I serve on the Committee of Diaconal Ministries, or for Diaconal Ministries of the Authorized Presbyterian Church. And about two years ago, as we have a fund, not we, but you have a fund, to support those that are being affected by the war in Ukraine.
And that fund was started about four or five years ago when the war started. And when we collect funds, when we ask for funds, we obviously are seeking places to put those funds. Sometimes it’s relatively easy. In other times, like this one, it can be relatively hard.
We’re always looking for, in this kind of a circumstance, ministries that are doing good mercy ministry work. It’s a diaconal committee, so we’re looking for mercy ministry. But we’re looking for mercy ministry which is connected to the word, always connected to the word, and the word which is being proclaimed in reformed fashion.
And so David Nakula had made a trip to Ukraine, and one of the other members of the CDM went with him previously during the war to seek out ministries that were serving in that way. And so we partnered with MTW and sent quite a bit of funds to MTW because they’ve got a significant ministry going on in Ukraine.
They have for 30 years, and you’ll see part of that. But there was a church that was ministering in Kharkiv, and we’re going to talk significantly about that, that we just couldn’t figure out how to get money to in such a way that it was well overseen. They’ve been doing this ministry, this mercy ministry, during the entire war. And we weren’t able to establish a mechanism, a way, to get funds to them which would be overseen by the church until about two years ago. And so for the last two years, we’ve been providing some funding to the ministry that you’re going to see here in a little bit. And so that kind of provides the background to why we made this trip, to go over and see with our eyes what’s going on, how that ministry is using the money. So that stands behind, a little bit behind this trip.
Ukraine. So we made this trip April 14th to the 24th this year, 2026. Myself, David Nakala, a member of an OPC church in Grand Rapids, accompanied us. And we went and we met Hiro Hakobord in Lviv and then ultimately went to Kharkiv. We’re going to talk about that tonight. So when we were on the way out, one of the members of the MTW team that’s in Ukraine was talking to me and the other fellow that went with us.
He said, when you go back, you’re going to have so much to tell people, but you’ve got to limit yourself to two things. Because if you don’t, you’re just going to confuse everybody. And so here are the two things. Why did you go and why did they stay? Two questions. Hopefully you’ll have an answer to those at the end of this presentation. Why did you go and why did they stay? Well, let me open up God’s word here in John 3, 16. Well, you see it here on the screen.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. And from John 8, Jesus said to them, if God were your father, you would love me, for I came from God, and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.
The scriptures are significant in this respect. That Jesus was sent. His father sent him. His father knew, our father knew that we needed a presence. A presence here with us. And so I’m jumping ahead to the answer of why did you go? And so as we go through these slides, at least the first portion, I want you to be thinking of the significance of your physical presence with others. David Nocola refers to this as the mercy or the ministry of presence. And in a great sense, that’s why we went. just to be present with our brothers and sisters who are serving in this wonderful mercy ministry.
That’s why Jesus was sent. His Father sent Him to be with us because we’re a communicative people and we needed this radiance of God with us. We needed His presence. And if you think to the end, when Jesus returns, what will we have? We’ll have the eternal presence of God himself. So how important is it for us to be present with others?
So why go? We received that question as we were considering going. I was questioning that myself when David Nochla said, you know, I’m gonna go, do you wanna go along? I was thinking, why are you going? Are you out of your mind? There’s a war going on there. So I asked that question myself. I know my wife asked that question of me. When I said, well, you know, David’s going. He needs somebody to go with him. So that’s a significant question. Why? Why go? Well, where is Kharkiv? Where is it? You say, well, it’s in Ukraine. Right. So how do you get there?
You get there by flying into Poland because the airspace in Poland is open. The airspace in Ukraine is closed. You can’t fly. There are no commercial flights going on in the country of Ukraine. So you come next door, Poland, and then from Poland you get into Ukraine by car, by train, something other than airplane.
So we chose the train. What we did was we flew into Poland, we spent the night there, and then we had a car, we drove then to Lviv, which is on the western side of Ukraine, of the country, and met Hiro Hakobord there, and then we got on a train. So Lviv is in this area. Obviously, there’s Poland. That’s what we flew into. Lviv is here on the western edge or border of Ukraine, very close to Poland. The capital, which you hear of in the news quite often, is Kiev here. And so we took a train from Lviv and ended up about here. in Kharkiv.
And what’s this? Oh, there’s Russia. That’s the Russian border right there. And so this came off the internet. I don’t know how accurate it is, but apparently this is the area occupied now by Russian forces. And there’s Kharkiv. That’s where we went. That was the object of our trip, is to get to Kharkiv. That’s where the Mercy Ministry is going on. Not that ministry is not going on in other places. It is. But that was our goal, to get to Kharkiv.
