When we got there, Jake, our insider, gave us a brief tour of the Mission. I felt like I was in a nice hotel; it had the feel of a well-organized, friendly, resident-centered Christian ministry. We shot a little pool and played a little foosball. After a tour of the recycling building, we reported for duty.

We had to wear special attire–baseball-style caps and/or hair nets, aprons and rubber gloves.  You can imagine the masculine humor as we snapped on our rubber gloves. Ray looked like a doctor: “Paging Dr. Minnema; paging Dr. Minnema.”

We served “left-overs” since it was Saturday.  After the residents were served, we were free to make our own plates of food. I enjoyed chicken cacciatore over rice, a pork chop, lasagna and a pizza bread stick. The best “left overs” I’ve had in a while. I also took a chocolate-covered doughnut the size of Montana and ended up giving it away I was so stuffed.

Ray, Dan and I sat with a resident named Chris. He’d been in the Army and recently got cross ways with the law. He was a temporary resident waiting to get into the Veterans Facility in Grand Rapids.  Eager to befriend Chris, we asked questions about his life and he told us some of his story. What I thought was memorable was Chris’ time as a restaurant cook at a honky tonk in Miami, FL called “The Out House.” One time a show was booked called “A Taste of Key West.” Chris laughed as he told us, “We had ‘a taste of Key West’ at ‘the out house’.” Chris came from what sounded like a dysfunctional family, but still had a sense of hope about him. His court hearing is next Tuesday.

With our duties accomplished, we piled in the van and headed East. We might go back to the Mission on a week night (a non-left overs meal). We might go on a Sunday for the dinner meal when the eating is mighty fine we’re told. I kept thinking about Chris and what his future holds. Bless him, God, and guide him.

Joseph, because of an imperial decree for more taxes, had to travel from his home in Nazareth to Bethlehem to register for the tax census. Joseph had a job. He was a tekton–a skilled laborer, either a carpenter in popular thinking or, perhaps more accurately, a stone mason. Mary was pregnant with Jesus and went into labor while in Bethlehem. Because the Roman tax census uprooted everyone, Bethlehem was teeming with travelers and no living space was available when Joseph and Mary arrived. Jesus was not born in a stable-cave because Joseph and Mary were homeless.

Joseph and Mary were poor, but not homeless. After Jesus’ birth, the trio travelled back to Nazareth where Jesus grew up.

JOSEPH AND MARY WERE NOT HOMELESS.

I like being in Ukraine because I am immersed for a time in a different culture. This experience in Ukraine makes me sensitive to the culture of another new country called “the kingdom of God.” The kingdom of God is not a country with borders, but it is a new culture nonetheless. Just as in Ukraine you don’t prop your feet up on a chair, you stand when you pray, you don’t put your hands behind your back as if “at ease” in an Orthodox church, so in the kingdom of God you learn new ways of life.

The USAmerican tragedy is that we have made Christianity a teaching, a doctrinal set of biblically-based precepts. Jesus purposely did not choose scribes and Pharisees because for those people, the faith was text, accurately understood text. A way of life was conscripted by religious, meticulous regulations. You lived by a ritual check list, not by a compelling, consuming vision. Jesus chose people living real lives in their real culture with its real potentials and problems. Jesus’ invitation into the kingdom of God and his recruitment of the disciples aimed at infecting this planet with a new way of life. He wasn’t big on the latest edition of the New International Torah (The NIT as in nit-picky). “Come, follow me and I will train you in kingdom customs, kingdom language, kingdom values and kingdom vision.” He did not hand them a study guide with Bible verses and with fill-in-the-blank statements. Nor did he produce and market “The Fisherman’s Bible” for Andrew and Peter, James and John. He gave them his life, his ways, his heart.

We need to admit it and then repent: we are welded to the American way of life. We are so saturated with it that we truly don’t relate to those to whom the Bible is addressed and for whom the kingdom of God has come. Jesus is a nice piece of spiritual furniture in our spacious, comsumerist souls and we point him out as an convenient and pretty ornament once in a while. Should he firmly declare, “Drop everything and follow Me!” we more likely than not would respond, “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Christ is our spiritual knick-knack. He is the embroidery on the wall of our soul, the butler to our religious needs. Lord? He is Lord. I don’t think so.

We can take religion seriously and argue until we’re blue in the face about Bible versions, theological constructs, and forms of church. In Ukraine, Jesus is taken seriously. What Jesus says seems to ring deeply true here. Ukraine Christians are not perfect by any stretch, nor are the churches here making headlines. Yet, there is a committed passion for Jesus Christ in the hearts of my Ukrainian friends that both rebukes and recruits me.

