Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58
“A tree is known by its fruit; a man by his deeds. A good deed is never lost; he who sows courtesy reaps friendship, and he who plants kindness gathers love.”
Basil of Caesarea (339-370).
Milan and I wrapped up our meetings in Kyiv yesterday with top agricultural officials. Seriously, Milan is a leading agricultural expert in Czech Republic.
He helped explain to them the source of some of their challenges in millions of hectares of crops. They will translate one of his books and invite him back to shape the future of agriculture here. Not a small opportunity.
And we said a warm goodbye to Sasha Volyanyk (GTP Country Coordinator) and Mykola Semenov (a pastor and our driver logging thousands of kilometers behind the wheel).
Today, we travel by train to Lviv to reunite with Jenni who had a great week of teaching. She told me yesterday that the are begging her to return as well. We have done what we could on this trip.
Though war escalates all around us, with sirens sounding on every turn, and the occasional explosion that shakes the ground, we can be tempted to wonder. What difference have I made?
Why serve workers at war? The truth is, we made a huge difference in the lives of those we served. Our role is not to solve all of Ukraine’s problems but to do what we can with what we have.
That’s true for you, reading this wherever you are on Easter Saturday. Don’t focus on what you can’t do or how big the problems are around you. Focus on what you can do. Your efforts are never lost.
I read the Scripture above in the bomb shelter below a church in Kherson. Just as I did, a sound shook the earth and the power went out. No one despaired. In minutes, a generator restored power.
Then we drank coffee together. How? God led them to drill a well only days before the dam was destroyed causing all their water supply to dry up. That well supplied “living water” to the city.
For a short time it was the only water thousands of people could access. They have dispensed over 2,000,000 liters of water from that well. They are doing what they can with what they have. God has used them.
That got me thinking some more. We did make a difference! We sowed love and encouragement in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ternopil, and Iprin, and hope in some really hard places like Kherson, Kryvyi Rih, and Kharkiv.
The people thanked us for coming, saying, “No one visits us.” By “no one” they implied no international visitors. They said our presence brought them hope they were not forgotten. So what have we done?
We did something bigger than strategize a sustainable model for schools and churches or than lift up tiny home builders in hard places or supply paraffin for church workers creating candle stoves for soldiers in the trenches.
We sowed the gospel with courtesy and kindness and reaped friendship and love that will last for all eternity. I can’t wait to hear how this was the case with Jenni. And I want to hear it from you who are reading this.
Our labor is not in vain in the Lord. Our good deeds are never lost.
One more story. At our last meal, Sasha’s phone rang. Sasha heard word about a soldier from his church. Prior to the war, that man ran a good business in Poland. When the conflict broke, he came to serve.
The man was actually battling stomach cancer and feared he would not pass his physical. He enlisted in the army and served for more than a year. I saw the look on Sasha’s face.
The call reported that he died in battle on Good Friday. That man did what he could. The question is, will we?
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