There are a number of brethren in the United Church of God in Worcester, Massachusetts and Portsmouth, New Hampshire who were touched by accounts of the faith of the Ukrainian Sabbatarians who persevered under more than 50 years of communism and kept the faith under the terrible oppression of the Soviet Union. Now, with what may be just a temporary "thaw" in the icy grip of tyranny, it has become possible for us to help them, and their countrymen deal with the total breakdown of the Ukrainian society. Maurice Frohn put it quite powerfully by describing that Ukrainian society is in "meltdown".
Last winter, as we experienced 120 inches of snow, and what was for us one of the worst winters in history, a few of us in the Boston area helped with the effort to send food via Germany to the Ukrainian Sabbatarians. Even though our churches locally are small, we contributed over a thousand dollars to the relief effort. This does not seem like much by American standards, but God, through the wise stewardship of a few others, was able to turn this into hundreds of pounds of much-needed food to help more than a few destitue Ukrainian families through their winter, which was worse than ours. We were glad we could help, and felt it was the least we could do to show support and appreciation for the fine example these people have been in standing up for God before a godless government.
Now, it seems good to us to help the Ukrainians in their efforts preach the Gospel and spread the names of God and Jesus Christ to the utmost parts of the former Soviet Union. While this is not their explicitly stated intent, we understand that many of them have ties to people in Siberia, where some of the older members of the Ukrainian Sabbatarian community were exiled in times past. Some of the Ukrainian ministers now travel back to these regions and want to bring Bibles with them to leave behind.
Who of us can say whether God will call some into His family from the remote regions of Siberia through these efforts? God would certainly be pleased to look down from His throne in the farthest sides of the north and find the sparkling lights of His children right beneath His feet in the northern reaches of the former Soviet Union!
This missionary work of the Ukrainian Sabbatarians, and the patient, ongoing ministry in their own communities need and deserve our support. They have told you that they need Bibles, especially large print Russian language Bibles. Getting a shipment of Bibles to them seemed like a work we wished to undertake. Vinny Del Signore volunteered to coordinate this work on our behalf. Vinny researched and found the best source of such Bibles, purchased (via MasterCard -- and act of faith on his part!) and sent an initial shipment from all of us to Victor Pavliy at Mission Nazareth in Khust, who we understand is in a good position to distribute them. (Vinny's account of this local effort is shown below.)
In so doing, we apparently bought up the remaining U. S. shelf stock of large print Russian Bibles! Since a number of the Ukrainians are elderly and of reduced sight, the large print Bibles are best. But it looks like future shipments of the smaller print Russian language Bibles will need to be used. When they are sent by us, they will be accompanied by magnifying glasses! (We can't make the print larger -- but through "Yankee Ingenuity" we CAN make it LOOK larger!)
The folks here in Worcester and Portsmouth consider supporting the Ukrainian Sabbatarians an important part of our Sister Congregation work. To date, we have funded this work exclusively from our own contributions, however we would like to allocate some congregational funds in our regular operating budget to support this work.
Our vision of sister congregation activities extends beyond simply providing needed humanitarian assistance and the shipment of Bibles. We want to get to know our brothers and sisters better on a personal level. (Remember the account in Malachi: God values greatly those of His children who "speak often one to another"). We plan to establish a "pen pal" relationship -- an effort for which the groundwork was done some time ago, but has not yet begun. After we get to know these people through our mutual correspondence, we may be in a position to invite some of the Ukrainian Brethren to visit us and live with us for a while. In the meantime, we believe we must do what little we can to follow Christ's admonition in Matt. 25 to care for the physical needs of our brethren, wherever they may be and in whatever circumstances we may find them. Whatever kindness and help we provide one another in this life, Christ looks on it as if we did it personally to Him.
You don't have to have millions of dollars to accomplish some good work in the name of God. Perhaps by the success of our small effort last winter with $1,000+ for emergency food, and now with $500 worth of Bibles, we will encourage other Christians to help where they see a need, whether it is with the Ukrainian Sabbatarians, whose needs remain VERY great, within their local communities, or in some remote part of the world.
We have taken a few, very small steps to help our brethren in what is to some of us a remote part of the world, yet we feel blessed beyond measure for having been given the privilege of PERSONALLY doing some good in God's name!!! There are no losers, only winners, when we do things pleasing to our Father and Jesus Christ.
The Ukrainian Sabbatarians' plight has touched the hearts of many. We have passed on the information you provided to some of our friends in other fellowships in the New York area, and they are of a willing heart to help.
Love, on behalf of all here,
Dick & Marty Scholz :)
UCG - Massachusetts and Northern New England
We all heard about your trip to the Ukraine last winter/spring and several of us asked each what we could do to help these people. Word got around the Boston church that we wanted to assist the Ukrainians if possible so the people who expressed interest all got together to discuss the situation.
Our first meeting was at the McConnaughey's home and we came up with several ideas. One idea was getting food supplies to them, but this looked to be extremely costly for us and it looked like the German people may be able to do this (we may contribute $$). Another idea was medical supplies, and we were going to contact you for this. It looks like you were able to take care of this one.
There were several other ideas that people were going to look into.
Sending Bibles seemed like a worthwhile suggestion and Dick made it clear from the outset that these people have somewhat poor vision and would need enlarged print. I offered to look into the Bibles and we all decided we'd have another get-together three weeks later to check on progress. Most of us from the first meeting got together at Margo Cardena's house several weeks later and discussed our progress. We also sat around the dinner table and read aloud the entire summary that you composed about your previous trip to Ukraine. It was very uplifting and motivating.
To make a long story short it looked like medical supplies would be taken care of by you and food possibly by the Germans. Several people did offer to host a visitor or two from the Ukraine if it could be arranged. I let them know that the Bibles were very difficult to find in the Cyrillic language, especially large print editions. They were also very expensive. I told them I'd keep looking.
The following week I e-mailed you and let me know that the Ukrainians preferred the Russian language and you referred me to Oleh Zajac for more information. Oleh was very helpful over the following weeks and gave me the names and phone numbers of the companies he utilized for their Ukraine visit in 1992 and 1993. I contacted the Bible League and they had Russian Large Print Bibles, but only 56 copies and all in the U.S. (very inexpensive, too). They also told me they have "enlarged print" copies both here in the U.S and in Moscow. I decided to order all 56 of the "large print" copies and had one copy of the "enlarged print" copies sent to Victor's house for evaluation.
The boxes arrived at my house two weeks later and Victor received his copy. Victor did not care much for the Bible he received so I decided to go ahead and send what I got. I had previously called several big shipping companies and they all wanted between $700 and $900 to deliver the Bibles, so I e-mailed Oleh again and he sent me the contact called Reco Travel, a division of the consortium known as Meest ( Ukrainian community in U.S.). Meest means bridge in Ukrainian. They had the lowest prices around and would guarantee delivery to a specific address, not just a drop-off warehouse. I e-mailed Victor Kubik and got the address of Victor Pavliy who would be the intended recipient of the Bibles. I taped up the boxes and brought them to Reco Travel where they were weighed, addressed, and shipped. The boxes weighed almost 50lbs. each and cost $138 to ship. I was told they should arrive in Khust in about 4 weeks.
Right now we're discussing what else we can do for these people. The immediate need is dental equipment and several people in the Boston area are calling around. We also want to send more Bibles over and may end up sending magnifying glasses with the next shipment.
Vinny Del Signore