Where is God in a war zone?
IRPIN, UKRAINE — More than two years after Russia began…
Sending the light, even when it’s dark
Despite two years of brutal war — and now, frequent blackouts — Ukrainian ministry students graduate and celebrate.
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IRPIN, UKRAINE — The graduates sat expectantly, their diplomas in a neat stack on a nearby table. Their director, Brandon Price, took his place behind the podium. The guests finished their conversations and hurriedly took their seats.
Everything was set for the ceremony. But the lights were still off.
Brandon Price, far right, and Matvei Bohomolov make last-minute arrangements to begin the Ukrainian Bible Institute’s graduation ceremony in an unlit room in Irpin, Ukraine.
“We decided to have no electricity to set the mood, so that you can’t see us crying,” joked Price, director of the Ukrainian Bible Institute, as administrator Natalia Maliuga translated his English words into Ukrainian.
“Completing UBI’s program has never been an easy task,” Price told the unlit room of smiling faces, “but obviously, given the last few years, it’s been even more challenging.”
Related: Where is God in a war zone?
“Challenging” has become routine for the graduates, who began their studies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then came the war. Finally, after three years of study — sometimes online, sometimes without power — five students completed UBI’s ministry program.
At a Christian retreat center in Iripin, classroom windows are the only source of light as the Ukrainian Bible Institute’s graduation begins. Electricity returned a few minutes into the ceremony.
The institute honored the graduates — Ruslan Adamenko, Kostiantyn Bashtannyi, Dmytro Vorobiov, Roman Hadlevskyi and Larysa Dekhiarova — during a three-day retreat in Irpin that it hosted in cooperation with Texas-based Sunset International Bible Institute. The quiet, forested town was the scene of intense fighting in the early days of the conflict as the Russian army attempted to seize the capital, Kyiv.
The Russians have since changed tactics, concentrating on a ground war in eastern Ukraine while hitting the plants that power the capital with repeated missile strikes. Blackouts are common this summer, residents of Irpin told The Christian Chronicle. They dread the cold, dark winter ahead.
“How can I talk about the light when there’s no electricity?” asked Bashtannyi, a youth minister for the Vinograder Church of Christ in Kyiv. His classmates picked him to give a speech during the ceremony.
Kostiantyn Bashtannyi delivers an address on behalf of his fellow Ukrainian Bible Institute graduates.
“Every day, while we’re doing different ministries, we face this darkness,” he said. “It’s hard to break this darkness. I know that sometimes, when we shine, there’s no visible result. … This darkness is trying to influence us through a lack of faith, fear, war, COVID, other conflicts. Each of us goes through this.”
Jesus faced this same darkness, Bashtannyi told his fellow graduates.
“You were chosen for this particular mission,” he said. “You are not alone.”
‘Those Ukrainians really put us to shame’
Bashtannyi longs for the day when he doesn’t have to wait seven hours for the power to come on to make a cup of coffee, he said.
It could be worse. Reminders of how close the Russians came to seizing the capital are everywhere in Irpin. A block from the retreat center, bulldozers tore down the blackened frames of bombed houses. A few miles to the south, a bridge leading into Kyiv was destroyed by the Ukrainian army to hold back the invaders. It has become a memorial. So has a parking lot full of torched cars.
@christianchronicle IRPIN, Ukraine — The remains of a bridge that connects Irpin to Kyiv, Ukraine, have become a memorial to the lives lost in the two-year conflict with Russia. Ukrainian troops destroyed the bridge as Russian forces seized Bucha and much of Irpin in the early days of the invasion. Ukrainians have since built a new bridge. #ukrainianbridge #ukraine🇺🇦 #ukrainewarrussia #destroyedbridge #ukrainememorial #irpin #bucha #bucharest #churchofchrist ♬ original sound – The Christian Chronicle
A metal fence — pockmarked with bullet holes — stands across the alley from the hotel that housed U.S. Christians who came for the graduation. Russian troops occupied the hotel and used the fence for target practice, a neighbor said, though a hotel worker denied his account.
“We would never let Russians stay here,” she insisted.
Despite the omnipresent reminders of war, the Ukrainians’ sense of humor remains largely intact. That much was evident as the graduates shared a few words during the ceremony — a lot of jokes about online learning and playful jabs at each other and their teachers.
Dmytro Vorobiov unveils his sermon notes during the Ukrainian Bible Institute’s graduation ceremony.
Dmytro Vorobiov, who goes by Dima and works with the Pozniaky Church of Christ near Kyiv, said he had just a few remarks to share before unleashing a scroll of sermon notes that stretched down the podium and across the floor.