I am sick that so much in the American church is idolized here. Whole groups are trying to market Jesus in Ukraine. God save Ukraine from the commercialized Christ.

One good Ukrainian friend told me, “If your government is big enough to give you all that you need, it is then big enough to take all that you have.” Think about that.

Chewing on a bite of egg mcmuffin, I thought, “The little girl is walking in the light.” For us more theologically- and pastorally-minded, that thought had a familiar Johannine ring to it. Johannine simply means things written by the Apostle of Love–John. “If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another.” I’ve known that phrase for many years; even translated it from the Greek in Bible college. For some odd reason I’ve always considered the light to be static, stationary. But watching that little girl, it hit me in a startling way–the light moves! Even in the context of 1 John 1, we are immediately introduced to Jesus–the Light–and believe me, he moved! The disciples were invited, “Follow me!” Jesus was (and is) on the move. For the disciples to walk in the light, they had to tag along with Jesus in Galilee, Perea, Samaria and Judea, and even over into Decapolis.

An older Deliriou5 song states, “We can see God that you’re moving…” God moves, and God is light. How many of us want to stand still or lay on the couch or sit in the pew and pretend we’re walking in the light? God is not a street lamp riveted in one spot. God is a comet, a shooting star, on the move. One of the favorite New Testament words for the Christian life is “walk.” It implies movement, energy, travel to a destination. “Those who claim to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:6).

The mother finally called the little girl. It was time for them to move on, so she skipped away from her play with the light. I sipped my coffee wondering how an advertisement for a perfume and make-up shop can be transformed into sacred text blowing out the edges of my thinking. “In the rustling grass I hear him pass, he speaks to me everywhere…”

Children and victims of the Forced Famine 1932-33

I don’t understand the reluctance of the Western world to come strongly to the defense, support and well-being of Ukraine. Ukraine’s history is second to none in terms of living under harsh political oppression. Ukrainians generally are peace-loving and seek to pose no threat in their region. Western allies and NATO, in my opinion, are flaccid in offering strong defense of Ukraine’s interest. Somebody needs to tell Putin and Russia in no uncertain terms, “Keep your greedy, oppressive eyes and armies off Ukraine.”

On my last visit I wandered the area of a new memorial in Kiev to mark the deaths of millions of Ukrainians by a forced famine planned and ruthlessly executed by Josef Stalin in 1932-33. Ukrainian peasants produced tons of grain and these farmers were required to ship it to Russia so the Russians could eat. In the midst of this agricultural bounty, innocent, hard-working Ukrainian farmers and families starved to death. Pure evil in genocide form.

The statue shows the young girl holding six stems of grain. It was illegal at the time to personally possess this much “food” if you were a Ukrainian. You could be arrested and shot. In the background of the picture on the right is the memorial proper. Lying around the area are huge millstones, symbolizing the hard work to produce so much grain.

That another “government” would purposely destroy the very ones supplying them food to live is beyond evil. It is irrational. Evil is irrational.

I love the Ukrainian evangelical church, especially the believing communities who came into being since the Independence of 1991. The leaders and people of these churches are courageous, creative and compassionate. When they find their voice to speak to the world, the global church will be deeply enriched.

Stop. Pray for Ukraine.

                      ”Mother Russia”

Today is our last day in Ukraine and we are in Kiev. The huge statue of Mother Russia is an historical anachronism for the Ukrainians. “Mother” is facing toward Moscow and the Ukrainian joke is that they would like to turn the statue around and been it over at the waist so “Mother” is mooning Moscow. There is another huge statue of a Ukrainian man and a Russian gladly holding hands, arms in the air and the motto is “Brothers Forever.” Oops! Ukraine and Russia are now fighting over oil. So much for comradeship.

This has been a unique trip in that the New Year/Christmas season is at least a week long. Schedules are not as routine. While there has been plenty of teaching, mentoring and encouraging, it has taken place in smaller more ad hoc situations. Jeremy Bouma and I did, however, have opportunities to preach in churches and in new church plants.

Today we will visit two great cathedrals–St Sophia’s and St Michael’s. We also will visit the replica of the ancient gates into the old city called “The Golden Gate.” Also, in the old city is a natural history museum. Ukraine prior to becoming Christian was a pagan, polytheistic land.

The generational difference between those who grew up under communism (when Ukraine was part of the USSR) and those who’ve known independence is palpable. Ukraine is a land rife for civil war and division, with the eastern region reconnecting to Russia and the western becoming more European. Kiev and the Dniper River are the Mason-Dixon line so to speak.