Now, just to give you a little bit of background on MTW, MTW has been planting churches in Ukraine for, again, 30 years. And Hero, Hero is an OPC minister. He serves in Lviv. The church that he serves is there. There are ministers, MTW has created, I’m using very human words, right? But they’ve planted churches throughout Ukraine. I can’t remember, I think it’s around 12 to 17, yes sir. I’m sorry, good question.
Mission to the World. It’s the Presbyterian Church in America’s foreign mission arm. And so MTW, Mission to the World, PCA, PCA’s foreign mission arm has been in Ukraine for about 30 years to my knowledge, planning churches that whole time. And so Hiro Hakobord is an OPC minister. He’s serving out of bounds with MTW. And he ministers here in Lviv. There are ministers in Kiev, obviously there’s a minister here, but this is not a PCA denomination. It’s a denomination that’s been established in Ukraine of Ukrainian churches.
So when the OPC conducts foreign missions, we are not seeking to plant OPC churches in Africa and in South America. We’re seeking to help those indigenous peoples to establish their churches, their denominations in their countries. So we’re not seeking to plant OPC churches on foreign land. Our foreign missions model is to help others plant reformed confessional churches in their lands, led by their pastors, led by their elders, and their deacons. Does that make sense? Okay. So that’s what MTW has been doing, although they still have some American pastors, actually Hiro Hakenbord is from South Africa, serving as pastors there.
That was our goal to get here, Kharkiv. Kharkiv is about 22 miles from the Russian border, not far. When we arrived at the train station there in Kharkiv, and Mark Agarkov, he’s the leader of this Mercy Ministry for the most part, picked us up in the van. We drove to a cafe, a place to get some breakfast, and they’re saying, well, if you keep on going down this road, you’re gonna end up in Russia.
So it’s the, to my knowledge, it’s the closest church to the war zone. Now, when I speak of churches, I’m speaking of Reformed confessional churches. Yes, sir? I say it Harkiv, I probably was saying it wrong. Most, I think, are speaking Ukrainian, but there are folks that obviously speak Russian there. In fact, Sergei, who pastors the church here in Kharkiv, has an online seminary that they began. He teaches in Russian. So he has Russian students. Pretty amazing. Ukrainian, teaching seminary classes. And some of those students in his class are Russian. So pretty close to the Russian border. Pretty close to the war zone. I think it’s the closest Reformed church to the war zone.
So what’s in Kharkiv? You got the location a little bit. What’s there? Why are we going? Well, the war is there. You can imagine, 22 miles from the Russian border. I don’t know too much about military capacity, but I think you can put a plane there in your airspace and probably shoot missiles into Ukraine pretty easily. Certainly you can send drones, and that’s what they do. So this was the cafe that we went to after we were picked up from the train station by Mark and his brother. in their ministry van. And on the way, as Mark is driving to the van, and we just arrived in Kharkiv, the air raid siren goes off. And apparently that means that there’s a drone close by.
And so the idea is you go take shelter. Now, go. While Mark is driving, he turns around the van and says, we’re going to breakfast. We said, what? Really? Yeah. We’re going to breakfast. OK. We’ll go to breakfast. We’re following you. We’ll go to breakfast. The air raid siren’s going off. They go, I don’t know. And so we get to the cafe.
And you probably can’t see it, but there are shrapnel marks on this door front. And there are shrapnel holes in the side of this building. And apparently, they decided to leave them. so that they would be reminded of what’s going on and what’s been done to them. Across the street, the windows are boarded up with plywood.
But once you enter into this cafe, it’s like you’re in the United States at Starbucks. There are women meeting for coffee. There was a woman working on her computer. What do you want to eat? And then while we were sitting there, an alarm goes off in the restaurant. I’m thinking, do we get under the tables now? And the waiter says, oh, don’t worry about it. OK, it was a great breakfast.
So that’s just a bit of how they’re living. It’s in the war. And I was expecting when we went that we’d be seeing this kind of thing just throughout. I thought that Kharkiv was basically a farming community, right on the border, not too much going on. It’s a huge city.
They had two million people living in the city of Kharkiv before the war began. As a result of the war, it’s down to about 1.5 million. About 500,000 have left. And so you do see this, you see damage from the war, but it’s not as if the entire city is wiped out. There are some cities that have been wiped out, and as a result of that, people have moved to Kharkiv. And so there are a lot of internally displaced folks who are in Kharkiv and who the ministry is able to minister to.
You see this, but it’s not all over. There’s more damage. There are places where you can see that bombs have been dropped. I’m not sure if this is going to work. We’ll try it. This is a view from the apartment that we stayed in. The church has set up a ministry apartment for folks that are coming to help with the ministry, coming out and putting on a conference, whatever. Very nice. And so we got there. We unloaded our bags. We picked our rooms.
