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Serving in Ukraine - by Gregory Zajac
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In
July, LifeNets sent me, my sister Stephanie, Oleh
Kubik, his daughter Natasha and niece Heather to
Vinohradiv, Ukraine. The purpose of the trip was to
teach English at a children's summer day camp run by
Vasil and Irina Polichko, pastor and wife of a
Sabbatarian church there.
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Gregory Zajac with two campers celebrating
at the end of a successful camp. |
About 30 kids enrolled in the camp, ages 7 to 18,
including children from the community as well as
boys that the Polichkos, along with another couple
in their congregation, have adopted. Many of the
children in the program are poor or come from broken
or abusive families, and the Polichkos use the camp
to show these children the love of God.
I was
especially eager to become involved in this project
because of my Ukrainian heritage. My father's
parents fled western Ukraine during World War II, at
a time when the country changed hands between the
Nazis and the Soviets. After the war, they
immigrated to the United States in 1949. My father
grew up speaking Ukrainian, and he taught the
language to me and my siblings. Being able to speak
some Ukrainian was a blessing when teaching classes
and learning about our hosts.
Our
primary responsibility at the camp was to teach
English classes at the camp. One day for class, Oleh
Kubik and I tried to challenge our group of a dozen
or so teenage students by setting out a few flash
cards with beginning English words in front of them.
We reviewed the words with them, then took away some
of the cards and asked them which ones were missing.
We started the game with six or eight cards but soon
realized that the children were strategically
working together to identify the missing cards. The
students were splitting up the cards so each of them
only had to keep track of a few, rather than all of
them. We eventually played the game with the entire
deck of 60 cards. This class showed me the
children's resourcefulness and ability to think
creatively.
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Ivan and Yuriy, foster children the
Polichkos care for |
We
also tried to incorporate lessons about Christian
living in our classes, oftentimes drawing material
from Bible studies the Polichkos had done with the
children, or from posters about common proverbs and
Bible verses.
For
example, while on an afternoon excursion to an old
castle in Vinohradiv, Mrs. Polichko took us on a
detour to a camp of Gypsies, or Roma, near the city.
The Roma and the Ukrainians have a difficult
relationship, and a lot of mutual mistrust and
suspicion exists between the two groups, but a
Baptist evangelist recently built a church in that
neighborhood. The Christian presence has produced
some positive changes in the community, and Vasil
and Irina were also able to establish a relationship
with the Roma community by visiting their church.
We
stopped our vans on a dirt road between crumbling
buildings. Dozens of smiling children in tattered
but bright clothing, with dark skin and bright eyes,
greeted our caravan. Many of our children were
confused and nervous about being there, but once
some of us exited the vans the Roma children started
singing a hymn for us. In return, our children sang
a couple of the English praise songs that we had
taught to them. That day, I saw the Polichkos loved
not only their church, but also all of God's people,
and they were teaching the children in the camp to
do the same.
Earlier in the program, we introduced a poster in
class quoting the famous scripture, "Love your
neighbor as yourself," and taught the children to
translate and recite it. The day after visiting the
Roma camp we brought that poster out again and asked
them, "Does God love the Roma?" and, "Are they our
neighbors?" To these two questions the children
answered, "Yes!" I was glad that we could use our
classes to not only teach a few words of English,
but also reinforce what the Polichkos were teaching.
I was
also amazed by how God had called and blessed the
Sabbath-keepers in Ukraine. Vasil Polichko's family
learned about the Sabbath from studying God's Word
in 1947, when he was only 10 years old. God
similarly called others to do His work, and the
truth spread through Ukraine despite Soviet
persecution that forced Sabbatarians to worship in
secret. Today, there are Sabbath keepers all across
Ukraine, and the largest congregation has over 200
members.
Shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union,
Sabbatarians from America traveled to Ukraine to
establish contact with the Sabbath-keeping groups
there. Today, the relationship continues, and one of
the ways LifeNets assists Sabbath-keepers in the
region is by coordinating volunteers to help in the
Polichkos' camp.
God
did not call the Ukrainians through my church, the
United Church of God, or our evangelizing efforts.
He called them Himself. I learned that God can
miraculously call anyone to learn His truth, share
it with others and prepare themselves for service in
His Kingdom.
I
learned that even though God can do anything
Himself, He also chooses to use His people to do His
work. On my first Sabbath in Ukraine, a member
enthusiastically handed me several copies of
literature their church distributes. I looked over
the stack he gave me and recognized it as the United
Church of God Bible Study Course and two of our
booklets translated into Russian. I asked the member
if there was anything they learned from UCG's
literature. He replied that they learned about the
Holy Days and that they now keep them.
His
answer made me smile. God called us to the knowledge
of His Sabbath independently, and while we might not
be directly affiliated, God chose to use us to teach
and edify one another from thousands of miles away.
God's work truly is amazing, and it was a blessing
to witness it. |