Dopopotchinya!

We have been 3 days in the Carpathian Mountains in a little town called Polana.  Polana is on a jut of land that borders both Slavakia and Poland. Yesterday we took a trek to “the pearl of Ukraine”-a beautiful lake high in the mountains. It is quite the tourist attraction. I saw scenery like the picture here. Breath-taking, and cold. I was told that there is a love story connected to the lake and I am going to find out what it is about.

We are with the leadership team and their spouses of Fimiam Church, Lutsk. They take a three day retreat at the beginning of the year just to kick back and have fun. Some go skiing, others, sight-seeing (to a Russian spa filled with hot, natural spring water and/or to an ancient castle). I did the Bible devotion of the first night and Jeremy Bouma shared the highlights of his own spiritual journey.

One thing nice about this is that we both stayed in room with double beds for $25 per person for two nights. We had a big, good breakfast for $6.00 for the both of us–cheese omelets, pancakes and coffee.

We will leave for Lutsk this afternoon. Sasha Savich will have us participate in his church’s Christmas meetings (Christmas here is January 7). We will also visit the prisons (for which we have to get governmental permission). We will be in Lutsk until the 12th and then we will visit Kiev for two days.

I have been having left kidney pain and I hope it is not the stirrings of a kidney stone.

Keep us in your prayers.

Map of Ukraine

My Ukrainian friend, fellow pastor and colleague, Alexander Savich, is arranging some wonderful ministry opportunities for this visit to Ukraine. I leave today and will have my friend and pastoral intern, Jeremy Bouma, to serve with me. We will fly to Kiev (arriving Sunday afternoon) and we will take a marshuka (bus-van) to Lutsk on Monday morning. Lutsk is in western Ukraine near the border of Poland (see map).

Alex (aka Sasha) wanted us to experience Ukrainian Christmas. Many church services are scheduled and the celebration lasts a week. I know one of the ministry events will be speaking in the prisons in the Lutsk area. I usually work with the leaders of Calvary Church (Sasha), Fimiam Church (Pasha) and God’s Design (Sergey).

Jeremy and I desire your prayers as we travel and serve. Because Ukraine is not that different in latitude, the weather is similar to Michigan’s. It can get biting cold. We will return to Kiev on Jan 13 and spend two days with Maksim and Lena Rakovich. Lena is expecting their first child–a girl. We will also see some veteran missionaries, Timmy and Kenyon Powers.

Herod eliminated his predecessors Antigonus and Hyrcanus and those loyal to them. Herod was paranoid about the Hasmonean family line. He killed his brother-in-law, his mother-in-law, and even his wife Mariamne. Toward the end of his reign, he had his own sons killed: Alexander, Aristobulus and Antipater. Herod-as-a-Hitler had a first century Gestapo complete with storm-troopers. He built an intelligence network to keep track of potential threats to his rule. Of course, there were assassination attempts on his life, and woe to those caught who planned and tried to execute them.

Unwittingly, the Magi tipped Herod off to a real threat: the birth of “the king of the Jews”–Jesus. Furious on the inside and feigning adoration on the outside, Herod ruthlessly tracked down this rival to his power. Warned by an angel to flee, Joseph, Mary and Jesus set out for Egypt. Reaching the bottom line that his rival was in Bethlehem, Herod ordered the murder of all males up to two years of age. Small potatoes in a reign of countless, senseless deaths.

Christian tradition labels it a “massacre” with one estimate being as many as 3000 boys killed. Yet, the total population of Bethlehem at the time was probably no more than a 1000 people. Perhaps as many as 20 little boys died on the orders of Hitler/Herod. Whether 3000 or 20, it mattered most to the mothers of those defenseless children. Insanity congealed as government order swept through Bethlehem that night (if it was night). Yes, there was loud weeping, Rachel weeping for her children (Matthew 2:18).

O little town of Bethlehem, how we forget or ignore those cries of terror. We want silent night, holy night and “no crying he makes.” We don’t want evil interrupting and spoiling our Christmas spirit. We don’t want a Hitler vying for attention with St. Nick. When it comes to Christmas we want an evilectomy with only the good, nice parts to comfort us.

Why do I post these things? Not only to decommercialize this season but to desanitize the kind of world Jesus was born into. Real. Bad. World. (See “Unwrap the Jesus Story” a few posts back). “King” was a killing word in the days Jesus was born…and lived. On a board above his head on the cross a sign read: Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews. The Jesus Story, yes, with all its wonder, only makes sense and provides hope in a world of ancient/future Hitlers.