And almost immediately, an air raid siren goes off. Maybe you can hear it. Maybe you can’t. We’ll see. That was actually gunfire. Yeah, I’m sorry. It wasn’t an air raid siren. The air raid siren came earlier. That was most likely anti-aircraft gunfire going off. We got a call from Mark as we were there, the air and sirens going off, so don’t worry about it, it’s not close. And then we hear that. As we, later on in the trip, let’s just give you some insight as to how people are dealing with this.
This is in Kharkiv. When we were in Lviv, which again is on the other side of the country, and we were sitting at dinner with the MTW, Mission to the World team, who’s been ministering there for some time now, my friend Stephen, we were asked, well, what’s it like in Kharkiv? because MTW has not allowed their people to go to Kharkiv. Hero is the first one who’s been to Kharkiv since the war began.
And they were hesitant about letting him go. So when Stephen was asked about, well, what’s it like in Kharkiv, he began to play this. And the leader of the MTW team said, stop. Stop. They couldn’t hear it. They’ve been so, and they’re in Lviv. They’ve been so affected by the war, by the air raid sirens, by things happening, that this was just too much. So they’ve been traumatized. Even in Lviv. So that’s the first day that we were there. We hear that. A bit disconcerting. But, according to Mark, don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about it.
This is a memorial that’s been set up outside of the zoo in Kharkiv. And it’s a memorial for the children that have died. And I’m not exactly sure what it’s supposed to mean. But you see right here, you can almost see it. These are the names of the children that have died. And so they’re constantly adding to it. It’s a stark reminder of the ravages of war and what the people there are living through. It’s hard to see.
And yet, it stands outside the zoo. And so as we went in and we were visiting the zoo and it is like there’s no war going on. People are just here walking around. After we saw this, there was a woman walking, I’m assuming, with her husband, maybe her fiance. She has this huge bunch of roses she’s carrying through the zoo. And I’m thinking, there is such a contrast here between death and life. And these people are just living amidst this conflict every single day. Death and life. They’re living in the midst of war.
This was in Lviv, and so we went, as we arrived, we picked up Hero, we went to Kharkiv, we’ll talk about what we did in Kharkiv in a bit. But then we reversed, we went back, we went to Kiev, and ultimately ended up in Lviv, and spent some time in Lviv with Hero and the MTW team. Not long, but a little bit of time. And so as we’re walking through Lviv, Hiro brings us down this street. And again, Lviv is in the western part of the country, far from the front line.
And yet they still have been suffering. This building is under renovation. It’s basically being rebuilt because a bomb was dropped on it. And outside is a poster with the pictures of the folks that died as that bomb was dropped. According to Hero, this family, and these are all of the same family, daughters, four daughters and a wife, had gone into the stairwell because apparently they knew the bomb was coming. And somebody was thirsty, and so the father went up to get something to drink. And that’s when the bomb hit. And his wife and four daughters were killed. So as you walk down the street, you’re just being reminded of this every single day. They’re living in the midst of war. And so that’s what we’re experiencing. Life is going on in the midst of the danger, the ravages, the death of war.
You might think that I put this up here so I could talk about David. No. I want to talk about this young lady here. And I apologize, I’ve forgotten her name. She was translating. When we went to Kharkiv, it was requested that we put on a mini conference. And so three of us on Saturday spoke from Matthew’s gospel. I believe of Matthew 25, 26, and 27. And then Hiro preached on Sunday in Ukrainian, Matthew 28, the resurrection. And this young lady translated for us. They didn’t need to translate it for Hiro. He spoke in Ukrainian.
But we spoke to her before we put on the conference. And we were just asking her, how is she doing? How does she live? And she said, well, I just go to sleep at night. The air raid sirens go off and we’re supposed to go to the bomb shelters, but I’ve got to go to sleep. I just sleep.
And that’s just a picture of the fact that our brothers and sisters are living in the midst of war, in the midst of possible death, and yet they’re trying to live as normal a life as possible. Now that’s difficult in this situation, but they’re doing it.
There was a large turnout for this conference, which is, from my perspective, it’s amazing. Saturday night, people come into church to hear the Word of God. This worship space was just about filled. It was certainly filled Sunday morning. Why did we go? to be present with our brothers and sisters.
We’re suffering. They’re living in the midst of war. This is a mall, a multi-story mall in Kharkiv. So I was thinking, this is farmland, this is rundown place. No, not at all. It’s a multi-story. You’d think you were in the midst of Washington, DC, Atlanta, Georgia, Los Angeles someplace, but it’s a beautiful mall. We went there one of the nights that we were in Kharkiv, and there’s just a bunch of youth, a bunch of young people outside socializing. There’s a grocery store at the bottom. You’d think, once again, we’re not in the middle of a war. Again, we were in the grocery store and the air raid sirens were going off. Nobody’s doing anything except buying groceries.
