed as they protested three months for a change in government, and then saw God’s dramatic answer to prayer when the corrupt government of Yanukovich fled, abdicating power to the Parliament, where it belonged according to Ukraine’s constitution. Then I told them my perspective on the current conflicts in east Ukraine, based on what I saw while living in Kyiv, heard from my friends, and read in Russian-language Ukrainian news.

One person asked me what I though Russia would do.  I don’t know, I answered, but I know that God answered the street-protesters’ prayers after three months. My pastor in Kyiv called that a miracle of prayer.  So we turned to Daniel 2, read the miracle of prayer there, when God saved Daniel and his friends’ lives in answer to prayer, and gave the promise that the kingdom of heaven will grow, crushing earthly kingdoms, and filling the entire earth.  I’m encouraged that this is something God does, not us: the stone representing his kingdom wasn’t cut by human hands, but was a work of God’s grace.

I don’t know what will happen in Ukraine. My heart breaks for the Ukrainian people, for my friends and the many I haven’t met, who simply long to live their lives in peace, to be allowed to run their country without interference from Russia or the EU, but with good relations with their eastern and western neighbors. So, we prayed.  We plead with the God of heaven, who still answers prayer, who is still the King of kings, the Tsar of tsars, asking him to have mercy on Ukraine and protect her from those who would do evil.

Join me in praying for peace in Ukraine.

unexpected events

As the riot police withdrew, snipers opened fire on peaceful protestors, shooting them dead from building-tops in the city center. My disbelief turned to horror at the unfolding events downtown: Kyiv became a killing field on February 20th. A week later streets calmed in Kyiv, but Russian troops steadily occupied Crimea.

prayer | the Ukrainian church on her knees

Since the beginning of the protests, the prayer tent (pictured above) has been the heart of the protest. Ukrainian Christians have prayed there 24/7, just beside the main stage where the protests organized and the people found their new voice. Our church in Kyiv held frequent prayer meetings; our elders called us to prayer and fasting. Persistent over three months, non-violent protestors demanded truth. When the corrupt government fled overnight, our pastor called it a miracle of prayer, reminding us people prayed for seventy years under the corrupt Soviet Union.

uncertainty | serving in a broken world

My team’s ministries alongside our Ukrainian church partners have continued through the stress of the protests, the rapid and surprisingly good changes within Ukraine’s government, and the uncertainty of Russia’s next moves. Tens of thousands of invasion-ready Russian troops have been massed on the Ukrainian border since early March. English Club was disrupted for a few weeks, but it has resumed.

An uncertain future and the real possibility of war has created an openness to spiritual questions among Ukrainians, similar to the early 1990s after Ukraine gained independence from the USSR. Pray for Ukrainian Christians, that the church will live the reality that only Jesus’ grace and the power of his cross can renew their land. Pray for my team and others serving Ukrainians under these daily uncertainties.

decisions | seeking our call together

Finally, my fiancée Stephanie and I are seeking where we will live and serve together after we marry in July.  We’re both excited to serve in Europe, using our skills and abilities to help Europeans strengthen their churches.  Please pray for wisdom as we have conversations with potential future colleagues, and as we make decisions together.  Thanks for your interest, prayers, and support!

comfort food

A few weeks ago, our church here in Kyiv hosted a dinner and program to thank the American missionaries who are serving this congregation.  We were asked to bring a favorite dish of food, so I made Baked Lentils with Cheese, from the More-With-Less cookbook, for those who know it.  This is a dish my mom made often when I was growing up, and its become a comfort food for me over the years.  The first time I made this here in Kyiv, just a couple months ago, I remember when I sat down to eat I though, “now why have I made this sooner?  I love this recipe.”

A lot of my Ukrainian friends really liked it, and asked for the recipe, which I’m providing below.  Priyatniva appetite!

Чечевица запеченная с сыром

На 6 порций
190 градусов C
1 час. 15 мин.
Комбинат в мелкой форме для выпечки 23×33 см:
• 500 мл воды
• 400 мл сухого чечевицей
• 1 лавровый лист целом
• 10 мл соль
• 1 мл перец
• 1 мл каждый майоран, шалфей, тимьян
• 2 большие луковицы, нарезанные
• 3 зубчика чеснока, измельчить
• 500 мл консервированных помидоров
Плотно закрыть и выпекать 30 минут.
Раскройте и движение в:
• 2 большие моркови, нарезанные толстыми 30 мл
• 125 мл тонко нарезанный сельдерей
Выпекать покрыта 40 минут, пока овощи не станут мягкими. Движение в:
• 1 зеленый перец, нарезанный (опционально)
• 3 стакана тертого острого сыра чеддер
Выпекать, не накрывая крышкой, 5 минут, пока сыр не расплавится