There were plenty of emotional moments as well. Roman Hadlevskyi, from Kamenskoye, southeast of Kyiv, was an orphan when he was baptized at age 13.
“I never knew my dad,” Hadlevskyi said. “I was like a leaf in the air. I didn’t see myself as a family man because I didn’t have that example.”
His instructors and fellow students changed all that, he said. Now he is surrounded by family members and role models.
“Thank you for your help, for your love,” he said. “We need to remember we are never alone.”
Larysa Dekhiarova receives her diploma from Ukrainian Bible Institute director Brandon Price. At left is fellow graduate Roman Hadlevskyi.
Larysa Dekhiarova has overcome addiction and other vices with the help of her Christian family. A member of the Obolon Church of Christ in Kyiv, she came to the institute “as a baby in Christ, newly baptized,” she said, adding that the opportunity to study was one in a million.
“In the beginning, I never thought I would be able to graduate,” she said. But the school’s staff, especially women such as Natalia Maliuga, helped her persevere. She was one of the institute’s top students, Price said.
“UBI is a spiritual school,” Dekhiarova said. “My spiritual personality was formed here.”
She got big, tear-filled hugs from the ceremony’s special guests — Jay Don and Mary Lee Rogers, who served in Ukraine for 19 years.
Mary Lee Rogers, left, greets Larysa Dekhiarova during breakfast at a Christian retreat center in Irpin, Ukraine.
“We are amazed by the dedication that is here,” said Jay Don Rogers, a former director of the Ukrainian Bible Institute. He and his wife now live in Texas, where they routinely visit congregations and talk about the Ukrainian’s faith.
“We tell them about your studies that you’ve gone through, and we also tell them about your dedication to go out and serve,” Jay Don Rogers said. “They say, ‘Those Ukrainians really put us to shame.’”
Related: Why Ukraine still matters
The former director led a prayer for the graduates, thanking God for their faith.
“When people here lost everything, they gained you,” he prayed, “and for that we are thankful.”
Mary Lee and Jay Don Rogers, left, pray with Ukrainian Bible Institute students and their families.
Stars in a new normal
For Brandon Price, a former missionary to Ukrainian cities including Kharkiv and Mariupol, the graduation was his first chance to see some of his first-year students in person. Since the institute reopened in the fall of 2022, he’s taught classes online. The institute has 15 students, who live in Ukraine and countries across Europe.
Graduates, Ruslan Adamenko, Roman Hadlevskyi, Larysa Dekhiarova, Kostiantyn Bashtannyi and Dmytro Vorobiov hold their UBI diplomas.
The institute has endured exodus after exodus since its launch in 1997. Its first home was Donetsk, a predominantly Russian-speaking city in Ukraine’s eastern, coal-rich Donbas region — a thriving hub for Churches of Christ after the Soviet Union collapsed.
In 2014, as pro-Russian militants took over Donetsk, the institute moved to Kyiv. Eight years later, as missiles struck the capital, the students parted ways. Price and some of the students went to Poland, where they found refuge with a Church of Christ in Sopot and began to coordinate relief shipments. Students who stayed in the besieged country helped to transport relief to people near the front lines in the east. They also ferried women and children to the relative safety of western Ukraine, or across the border into the European Union.
Alexander Maliuga, right, a Ukrainian Bible Institute instructor, leads a prayer for students past and present.
Eventually, Price and his wife, Katie, settled in Košice, Slovakia, near the Ukrainian border. Rob Hindman, another former missionary to Ukraine, and his wife, Denyce, joined them to work with the institute. Their families and Slovak minister Peter Haluštok worship with a small Church of Christ in Košice. Price and Hindman make monthly trips into Ukraine to distribute humanitarian aid.
As they settled into a new normal, Ukrainians continued to share their faith. UBI students and graduates have put their studies into practice, planting new congregations and regularly reporting baptisms.
“I thank you for what you’ve taught us,” Price told the graduates.
“When you look at the sky what do you see? Do you see all of that black up there? Are the stars distracting you from the beautiful black? No, you see the stars.”
He quoted the apostle Paul, who told the first century church in Philippi to shine like stars despite the “warped and crooked generation” that surrounds them (Philippians 2:15).
“My dad always said, ‘When you look at the sky what do you see? Do you see all of that black up there? Are the stars distracting you from the beautiful black?’
“No, you see the stars. You don’t pay attention to the blackness of space. Be the stars. Shine the light.”
Alexander Maliuga, right, leads a prayer during the Ukrainian Bible Institute graduation.