As I said, when we left Kharkiv, we went back, we went, basically reversed the travel that we did to get there, we went to Kiev. and then to Lviv. If I were to show you this picture from my phone and you would ask me, well, what is that? I would have said, well, I’m not quite sure. I can’t remember. But it is the Dormition, if that’s how you say it, cathedral in a 1,000-year-old monastery of the caves.
It’s beautiful. We didn’t go inside. We just saw the exterior. That was in April. This is in June. It was bombed. And the only reason I know the name is because it’s printed down here in Al Jazeera. It hasn’t stopped. It continues to go. And again, this is Kiev. This is not next door to Russia. This is in the middle of the country. This is Kiev also, and this is, again, a memorial to those who have died in the war, and this thing just keeps on going. There are flags, there are pictures of those who have died in the war, and it’s huge. And this is in the middle of Kiev, and so it’s hard to get around without being confronted with this. It just goes on and on and on. And I’m not sure I quite fully understood this.
But my limited understanding is that they’ve got the military But they’ve also got, in Ukraine, kind of private militaries, or private folks that assemble folks that are gonna go to battle. And so they’re advertising for you to join our group. Not necessarily join Ukrainian military, but join our group. Private financiers put this together and said, come, come and fight with us. Now, there’s some connection between them and the Ukrainian military now. I’m not exactly sure what it is, but you see these advertisements throughout. Come and join our group. Fight with us.
Again, you can’t get away from the fact that there is this war going on throughout the country. And then even in the hotel rooms, I mean, I’m not sure if I’ve ever seen this before, but there’s a gas mask that you can pull out For the closet in your hotel room, this is in Lviv. Again, a reminder that danger is afoot. You might need this. And so here’s how you use it.
It’s a constant reminder of those that have died. Every day, throughout the country, they play this. Let’s see if we can hear it. That was on the train. And this is to get you to stop. I don’t think it’s to get you to pray, but it’s to get you to stop and remember we’re at war and there are many that have already died. It’s sober, it’s somber. It’s this constant reminder that death is before you. And life.
This is Mark Agarkov. He is the one who really leads the ministry of mercy from this church. This is his brother, Sergei. He’s the pastor of the church. This is Mark’s wife. I should have her. I think her name is Christina. This is one of their children being baptized. And this is during the war. Mark was not married when the war began. And I believe now he and his wife have three children. During the war, four years, going on five. Life continues. Praise God. Praise the Lord.
I forgot this young man’s name, but he was serving in the military. And he’s now been released because they adopted this little one. What a joy. But he’s no longer serving in the military. Now he wants to go to seminary. He’s a strong member of the church. And we talked a bit about seminary. So he’s one man that we can be praying for. And then, this is Mark and his brother, Sergei, and that young man I just spoke about. And here’s another man who’s serving in the Ministry of Mercy, but has been now called, since we’ve been there, he’s been called to the war front. So now he’s going off to serve. And that’s apparently constant.
And that’s, I believe, one reason why the pastors are not getting together anymore, at least during the war, because the concern is that they could be drafted. They go to the train station. Folks are looking for folks to come and help with the war effort. And the pastors apparently are concerned, look, I can’t go. I might be drafted. And so they’re not getting together.
And this young man was. So he’s no longer in the mercy ministry. I can pray for that, pray for a replacement. And this was on the way to the worship service Sunday morning. The church is in this building here, and we’re just walking down the street. You can hear the air raid siren is going off. On the way to church, Sunday morning. There’s a siren going off. In the background. It’s a normal day. It’s a normal Lord’s Day. So why do we go?
To be with our brothers and sisters who are suffering, to be present with them. We went to see this, the mercy of ministry, the ministry of mercy. Jesus was sent. There’s somewhere around 17 verses in the Gospel of John which speak of Jesus being sent by his father. We’re not Jesus, but there’s that concept, the idea of the ministry of presence. Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. God in the flesh, present. So this is the ministry that we went to see, to put eyes on, and also, obviously, to be present with those who are doing it.
And here, this is the back of an ambulance. And you see that it’s not a person, but bags of rice and food. And so what the ministry has done is they’re giving food to the local hospitals because they don’t have enough. And so that’s where some of the funds are going, to buy food to be sent to the hospitals. And so these men were loading up the, when we got to the ministry warehouse, they were loading up this ambulance to take and distribute food to the local hospitals. This is the warehouse. Here’s Mark Agarkov, and he’s going to show us, or he did show us what’s placed in each one of these bags.
Once a month, the ministry opens up. And they invite folks from the community to come and get food, get clothing, to be invited to church, to get a book. It’s a holistic ministry. And this is their warehouse. Now they only open up once a month and they can serve about 200 families. with these things, with food, with clothing. Obviously, they could serve many more with the gospel. But that’s what they’re doing. They’re providing these things. Once a month, they open up a web portal.