 

And for those who would like to try it but don’t know Russian, here’s the original version I used:

Baked Lentils with Cheese

Serves 6
375 degrees F (190 degrees C)
1 hr. 15 min.
Combine in shallow 9×13″ baking dish:
•  2 cups water
•  1 3/4 cups dry lentils
•  1 bay leaf
•  2 teaspoons salt
•  1/4 teaspoon pepper
•  1/4 teaspoon each marjoram, sage, thyme
•  2 large onions, chopped
•  3 cloves garlic, minced
•  2 cups canned tomatoes
Cover tightly and bake 30 minutes.
Uncover and stir in:
•  2 large carrots, sliced 1/8″ thick
•  1/2 cup thinly sliced celery
Bake covered 40 minutes until vegetables are tender. Stir in:
•  1 green pepper, chopped (optional)
•  3 cups shredded sharp cheddar cheese
Bake, uncovered, 5 minutes until cheese melts

come to our English camp!

Hello friends, if you’re in Kyiv and would like to improve your conversational English, come to our English camp.  I’ll be one of the teachers at X-Way 2013: The Game, the tenth annual English camp my friends here in Kyiv have organized to serve English learners in Kyiv.  Details and registration are at www.xwaycamp.com.

And as an additional bonus, if you can find me or my friends this Friday or Saturday in the center of Kyiv, we have an English reading test for you.  If you can read the first few paragraphs with minimal pronunciation mistakes, you’ll win a free, cold drink.  If you’re able to read the entire poem with no more than five pronunciation mistakes, you’ll receive a discount on your English camp registration fee.

I hope to see you soon, either downtown, or at the English Camp later this month.  Happy learning!

living words

On Fridays in my Russian class I’m learning words about God, слова о Боге.  Yesterday, we reviewed last weeks theme, which was words about the Bible.  My teacher asked me to say sentences following the patter, “The Bible is _____.”  I’d already covered things such as, God’s word, absolute truth, a historical book, the history of redemption, and the book inspired by God’s Spirit, but when I tried to say the Bible is the living Word, her response was, “We don’t say that.”  I told her I thought there is a phrase like that in the Bible, at least in English, and we made part of my homework finding the phrase—which I couldn’t remember then—and finding its equivalent in Russian.

So, what I was thinking of was Jesus and Peter’s conversation in John 6:66-69:

After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him. So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?” Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”

When I found that passage this morning in English, I decided to try translating Peter’s response into Russian myself before looking it up.  Here’s what I came up with, mistakes and all:

Симон Пётр ответал ему, “Господь, кому мы поидём? У тебя есть слов вечной жизни, и мы поверили и узнали, что Ты — Святый Бога.”

Here are those verses in Russian, Евангелие от Иоанна 6:68,69, first from the widely-used, old Synodal translation (Синодальный перевод, translated 1813 – 1876), and second from the Russian Bible Society’s 2011 translation, Библия. Современный русский перевод, 2011:

Симон Петр отвечал Ему: Господи! к кому нам идти? Ты имеешь глаголы вечной жизни: и мы уверовали и познали, что Ты Христос, Сын Бога живаго.    [Synodal, 1876]

“Господь,” ответил Ему Симон Петр, “к кому мы пойдем? У Тебя слова, дающие вечную жизнь.  И мы поверили и знаем, что Ты — Святой Божий.” [Modern, 2011]

I got pretty close, but made a number of mistakes.  First, I forgot the “к” for the phrase, “к кому,” using the dative form of “whom” but forgetting that the verb of motion, пойдем, requires the “к кому.”  Second, I misspelled the verb, we will go, пойдем.  Third, though I got the Russian syntax of ‘You have” correct (horray!), in the present tense its not necessary to use, “есть.” Fourth, though I knew I needed a nominative plural ending for “words,” I confused genders and cases: слово is neuter nominative singular, so the correct plural would be слова, but somehow I was thinking the ending drops off leaving just the stem—слов, but that would be a feminine genitive plural ending—nonsense for what I was trying to translate. Fifth, I omitted the present participle of “to give”, дающие (giving), and simply rendered it as, “you have words of eternal life,” but that’s mostly because we haven’t learned any participles yet in class. Sixth, I used a past tense for “have come to know,” so said, узнали “we knew” and missed that this is a past action with continuing effect, but the Modern Russian translation uses the simple present, “to know.”  And last, I tried to render “the Holy One of God” with the nominative singular for the noun, “holy” plus the genitive singular for “of God”, but I used the wrong ending on for holy, Святой.  Technically, I translated Бога, “of God,” correctly, but apparently the Modern Russian makes the stylistic choice to use the adjective form of God, Божий, for which we don’t really have an equivalent in English (our word, “godly” is different because it describes people who are like God, whereas Божий only refers to God).

