Pastor Vacilli works as a taxi driver and he loves the fact that he has such a flexible job that he can meet his church members whenever they need him wherever they might be throughout the week, not just on Sunday service. He had worked in a shoe factory before the Soviet Union collapsed and remembers 'the old days' when persecution of the church was normal and believers would meet in forests, sing hymns quietly and share the word of God secretly. When you see the big smile on his face today, it seems pretty hard to believe such a past existed in the land where it now seems to be the source of vibrant church movements going on in all corners of Ukraine. Perhaps, I wonder if the suffering they went through in those early years provided a fertile ground on which today's younger generation can stand, like Myroslava, my translator on this trip to Tuzhar, who loves her theological studies in the seminary where I was visiting earlier in Kiev and wants to sing jazz in New York city for God's glory.
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| Pastor Vacilli |
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| Myroslava |
In Pastor Vacilli's taxi, three of us drove over 500 KM to get to Tuzhar from Ozadivka, then back to Kiev on one day. We shared many stories, and heard Mira sing Ukrainian folk songs for us and enjoyed the full moon together on the way back to Tuzhar.
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| Ozadivka (pointed with pen), approximately 200 KM away from Kiev (marked in red in the center of the map) |
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| Tuzhar, 100 KM north of Kiev and near the 30 KM zone from Chernobyl nuclear plant. |
Poverty and isolation.
That's what appears first on the surface of the land of former communist countries.
But its people, made in the image of God, fulfilling their God-given call on their lives bring out the beauty of God's good creation all together; whether a local church pastor driving a taxi or a seminary student dreaming of singing Jazz in a New York stage.
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