Ukraine 2022

Good morning all. I was going to start this journal on Saturday when the trip began but it seems the adventure has already begun. I will do my best to make entries as I receive new information before we we leave on Saturday and then daily during our trip. Yesterday, Sunday 10/9/22, the other members of the team and I along with our wives met for a long lunch at a restaurant on Timberlake road in Lynchburg called La Villa . Excellent Italian food and really good service. This meeting was mostly to get to know each other a little, share testimonies and God stories. We also discussed some questions and concerns that we had. At the time we were unsure of sleeping arrangements, if we needed to bring our own tools and if so, what did we need to bring, how to pack everything ( we are supposed to take clothes, sleeping bags, food for up to 20 days, 150+ MP3 players with the Bible in Ukrainian on them, tools, along with other smaller essentials while staying as light as possible because of having to transport all our own luggage between the airport and train station in Warsaw. A lot of those questions were answered this morning, Monday 10/10/22, along with news that Kyiv, our destination, had just been hit with several missile strikes. With that being said, I know in my heart that I am supposed to go, God was very clear on this. The night after I was told about the trip, God would not let me fall as sleep until I got up, filled out and submitted the application. Melissa and I prayed for confirmation which God provided by providing ALL of the funds needed for the trip and through a peace that I have had about this trip from before I knew about it. God put it on my heart back in the spring that I was supposed to go to Ukraine. As of now, we are prayerfully proceeding forward with this trip. I will update when I have more information. Please continue to pray for the team going, the pastors, elders and staff at Calvary Chapel Lynchburg who our leading us in these efforts, YWAM (the very long term group on the ground in Kyiv) and our families who will be staying behind to cover for us while we are gone. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” Isaiah 6:8
– Derek

So far the trip is going well. We left Dulles airport in DC around 15:30Saturday 10/15/22 and landed in Frankfort Germany shortly after 5:00 local time Sunday 10/16/22. It is 7:22 and we have just boarded our flight from Frankfurt to Warsaw Poland, We will have a 3 hr layover in Warsaw. Which hopefully will give us enough time to get from the airport to the train station. Then we will take a train from Warsaw to Chelm Poland. Then another 2-3 hr delay then a 17+ hr train ride to Kyiv. More later

The hardest part of our journey, so far,has been to Kyiv from Chelm. The further along we go the more God removed me from my comfort zone. Once we got to the airport in Warsaw, very few people spoke English. On the train to Kyiv from Chelm it seemed that none of the employees spoke English, but God blessed us with a few young ladies(fellow passengers) who translated for us. The of us were also split up between 3 sleeping compartments on 2 different cars with no trap way to communicate with the guys on the other car. Jeremy and Bryan were in one compartment on one car. Jeff and I were in a compartment on another car and Alex was in the compartment next to us. God used the language barrier as a way for us to have conversations with the young ladies who where translating for us. The one I spoke to the most, Maria, a 22 year old IT specialist, who saw the opportunity to translate for us as a good way to practice her English, had been traveling across Europe for work had trouble understanding why we would come all the way from Virginia to build places for literally people that she might know to live.

Maria was from Kyiv, lived there all her life. Her home was in central Kyiv, she was there when Russia first attacked. She knew people who died, her friends lost homes . And when she found out the five of us had left our lives at home to come to her home, someplace we had never been, we didn’t know the language or culture or customs, she was intrigued. We talked about were we going to be working, a town west of Kyiv called Makariv. She talked about Ukrainian food, culture and history. She told me about her family and friends who had been affected by the war. I told her about the temporary houses that we had come to build, she was familiar with them. She thought we might be hired engineers or builders. When mentioned we were sent by a church, she talked about how her great grandfather was executed for having a Bible in his home when Ukrainian was still part of the USSR . She talked about how corrupt Christianity was in Ukrainian and that it had turned a lot of people away from God.

I was able, thank you Holy Spirit, to explain to her that the biggest reason we had come was to show the love of Christ to all that we encounter, to show people that true Christianity is not corrupt or greedy or self serving but loving, giving and selfless. Maria, for just a moment, stopped talking. In that brief part of our conversation, I had told her more about Jesus than she had been told in her entire life and I could tell she needed a moment to process. Shortly after our conversation was interrupted by the steward telling everyone to return to their compartment for passport checks. She was excited to accept 2 of the Ukrainian Bible MP3 players we had brought with us for her and her friend. The 2 women staying in Alex’s compartment, who also spoke English, were also eager to have the mp3 Ukrainian Bible as was the older woman in the compartment with Jeff and I. (She didn’t speak any English and for the most part kept to herself. God is already working through us on this trip. Thank you LORD.

