The Test of Faith, A Missionary Journey

Hours of prayer and many small steps of faith over the past several years led up to the recent conference for Christian medical students and young doctors in Ukraine.  Often missionaries say, “What I thought I was going to do changed after our arrival on the mission field.”  Transforming the medical culture of Ukraine through medical students was not our initial plan.  As time passed God opened more and more doors with Christian medical students thirsting for direction regarding how they could express their faith and encourage one another.

Some of these doors were seemingly random opportunities to connect with students and young doctors, but in retrospect we can clearly see the hand of God preparing the way.  Every connection is important and provided the necessary links between different denominations, different cities, and different organizations that literally span the world that resulted in a successful conference.

These connections came from a willingness to meet with someone not knowing if or when there would ever be any possibility of cooperation.  Meeting with someone not knowing if I could clearly communicate with them.  Or maybe traveling somewhere that took me out of my comfort zone – riding on a bus or train not knowing all the details of knowing where I was going.  All these were small steps of faith and trust in what was not seen.

Our first trip to Ukraine was to Belgorod-Dinestrovski in 1999.  I met a pediatrician with a daughter.  This daughter now attends the Crimean State Medical Institution.  She came to the conference.

In the fall of 2006 Marianna met a woman at a retreat for Christian missionaries living in Ukraine.  This resulted in the presentation of the Saline Solution program to teach doctors how to share their faith in a city called Burdansk.  At this conference I met Rostyslav who Introduced me to James Tomlinson, an Englishman, who is the director of the Eurasian Region of the International Christian Medical Dental Association.  He in turn put me in touch with Dennis Gorenko, co-director of Intervarsity Christian Fellowship of Ukraine.  Also two students from Burdansk came to the conference.  

So in the Spring of 2006 I attended the Christian Medical Association of Ukraine’s annual meeting in Rivne.  There I met some young doctors from Chernivtsi.  In October of the same year  Ukraine Medical Outreach partnered with Caring Partners International to sponser a conference in Lutsk to teach how to develop an Early Intervention Program for children with disabilities.  A speech pathologist in Chernivtsi heard of this conference, found how to contact me and asked if I would hold a conference there.  We held a conference there on autism, an introduction to Biblical counseling and an introduction to Biblical healthcare in the Spring of 2007.  There were 8 students and young doctors from Chernivtsi at the conference as a result.

All of these were thin but vital threads God was weaving into a still not completed tapestry, yet more opportunities to trust in God.  In January of 2008 I met with Dennis Gorenko.  We developed a budget based on 65 people attending the conference including staff. Based on this educated guess, we determined how much money we would need to raise. Amazingly one Church responded with the whole sum.

About five weeks before the conference we learned the cost of the conference almost doubled due to the decreased value of the dollar and an inflation rate in Ukraine of almost 30%. Then we learned the two main speakers for the conference could not come, one from Belarus and one from Russia.  Next my assistant resigned to return home to care for her sick grandmother.

Events were rapidly spinning out of control.  I began to realize we planned in faith, but God planned from complete foreknowledge.  He knew exactly how much money we would need because He knew how many would attend.  One by one God provided for each of the challenges I faced.  The solutions did not depend upon my ability, but upon God’s.  He gave me the desire to make contacts within the Ukrainian medical system and now He was using these circumstances to increase my faith in Him.  He provided sufficient funds to meet all our needs.  He provided for two speakers from Lithuania plus the non-budgeted money to get them to Kyiv. 

Now we are looking at the possibility of a winter conference and several regional conferences.  Our only desire was to glorify God through medical ministry.  When we began we did not know what would happen or how it would happen, but now we clearly see the hand of God at work.