So, here’s my corrected translation, preserving my word order choice:

Симон Пётр ответал ему, “Господь, к кому мы пойдём? У тебя есть слова, дающие вечной жизни, и мы поверили и знаем, что Ты — Святой Божий.”

And just for the fun of it, I’m posting those same two verses in Greek.  It’s been 15 years since I’ve studied any Greek, but I just looked and saw that the older Greek New Testaments, like the Textus Receptus the KJV was based on, used the phrase, “Son of the living God” like the Synodal translation, but more recent Greek New Testaments follow the consensus of New Testament scholars in using the wording, “the Holy One of God.”  Here are the verses in Greek from both the NA/UBS and SBL online texts, ΚΑΤΑ ΙΩΑΝΝΗΝ 6:68-69:

ἀπεκρίθη αὐτῷ Σίμων Πέτρος· Κύριε, πρὸς τίνα ἀπελευσόμεθα; ῥήματα ζωῆς αἰωνίου ἔχεις, καὶ ἡμεῖς πεπιστεύκαμεν καὶ ἐγνώκαμεν ὅτι σὺ εἶ ὁ ἅγιος τοῦ θεοῦ.

Whatever the language, and in spite of my mistakes and misunderstanding, I’m deeply grateful that Jesus has the living words, and gives them to us by his Word and Spirit.

достопримечательность

The Lviv Theatre of Opera and Ballet, which I took during my day off there last month.  This beautiful building, designed and built by a Polish-born, Berlin-trained architect, Zygmunt Gorgolewski.  He won a municipal design competition, and managed to fit the building into the already built city-center with his proposal to enclose the Poltva River underground.  The Theatre and the tree-lined boulevard created by his design are beautiful.

Yesterday in my Russian class, while discussing reasons why people enjoy going on excursions, my teacher told me, “of course, to see достопримечательности.”  Well, she realized I didn’t know the word, достопримечáтельность, which is a noun meaning for an interesting place.  And I couldn’t help but think of my classmate Helen, who’s left for the USA, but who loves these incredible sounding Russian words.

So apparently, its not just the Germans who enjoy scrumptious mouthfuls of syllables in single words.  I guess if we were playing Scrabble again in Russian, at least three of us would need to gang up to play достопримечательность… if it even fits on the board!

work, prayer, and a day off

Last month I attended my first presbytery meeting here in Ukraine.  After Russian class, I took an overnight train out to the meeting, which was all day that Wednesday.  Because there aren’t as many churches in the presbytery as my home presbytery in Chattanooga, there was time during the meeting to hear a report from every church and then someone prayed for that congregation.  That may seem like a simple thing, but I was deeply moved to see the work of the church being done through prayer—a reminder that its ultimately God who builds his kingdom, everywhere, by his grace.  When we pray, we’re reminded that we’re dependent upon God to change us, to make us more like Jesus, to make us the best friends, neighbors, and citizens possible.

The day after presbytery I took a day off in L’viv, along with most of the guys from my team who’d been able to come to the presbytery meeting.  I’m thankful for the time we had to get to know each other a bit more.  Our team had time for meals together, conversation, coffee, and some strolling around the center of L’viv.  One of my colleagues, Alister (pictured with me at a cafe), and I got to explore the clock tower in the center of the old city square.  God gave us an absolutely gorgeous day for our visit.

Of course, it was back to work Friday morning.  We caught an early taxi to the train station, and took a high-speed train back to Kyiv, so I could make it to my Russian class, and my teammates to various meetings they had in the afternoon.  The train hurled across the countryside at speeds topping 160 kilometers per hour (99 miles per hour).

on life-giving letters

I just found a quote from Henri Nouwen Latin American Journal that I typed up when I read it, but never actually posted here.  On January 9th, 1982 (p. 105), he wrote,

Letters are gifts, often greater than the writers realize.  Ever since I left the United States, I have experienced a deep hunger for lifegiving letters–letters from very close friends who have little to ask and little to inform me of, but who simply speak about bonds of friendship, love, care, and prayer.  I am overwhelmed by a letter that says: “We think of you, pray for you, and we want you to know that we love you.”  I have never experienced the power of such letters as strongly as during these last months.  They directly affect my spiritual, emotional, and even physical life. They influence my prayers, my inner feelings, and even my breathing and heartbeat.