Yesterday we went straight to work after dropping of our bags. We had been concerned about accommodations but those concerns were quickly alleviated. We have good food, beds, showers, heat, etc.. The work is good. The only real difficulty has been adjusting to the way they want to do things. They just changed they type of structure they are building to a more complex build. It seems to be better product but the fact that it is new has complicated things a bit more. Morale is high even though Bryan was a little sick this morning, we think it was a something he ate didn’t agree with him. We are safe and not near the recent attacks.

Today was a bit of a struggle for the team. Several things seem to be draining morale a bit. First and foremost is the frustrations caused by the language barrier. We are teamed up with 3 Ukrainians that don’t understand English. So communication a very difficult and slow process . A couple of us are trying to use google translate but it isn’t always accurate. They also do things very differently than we do, so trying to understand how they want things done is challenging add well. Secondly is the lack of time. We had hoped to have more time to interact with locals, (evangelizing, praying with) but our days are filled with work. We have had very little time for the 5 of us to pray, worship or talk things out. We do thank and praise God for our safety and the good accommodations at the YWAM camp. We are well fed and have never felt like we were in any kind of danger from Russian attacks.

Mikolli is one of the people we are building a house for. We can’t understand much but he loves Jesus and was very excited when I gave him an MP3 player with the Bible in Ukrainian on it.

Today was cold and wet, a high of around 40 and tonight is supposed to be down in the mid 20s. The first part of the day, we put a roof on one of the houses and then we went to join the Ukrainian builders putting the metal siding and roofing on. For whatever reason the local workers don’t like to let us help very much. They seem to want to do it themselves, which I understand but we didn’t come all this way to watch. We were starting to get frustrated when all of a sudden people started walking by. It was late afternoon so I assume maybe coming from work. Regardless, God gave us opportunities. Not necessarily to talk to them (language barrier) but we were able to give out some MP3 players. Each person we gave one to looked very excited when they heard a voice in their language reading the Bible to them. While we could not understand what they were saying, we could definitely see the joy on their faces. Back at camp we had an evening of well needed worship music (in multiple languages) but I still recognized all the songs. All in all, a good day. Thank you LORD

Sorry I missed an entry yesterday, 4 out of the 5 of us have either a cold or allergies to something, sore throat, congestion, fatigue, etc.. But, even with most of us being a little under the weather, we were able to start with a bare slab yesterday morning and put the walls and roof on by the end of the day today. It was the 5 of us and a guy from Netherlands named Juwakin (there is not a chance in the world that I spelled that right, I don’t even think I was saying it right). He came to the camp on his own and was sharing a room with 3 of us so he was a natural fit into our crew.

It was nice that the Ukrainian builders gave as a chance to work on our own and they were pleased with the end product. We are off tomorrow and traveling into Kyiv to attend service at Calvary Chapel Kyiv and meet with the pastors there. Then we will come back to the YWAM camp tomorrow evening. Monday, we will work a half day, hopefully installing the door and wind and metal siding and roofing on the house we built the last two days, then get packed up to catch a train from Kyiv to Chelm at 10:30 pm. Short trips like this a difficult for this type of work because by the time you get a rhythm down it’s time to leave. For this type of work you really need to stay at least a month. YWAM will be pausing the building projects around the end of October and will most likely shift to food, water and firewood distribution. They will most likely resume building in the spring. Thank You Lord for this opportunity to serve.

Hey all. Today was a really good day. It was Sunday so no work and we got to sleep in some. A lot of the teams left yesterday, either for good or just to go to the YWAM base in Kyiv for the time off so it was much quieter. But all of that was just extra. What made it a really good day was we got to go to worship service at CCKyiv. Pastor Igor Malitskiy hired a driver to bring him to come pick us up in Makariv and bring us into Kyiv, 1.5 hours drive each direction. During the drive there we able to get to know Pastor Igor a little. He is a a true Calvary Chapel pastor, and has solid foundation in the word. He is faithful and kind, passionate and caring. He fled Kyiv with his wife and daughter back in February along with his entire congregation. At first they went western Ukrainian but later he sent his family on to Germany. He had lost his home, almost everything they owned, his entire congregation and his family was 20 hours of travel time away from him but he knew God was calling him to go back to Kyiv. So Pastor Igor went back to Kyiv and started over. In the last 6 months he secured support from other churches around the world in the form of money and clothing and food for donations, rented a building for the church, and waited for God to send him a new congregation all the while ministering to his wife and daughter in Germany and his “old” congregation who are dispersed throughout western Ukrainian and Europe via phone or internet. It’s been 6 months since he has seen his family, his congregation has grown to around 10 people, some weeks more, some weeks less. He distributes food and clothing twice a week, he is the pastor, the worship leader, the tech team, the everything and he is tired. He needs help in the form of people strong in the faith to come along side him. He truly believes that God wants him to raise up another pastor before he can join his family in Germany where his wife and daughter are well established. They have a nice apartment, his daughter is in a good school, his wife has a good job and is leading a decent sized women’s ministry. Pray for people to come along side this brother if ours.