And Mark said within about five minutes, they are full. They can’t take any more people. That’s how great the need is. And it’s a very organized ministry. So they have the web portal where people sign up. They come at various times. It used to be that people would come all at once. And so there’d be lines of people waiting outside in cold and whatever. And so they’ve stopped that.
They’ve given particular times when people are to show up and to be receiving the food and the clothing that they need. Again, internally displaced people who’ve had their homes wiped out and have come now to Kharkiv have nothing And so this is very much like a refugee ministry. And so they’re providing that which they need physically, and they’re providing that which they need spiritually.
This is the warehouse where they store the food. So it’s like basic milk, basic pasta, sweet milk, canned pork, canned beans. Cookies, black tea, sugar. paid for some candies so it’s totally basic but yeah it’s enough for one family like at least for several for several days to eat and just to show you how prices are raising in the beginning of the war the cost was around twelve dollars Right now, it’s around 25. So the prices are rising.
Yeah. So yeah, we provide it. Sorry about the video. I don’t know what I’m doing. Mark shared with us it costs about $10,000 a month to provide food for about 200 families. $120,000 a year, and that’s just serving once a month. And the need continues. It hasn’t stopped. This warehouse is full of food.
And Mark shared with us that they’re providing, I’ll use my words, good food. They recognize that the folks that they’re serving are made in the image of God, that they deserve, deserve is a bad word, that they’re treating them with dignity. And as I thought about it, I felt a bit shameful. When we were in Clarkston, Georgia, ministering to refugees there during COVID, there was a need for food, as I’m sure you probably experienced here. And my mindset was, we just give them some basic things, and we’re giving you stuff, don’t complain, take what we give you. And I come here to Ukraine, and Mark said, well, no, we wanna treat folks with respect and dignity, and give them good food. I said, yes, yes, you’re right, I was absolutely wrong. treating folks with dignity, giving them good food.
What a blessing to hear that. So here’s the warehouse that’s just stocked. These are bags that have been prepared, ready to go. I guess it’s upstairs where folks will be coming in. You’ll see that in a moment, to receive the food. But there’s a ton of work that goes into this, organizing it, putting these bags together, getting them upstairs, handing them out. You’ll see some record keeping that goes along with it.
Obviously, you’ve got to go and purchase these things. You’ve got to get the money from somebody so you can purchase the things. So this is a full-orb ministry that’s been going on for four years now, serving the community. Yes, ma’am? Where does the food, they purchase it Good question. I have no idea. Yeah. Yes, ma’am. That would be a good question for Mark. I don’t have an answer for that.
Not in this ministry. And I can say, going from a food pantry where you’re providing things that are, quote, not perishable, to a food pantry where you’re giving out perishable things, that’s a completely different operation. Yeah, we had a food pantry in Washington and everything was boxes and cans, and once in a while we’d have some fresh things, but we had no way to preserve it. And so they don’t have refrigerators here, to my knowledge.
I don’t know if you’ve heard of MTW’s crates for Ukraine, but that’s been going on since the war began, and you see here, there are some crates. And so crates made their way here to Kharkiv. crates that have been packaged throughout the U.S. and sent over. They made it, and they’re being used. And not only do they have food, but they also have a closed closet, it’s actually a closed room, and all kinds of clothes.
So if you’re internally displaced, you had to leave everything behind or everything got wiped out, you can come and get children’s clothes, children’s shoes, your clothes, your shoes, whatever, it’s here. People decided to evacuate, they have no time to bring their clothes. They bring only documents and money and so on. So just imagine family, they’re refugees, they came to Varkiv city and a government provides some place for them in dormitory, small room, and they have nothing, nothing. And weather is changing, they have no clothes and no money to buy clothes.
That’s why here we would like to provide some basic towels some even toys for children and like basic clothes so tomorrow it’s gonna be distribution and you’re gonna see that half of that will be empty and we put again again and again and pray the Lord we have also people who donated food, donated clothes or some switzerland mission sent second hand from switzerland so we have clothes and Yeah, in the beginning of war it was totally empty in one moment because a lot of people who was like homeless and lost everything. But right now it’s much more stable, people just take whatever they want and also we want to make it with dignity so they could shop, they could wear whatever they want.
Yeah, our position is not to put that close. So it’s a good quality. We’re sorting before, before put it here. So it’s pretty nice. And it’s, yeah. Our sisters from the church, they are volunteering every month and spend the weekend just to sort and to put everything. What is the source of the clothes? Nishin from Switzerland. Okay, so we’ve got food, we’ve got clothing.
Here are folks that have come, they’ve entered into the ministry space, and they’re going to be taking their names down, making sure they’re lining them up with, okay, this is who we have registered, who are you? And they’re introducing them, this is what’s going to happen. So they go, yes?