“The Word was made flesh, he lived among us” (John 1:14).  These words by St. John received new life for me during my last months here.  A word of love sent to me by a friend can indeed become flesh and bridge long distances of time and space.  Such a word can heal pains, bind wounds, and often give new life.  Such a word can even restore a faltering faith and make me aware that in the community of love, the incarnation of the divine love can be realized wherever we are.

The letters I’ve received here have been a huge encouragement, perhaps even more so than the emails.  Is that because the physicality of ink on paper echos Jesus’ incarnation more directly than pixels on a screen?  When I’ve taken time to send handwritten thank you notes or letters, I come away from that hour or two deeply grateful for the people who’ve partnered with me in prayer, in giving, in friendship.  Or to use Pauline terms, writing brings people to mind, and when I remember them I give thanks for their partnership with my in the gospel of Christ.  How appropriate it is, then, to encourage one another with the incarnation of our words on paper.

time to play

Yesterday there was a group of school kids on the subway platform, waiting for the next train.  As they boarded, I noticed many of the adults who were close to that subway car’s door walked further than usual to get onto the next subway car, to avoid the noise of that class of children.  I followed the kids onto the train, to observe and catch whatever phrases I could understand.  Most of them were playfully interacting with each other, and I’d say they were probably between 9 and 12 years old.  A few had smartphones, interestingly the girls who had smartphones were using them in groups–one group of three playing an electronic Uno game, another group taking pictures of each other and laughing a lot, whereas the boys tended to be using their phones by themselves.  When the train crossed the bridge over the Dnipr river, most of the kids turned looked out the window at the river, at the shore, at the world around them, except for one of the boys who had his nose stuck in his smartphone the entire time.

I reflected on my love for kids, for playing with them, and for helping them understand God’s incredible love for us in Jesus Christ.  I miss singing songs with the kids at my church back in Chattanooga, and miss my friends’ kids.  In Henri Nouwen’s South American journal, he said that for most of his adult career in seminary, in university, and in his teaching positions, he wasn’t around kids–from his 18th year until his 50th year, when as a missionary he moved into a roof-top room with a poor Peruvian family.  He reflected in his Thursday, January 28, 1982 journal entry:

The children always challenge me to live in the present.  They want me to be with them here and now, and they find it hard to understand that I might have other things to do or to think about.  After all my experiences with psychotherapy, I suddently have discovered the great healing power of children.  Every time Pablito, Johnny, and Maria run up to welcome me, pick up my suitcase, and bring me to my “roof-room,” I marvel at their ability to be fully present to me.  Their uninhibited expression of affection and their willingness to receive it pull me directly into the moment and invite me to celebrate life where it is found.  Whereas in the past coming home meant time to study, to write letters, and to prepare for classes, it now first of all means time to play.  [My grandpa’s margin note here says, “Beautiful!”]

In the beginning, I had to get used to finding a little boy under my bed, a little girl in my closet, and a teenager under my table, but now I am disappointed when I find my friends asleep at night.  I did not know what to expect when I came to Pamplona Alta.  I wondered how the poverty, the lack of good food and good housing would affect me; I was afraid of becoming depressed by the misery I would see.  But God showed me something else first: affectionate, open, and playful children who are telling me about love and life in ways no book was ever able to do.  I now realize that only when I can enter with the children into their joy will I be able to enter also with them into their poverty and pain.  God obviously wants me to walk into the world of suffering with a little child on each hand. (Nouwen, p. 123) [Here my grandpa wrote, “Let the children come to me & don’t let them get cut off because God’s reign belongs to those who are like children – Matt 19:14.  Beloved we are already children of God – I John 3:12.]

I’m thankful all the other families on my team have kids.  Last night I had dinner with my team leader’s family, as I often do Friday evenings.  I love arriving at their house  and hearing their son Zachary’s enthusiastic greeting, “Joel is here!” as he runs from the living room or kitchen to the entry-way to give me a hug and start telling me about whatever he’s doing.

in Russian class this week

Wow – we’ve finished the Prepositional Case, and begun the Genitive Case.  At the end of class today, with my head swimming with new grammar and unsure whether I would retain it until I could review it and use it in conversations, my teacher reassuringly said, in Russian, “Joel, you already know the Prepositional Case.  We’ve just started the Genitive. Its hard because it has many exceptions and endings, but you’ll learn it.”

My classmate Helen has been gone this week and last, and she’s returning Monday.  Yeah!  Solo classes are good, but exhausting, and sometimes its nice to have another person who answers half the questions.  Plus, Helen’s return means we’ll back up a little to catch her up, and I’m looking forward to the review to solidify what I’ve been working on.