We also got to meet Sasha. She is a chaplain for the Ukrainian soldiers and, for the most part, has been literally on the front lines since 2015 , right after the first Russian invasion. She attended CCKyiv and gave her life to Christ there within the first few weeks of George Marken from CC Costa Mesa planting it. She soon began to lead children’s ministry and did that for many years. Sasha is quite a character ministering to Ukrainian soldiers as if they were her own children, she loves and cares for them. She respects them but isn’t afraid to call them out when they aren’t behaving like godly men. And in the last 8 months, Sasha has buried 30 of them. No that is not a typo, she has buried 30 of “her” soldiers. Again Sasha wants people who are strong in the faith to come along side her and minister to the Ukrainian soldiers who are defending their country on the front lines. Neither Igor or Sasha or Max ( a pastor we met who pastors Makariv Christian Church and Kyiv Christian Church,

he also runs rehab centers for both men and women, wants to start a children’s camp and to teach people to evangelize their families and neighbors) asked or really needed money. It seems Christians in the west are more than willing to send donations. What all of them need are people who are willing to do the work themselves, to go to the front lines both figuratively and literally, to teach the Word, to hand out food and clothing, to lead worship, to help people recover from drug and alcohol addiction, to teach and love on children, to disciple our bothers and sisters…. Isn’t that what Jesus said we should do? So tell me, what’s holding you back and will it be a good enough reason when you are face to face with our LORD and Savior and He asks you the very same question? I’m not trying to beat anyone up but Jesus gave us very clear instructions and for some it us to donate money and for some it us to pray but there seems to be a real lack of people doing the work. If these last few statements have touched you, moved you or offended you, then take that to the LORD, He might be trying to tell you something. I Love all of you and hope to see you soon. Also, I have attached a link to CCKyiv’ ms YouTube channel https://youtu.be/9bXX_PvcPsc

Today was our last day. We worked a half day finishing up what we could on the temporary house for Alexander.

Alexander is probably in his late 60s early 70s and his house was completely destroyed, leveled to the foundation by a Russian missle at the beginning of the invasion. Unfortunately his wife was in the house when it happened and was instantly incinerated. Alexander was out in the yard and suffered burns and shrapnel in his arms.

At some point during the invasion, I don’t know it was before or after his wife was killed and his home destroyed, Alexander operated a 30mm anti aircraft gun. He also had bullet holes in his scooter from when Russians shot at him as he was riding by throwing hand grenades at them. He seemed to normally be a kind, hard working man who loved to tend his garden, he gave us fresh raspberries as he picked them from a patch beside his shed. His daughter, if we understood correctly, gave us fresh honey, can in a repurposed dog food jar and a large jar of pickled tomatoes. When we gave him a MP3 player, he squatted down in the middle of his garden a listen intently for several minutes, he helped

us explain to his daughter and another man about the MP3 players we gave to them. This morning, before we left, he insisted that we sign and put our favorite Bible verse on a small Ukrainian flag. He shook our hands and hugged us, so happy with the blessing that he hard received.

We then went back to the YWAM camp, showered and finished packing. Pastor Igor and Sasha met us at the train station in Kyiv. Sasha was taking a train to Trinople so she showed us around the train station.

Igor took the clothing and snacks that we had donated to Sasha to give to the soldiers on the front line. She said that they are always asking for trail mix and that they would love the beef jerky and peanut butter. She also said that when they are wounded , the hospital cuts they’re shirt and pants off. All they have to wear in the hospital are their socks and underwear. So the clothing will will really be a blessing to them. I apologize if their are an unusual number of typos in this entry, typing on a moving train is not the easiest thing to do.

I apologize for the delay in writing. Since the last entry, we spent somewhere around 16 hour crammed into small spaces on a train. We left the train station in Kyiv just before 11. We had sleeper compartments but no room to store luggage so it had to go in the bunks with us or piled up in our floor space.