I think both, but what Mark was describing would be internally displaced folks. So the difference between someone who’s internally displaced and a refugee, a refugee crosses a border. Internally displaced folks remain within their country, but they’ve got to leave their home. And so that’s what he’s referring to. He’s referring to folks that have lived in towns, villages, wherever, that have been wiped out or occupied now by the Russians. They had to leave. And so they had to leave everything behind, and they had nothing. He said, when the war started, This room was empty because everything was gone. So now things have stabilized, but now they have closed. So internally displaced. I’m not sure that they say, well, you’re from Kharkiv and so you can’t come. I don’t think they do that. I think they serve whoever signs up. And there’s a constant need.
So folks would go from the entryway then to sitting on these benches. And this group is about ready to go in to get to the food and the clothing closet. But before they do, they get a brief on what’s going on here, what you’re going to be seeing and getting. But you’re also going to get an invitation to come to worship. You’re also going to get an invitation to come. They give out cards. This is when we worship. This is where we are. Please come. They don’t force anybody, obviously you can’t force anybody to come, but there’s always the invitation. And this is Hiro. He didn’t need a translator. We all got a chance to speak and to talk about what they’re going to see. Hiro didn’t need the translator.
So this is, we’re going back a day, Mark is now explaining the organization and how they have to record everything, every person that comes in, they collect data on, information on, so that they can have that information for the government when the government says, okay, you received all this donations, prove to us that you’re using it for this kind of ministry, and then we shouldn’t tax you on it, or whatever. So they have binders and binders. of information on the folks that have come to this ministry. And then as the people funnel through, you can see these women sitting at these desks, and they’re able to meet with those who are coming for food and talk with them. And here’s where they get some stories on, this is what’s happened to me.
My husband was serving in the war, and he was killed. And we don’t have any way to support ourselves. And I’ve got three children. And so these women who are sitting at these tables are hearing these things. Pray for them. They’re hearing of these awful situations of women without husbands any longer or women who are now at home alone. Their husband is fighting and they’re wondering if he’s gonna come home. And they’re hearing all this. There’s a great need for counseling in this place. And I think they have begun doing some counseling as well. But these people are traumatized.
I hear some folks in the clothing area picking up clothes, being served in the name of Christ. Not only clothing and food, but also books. The ministry Mark and his brother have started, started, it’s been going on for some time, they have a publishing arm. And so they get folks to translate reformed works into Ukrainian, and then they publish it. And so they’re able to hand these things out. So folks can come, and do you want a book? Yeah, here, take a book. Read this. It costs about $3,000 to $4,000 for them to translate a reformed work and publish it. And I forgot how many copies that is, but it’s substantial. That’s a pittance. $3,000 to $4,000 and they can publish a reformed book in Ukrainian.
And they’re doing it. It’s an amazing ministry. So that’s why we went. The Ministry of Presence, to be with brothers and sisters who are suffering. Now, you think we went to minister to them. They actually ministered to us. They stayed. Remember, Kharkiv had about two million people in it. About a fourth of them left and haven’t come back. But they stayed. They stayed. We went for the ministry of presence. We went to be encouraged by them and hopefully to provide a little encouragement to them. But why did they stay? Worship. Where are people going to go? The drones are flying. Churches are closing. Where are people going to go to worship the triune God, truly? So they stayed.
The Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Ukraine, the EPCU, that’s the denomination, this is actually from Wikipedia, recognizes an independent national denomination which the MTW created, so to speak. On April 16, 2008, in Odessa, at the time of organization, the denomination had one presbytery combining three particularized churches and eight mission churches. As of 2012, they had 12 churches. I think that’s up to 17 now. And missions in various parts of Ukraine. The EPCU was started by missionaries in the Presbyterian Church in America in the early 1990s. Holy Trinity Presbyterian in Kiev has been the largest congregation. That’s the denomination. This is on an MTW website. Since February 2022, MTW missionaries and the pastors and members of 15 partner churches, okay, it’s up to 15, of the EPCU are on their knees seeking the Lord’s mercy, protection, and wisdom. The churches in Western Ukraine and MTW missionaries in Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia cared for refugees, again, refugees, those crossing a border, In the early months of the war, as war continues, needs continue to grow.
Generators for power, food supplies, clothing, housing. In Kharkiv, three out of every four church members have been displaced from their homes. The needs are huge, especially as we consider rebuilding or replenishing churches in the future. God’s church has responded with prayer and generous donations. Please continue to pray to our sovereign Lord for his grace and mercy in his ongoing in this ongoing time of great need. This is the church in Harkiv that we visited. We are the Harkiv Presbyterian Church, part of the EPCU.
Our denomination was founded over 30 years ago by missionaries from MTW, and the first church was established in Odessa. Since then, Hero Haka Board was an intern in Odessa. Since then, by God’s grace, 15 churches have been planted across Ukraine between 96 and 2022. Kharkiv is Ukraine’s second largest city, located just 30 kilometers, 22 miles, from the Russian border. We are currently the only Presbyterian church in the city, and the easternmost Reformed church in Ukraine. We are committed to planting, strengthening, and multiplying Christ-centered Reformed churches across Ukraine.
What if they weren’t there? Well, God has kept them there. And this is why. So the word of God can continue to go out. This is Sergei. He’s opening up the door to the church. This is the church’s icon. And I’m actually wearing a lapel pin with that icon. It’s basically a burning bush. And it’s the idea that the church is on fire, and yet it’s growing.
There’s Hiro, and this is, I believe, at the conference. He was the last speaker. It’s either at the conference or him preaching. I think it’s the conference. But you can see that people came. to hear the Word of God. Why did they stay? That’s why. This was after the conference. You could see all these people came to the conference. You hear several guys from the US. Why would you? Because we were speaking about Christ. And so they came. They were hungry. They are hungry. What a beautiful group. This is worship.
Now, you can barely see it. We’ll play the video here in a second. But they have windows in their worship space. On the exterior of those windows, they have placed a film that is designed to stop shrapnel from penetrating the glass. Now, I’m not sure how much it can keep out.
But just the fact that they have that and they’re still coming to worship. We believe in the Holy Spirit, He gives us life. We believe in the resurrection of Christ, We believe in the death of the devil. We believe in the Resurrection, He will return to us. It’s a beautiful service. This is what they were singing, I think. It’s amazing what the phone can do. We believe in Christ’s crucifixion. We believe he has conquered death. We believe he is risen and will return to us. So why did they stay?
This is a Zoom meeting that’s going on while we were at the Mercy Ministry distribution, and Sergei, Mark Garkov’s brother, is holding class. Not in this space, but on Zoom. So you think of all the things that these men are doing. Mercy ministry, worshiping, leading, shepherding a church, training up folks for ministry, all the while, Drones are flying, bombs are falling, and they’re still proclaiming Christ. Why did they stay? To proclaim Christ.
Well, I would be remiss if I didn’t talk a little bit about the HACA boards. Again, Hiro is an OPC minister serving out of bounds with MTW. As we traveled back, we spent a couple of days in Lviv with the HACA boards and with the MTW mission team there and seeing their work. And that was a great blessing. We can be in prayer for the Haka boards as well.
Here they are, here’s Hiro and their son, Christian. And his wife, remind me of her name. Anya, thank you, Anya. Lovely family, their daughter was in California going to college, finishing up her last year. They went back for her graduation after this trip, after this picture was taken. And so now she’s graduated.
But they’ve been there. Oh, boy. Hero has been in Ukraine for going on 30 years. I’m not sure how long they’ve been at this particular location. But it’s been a decade, going on two decades now. This is where they live. I was amazed. high rise apartment buildings. It’s Lviv. And this is the church where he ministers. It’s a wonderful building, a wonderful facility. It’s such a blessing to see how our brothers and sisters are serving the Lord. So what can I bring back? I think this is the message.
As the war’s going on now for four years, going into its fifth, we tend to forget. And we didn’t go because we were thinking of political things. We weren’t going there because we thought that Ukraine’s right or Russia’s right or Russia’s wrong, whatever. We didn’t go for that. We went to see brothers and sisters and be present with them in their suffering. Exactly what Jesus did as he came and was with us in our suffering. And then we got to see the wonderful ministry that’s going on in the midst of war.
First, the worship of God. Heartfelt worship, people. in their state of suffering, going to worship in the midst of drones flying and bombs falling and the potential of shrapnel coming in through the windows, and they’re still going to worship. They’re still coming to conferences to hear about Christ. The Word is going out. They love the Lord. And it’s so wonderful to be with them in this environment, in that environment. It was so encouraging to see their courage in the face of the evil of men. So pray. Pray that the Lord would use their ministry, their mercy ministry. You know, how many of those people that come through those doors actually know Christ? Probably very few. And they’re radiating Christ. One of the young ladies that was there working in the mercy ministry had basically fled the country and gone to Canada, along with her sisters. But she came back. And now she’s working in the church. She’s working in the ministry.
What a testimony. Please pray for them. Pray for the church. Pray for the members there, that they would continue to be faithful. That they would continue this ministry of mercy, which is reaching out to the lost. And that many would come to know Christ through their ministry. I pray that the Lord would protect them. And yes, certainly pray that the Lord would bring this war to an end, a just end. He would continue to protect life and limb.
Please pray. Questions? Yes, sir. Send money. So you asked, why did you go? I am so pleased that you went and saw where the money’s going. Ukraine is the most corrupt country. So good. So a question. You mentioned Kirov and his family have been there for decades.