We had tried to buy extra bunks in our compartments but all forms of transportation out of Kyiv seem to be completely full. Once we got to Warsaw we had to find transportation to our hotel which proved a little challenging but we made it. Having separate rooms was a true blessing, thank you pastor Jeremy, we were able to have a little space alone for the first time in 10 days. The bed was comfortable and I slept well. Our taxis arrived just before 7 am and we were off to the Warsaw airport. And that is we’re we are right now. Our flight departs to Frankfurt at 9:50 am, a short layover then we fly to Dulles. After we clear customs, it’s a 3 hr ride to Lynchburg barring heavy traffic, then 1 last hour back to home. Thank you all for your prayers and support, I hope to see some of you at our house for Fire Pit Friday this Friday evening

Good morning all, it is 6:30 am on 10/27/22 and I am safely home in Roanoke. I slept in my own bed last night and between Melissa and the dogs, I may have had more room to sleep on the train, lol.

I wasn’t sure how much of this I was going to share until this morning when God work me up at 6 am and put it strongly on my heart to be completely transparent. I did not share all of the things that happened on Monday 10/17/22 because I didn’t want to completely stress people out straight out of the gate. So here goes.

We arrived in Kyiv around 7:30 am their time on Monday 10/17/22. We had heard that there were drone strikes in Kyiv about 20 minutes earlier but didn’t know where or how bad. We got off the train and were trying to figure out where we were supposed to go when some one told us to “go down, go down” as they were going do a stair well into some sort of tunnel system below the train station because of an attack. We went into the tunnels and waited for a few minutes but we could not find out what was happening because we didn’t find anyone who spoke English.

Alex T had contacted Kata, our contact in YWAM, who was picking us up at the train station. She said that she was only about 10 minutes away from us and to try to find our way out to the street in front of the train station. We had noticed a few people walking down the tunnel to the left of the stairs we had come down and decided to go that way. God is good. That tunnel led us to a stair well that went up to street level right where Kata was meeting us. At street level it

looked like any other city on a Monday morning, people and cars hurrying about,signs and billboards lit up, steam rising up in the cool morning air. No real indication of an attack in progress. I think Jeff had mentioned something about getting some food from the McDonalds just down the street from us.

A few minutes later, Kata pulled up in a van and was slightly blocking traffic so we rushed to load our luggage and our selves after a very quick introduction and we were off. For those who have never been to eastern Europe, if there are any traffic laws there don’t seem to be many. Traffic is very much chaotic but yet somehow there is a flow. As soon as we pulled off, Kata asked if we were ok…

It was then that we started to realize what was happening. About a block away from where see had pick us up, kamikaze drones were attacking buildings. The steam “rising up in the cool morning air” we had seen from in front of the train station was smoke from a building that had been hit moments before our train had arrived. We could see it! We were jammed up in an intersection about a half a block from it. Then another explosion from somewhere behind and to the right of us! People were running, I guy jumped off his motorcycle in the middle of the street to run. Some were running toward the explosion, some were running away, some walked down the sidewalk drinking their coffee as if nothing were happening. Kata was slowly and calmly worming her way through the traffic jam while asking us about our trip and explaining what was happening all at the same time. Then I saw a drone fly almost directly over our van! Then we heard machine gun fire! People, I’m assuming Ukrainian soldiers but we were told it could have been citizens as well, were shooting at the drone to try to shoot it down before it could dive into its intended target. Kata broke free of the traffic jam and we were off like a shot (which apparently just normal driving as we learned throughout the rest of our trip, again not many traffic laws). There were at least two more explosions behind us as we drove away.

A few minutes later, still in Kyiv proper, just a mile or two from the site of the attack we stopped at a shopping center to get some tools that we might need but they were not open. Then we drove west for just under an hour west to the village of Makariv, one of the most hard hit places in this invasion. Russian troops fought for a month back in the spring to take and keep Makariv because it is vital to them even standing a chance at taking Kyiv. But the Ukrainians, soldiers and civilians are fighters through and through.

There you have it, I have held nothing back from this trip. I saw God do amazing things on this trip, hearts were truly affected; Maria on the train, Micoli, Alexander and others whose names I do not know. He also changed me. My resolve to become a full time missionary has been solidified. Where ever He leads, here or abroad.

From the moment the trip was first announced at the beginning of September I knew I was supposed to go, God would not let me go to sleep that night until I submitted my application, all of the money for me to go on the trip was donated within a very short amount of time and there was always a peace and calmness, even in the middle of a drone attack, that can only come from God.

I will continue to send out these journal entries as Melissa and I step out more and more in faith. We are currently praying about and feeling led to go to the country of Georgia for six months to a year to help the Havertape’s with their ministry in Tbilisi sometime around the first of the year. Please join us in prayer about that or anything else God would have us to do. So long for now, until our next adventure with God begins.

Love always,
Derek