So I’m wondering if he has seen any change in the response to his evangelistic efforts pre-war versus post-war, just because the war obviously would have to make people think more urgently about the possibility of imminent death and what happens after that. So I’m just wondering if he’s seen a larger reception to the gospel That’s a good question, one for Hero to answer. We did have the opportunity to sit down on one of the nights in Lviv with a group of young men who were in the church, and they got to talk to us about what it is to be a Christian, what it is to be a Christian father, a husband, what it is to be an officer in the church. And I got the sense that there is a greater interest in spiritual things just based upon that interaction with those young men. And I know Hero was encouraged by this.
So is that a result of the war? Is that a result of the danger? Possibly. Possibly. I’m not sure how you could live in that environment if you’re in the dark and not have those kinds of thoughts like, oh, you know, I could die tomorrow. A drone could fall on me tomorrow. And where am I going? So that would be a good question for Hiro to answer. But it was really encouraging for us to sit down with these young men, hear their questions, hear that they’re serious about the church, about the things of the Lord. Yeah. Yes, sir. I remember Hiro, it must have been 20 years ago.
I don’t know, we didn’t have him here, but he had a vision. about what it was like evangelizing in Ukraine at the time. And they had been so dominated by Russia during the Cold War period and prior to 89 with the collapse of the Soviet Union that they had a problem with men who had been so traumatized by the security, KGB, of the Russian that they really had, you know, behaving as, you know, they were very quiet when they spoke up. They didn’t want to get, have the focus on them and be targeted by the authority, by the security of Russia. But what I’m, following the war now, I see that Ukraine has become You know, the Russian invasion, and they really have Russia on the back foot right now.
They’re very effective at taking down drones. They have problems with the ballistic missiles, but they’re gaining technology because of their ability to have more I don’t know, it’s pretty free-thinking and set up on technology, whereas Russia is in the old system, in the top-down, and they haven’t been able to adapt as well. So you could see an end to the war maybe by the end of the year, because Ukraine’s sending about 300 drones and UAVs out every night, whereas Russia’s only putting out 100. Every once in a while, they’ll do a big splash, and put out like 500, but it’s only like every couple weeks. But Ukraine has definitely cut off the oil. Crimea has been cut off. And Russia’s hurting. They have long queue lines for gasoline. So the rest of the population is now feeling the effects of the war, which they didn’t in the beginning.
Yeah. Another aspect to pray for are officers. At the Diaconal Summit, I think I might have shared this with some of you, we had one of the pastors from the Hungarian church come along with a deacon. And he told us that this is the first deacon since the time of the Reformation in their denomination. And that’s kind of similar with the church in Ukraine. They have very few officers. In Heroes Church, they don’t have any elders. And so we met with the pastor in Kyiv, and he didn’t have any officers. He didn’t have any elders.
So we can be praying with the Lord to raise up men to become officers. Yes, Stephen? In Hungary? Well, that’s a good question. I’d have to stretch my brain to remember. It’s a long Eastern something, something, something, reformed something church. Something like that.
In Hungary, they have some churches in Ukraine as well. But anyway, they came to the Diakonos Summit. Yes? Is Eastern Orthodoxy officially the religion of Ukraine, or is Ukraine not? I’m not sure they have an official religion. It’s certainly not reformed. It’s Ukrainian church. It’s a former Eastern church. Okay. It’s different than the Russian Orthodox. Yeah, it’s not reformed. Okay, other questions? All right. Thank you for coming. Thank you for listening. Please pray. Let’s pray now.
Father, what a joy to be with brothers and sisters across the globe, to be able to be with them, to be present with them, to worship with them, to praise you with them, to see, Lord God, how they’re serving you and to see, Father, how we are part of the same church. What a blessing to know that when Christ comes, that we’ll be together. with these brothers and sisters who are suffering. Lord God, we do pray for these brothers and sisters in Karkiv.
We ask, Lord God, that you would protect them, that you’d watch over them as you have been. We pray that you’d pour out your mercy upon them, that you’d, Father, allow them to continue their ministry of mercy and certainly of worship, of teaching others about Christ, of making disciples, Father, we thank you for them. We thank you for their courage in the face of danger and the threats. We ask, Lord God, that you would sustain them.
And Father, we ask also that you’d help us to be those who are praying. Lord, they need our prayers. They need us not to forget that they are in the midst of persecution and suffering. And so we ask, Lord, God, help us help us to be good prayer warriors for these dear ones. Help us to keep them in mind in our hearts that we might lift them up.
And so we thank you for tonight. We thank you for the ability to to think upon these things that are going on and and how our brothers and sisters are responding. And we pray that you’d continue to lift them up. Thank you, Father, for your church. We thank you most of all for Christ, who suffered for us and came to be with us in person. So we thank you for sending him. And we ask all this in the precious name of Jesus. Amen.