Here’s a transcript of an interview I did with Eileen a couple days ago. We talked about her experience in Ukraine. She and other students went to Ukraine last December to do seminars at different churches.

TRANSCRIPT

Dee:
What happened there in Ukraine?

Eileen:
Ukraine. Well, there when we arrived? Or pretty much what we did?

Dee:
I guess you can start from the beginning and go forward… as much detail as you’d like or as much as you think would be needed.

Eileen:
I was a new student here at Southwestern this semester, this past semester. And I heard of missionaries and mission people but I never really thought [about it]. I’m just a freshman. I’m barely going to get used to this college experience. I’ve never really thought I would be part of anything so big. I got invited, that same day I got invited, I came up and I joined and that same day I joined. I went out and did a weekend trip and I saw something in this group that I didn’t, hadn’t seen anywhere else. Then I heard Ukraine and I was on. I knew that I was going and so preparation was being made. I started doing seminars and getting ready to do my part in Ukraine. But mainly just to see Christians in another country was a big thing.

We got to Ukraine and I remember we got to Kiev, the capital. And we arrived around five in the afternoon, I think. We had to wait for the other people arriving to Ukraine – the other team because they were coming in later. And so we went to the pastor’s house – a church in Kiev, he lives there at the church, there’s a little apartment connected to the church and his wife had food for us and my first experience with the food. It was good. She has to be the second best cook of Ukraine that we ate [her food] because it was pretty awkward, and the food there, but… We stayed there and I remember walking around in their apartment and I saw these Russian books and I started getting familiarized with how much they wanted us to be there. And so, that night we drove about five, six hours to the home, where we called home which was Zaporižžija. We got there to Pastor Mykytyuk’s house… that guy is a man of God. His wife had food for us already and every house that we went to had food for us.

That was pretty nice and the whole team started coming together. Little by little more people started arriving. And we were ready and we had our general introduction of what we were doing the next days. We were going to be traveling to different churches. Bring two pairs of clothes because we’ll be staying overnight and we will be back in two days or something like that and so we knew that it was going to be intense.

He told us we’re going to get there, come back, be back at three in the morning, wake up at six, eat breakfast and then we leave again, and we’re back. So back and forth. I was like, “Ok, sure I can do this.” And so, we started going to different churches and I remember at the first church that we went to was the church of the Conference which is a church of Dnipropetrovsk. And it’s a beautiful church. It has so many youth and we had so many English speakers there with us. Some of them just to practice English were speaking to us. That was pretty cool! I met a girl who spoke Spanish and…

Dee:
Wow!

Eileen:
Yeah, so I was amazed that these people were really interested and their choir was there ready to sing as we were the special guests and the church was pretty full. They had a lot of youth which was a beautiful thing. A lot, a lot of youth and children, adults and just leaders pretty much, young leaders.

Dee:
Praise God.

Eileen:
And so we had the general program. We did [an] introduction to ourselves, we explained what we’re going to be doing because the next Sabbath was going to be the seminars and everything else. And so that night we just familiarized ourselves with the people. And that’s when I think I began to realize the big mission that God had, especially for youth because these young people were there to hear us. They could not believe that young people are going to be showing them something and so…

Dee:
Wow.

Eileen:
…it was pretty nice. And then the next days kept going, seminars, and… I did a seminar on courtship and dating and marriage as well, and so dating and marriage for the girls and I was working with Hannan. My role there was doing those seminars and as we went to churches, talked to people, we saw the different needs and so we would prepare, fix our seminars to their needs. And, it was amazing, just a room of fifty Ukrainian women and you have a Mexican and an African teaching you something about Christ. And you have a translator. And their faces were more receptive than the people of any country I have been to and I’ve only been to the U.S. and Mexico.

Dee:
Wow.

Eileen:
And so these people were ready and they were serious about it. And so we did our seminars and started off with, I remember God’s love, Christ’s love for us and that what He did and so that we don’t have to search for any other love on earth because we already are loved.

Dee:
Amen.

Eileen:
We found out that we were daughters of God and we moved on to Isaac and Rebecca, different stories on the Bible, and we laid down different principles for them to guide… what to look for in a husband, what to look for in a boyfriend. And they were very, very happy to hear and started asking questions. We started answering back. So we finished up with prayer and I looked at Hanan and I smiled. Then I go, “There’s our first one, ok…” And so, right after that, ten girls were surrounding us with questions. Some girls came in tears and just telling us, “You know it’s so true, what you just said, it’s so true. I don’t need to look for love on earth, if I already have it in my Father.” And so, to hear this, I guess the main thing that I got in Ukraine is that, it doesn’t matter how old we are. As young as we can be, we can make such an impact, such a big impact on people. And so, that was really, really nice for me to hear this, and I still talk to them online these girls, and so it’s amazing to hear their stories and it’s a strong friendship to have that I don’t think will ever fade.

And we kept up. And we kept traveling to different cities, the same thing all the time. The team started growing closer and closer, started knowing each other better. We experienced different difficulties. Some people got sick on the team. It was pretty cold at times. We weren’t really ready with clothing. The food, some people didn’t like the food whatsoever so we’re not even eating. So they were very sick.

But we kept going, and that was the nice thing. And so, our last seminar, our last church was in Charkiv. And it was the least attractable [attractive] structure, churchwise. But the most spirit-filled church, peoplewise. And they had almost, no pews, they had these different chairs and desk-type seats just there, and, it was our last seminar and we knew we had made mistakes before in different seminars, and, it was our last one and I said, “Hanan, you know…” We had been getting discouraged because we thought, what if we’re saying things that we shouldn’t be saying. And so we did the seminar. We had our translator there and so, this church was just so anxious to hear. Mrs. Hadley announced, “Ladies, if you [want to] know what you want to look for in a man, you go to this seminar,” and so we had that room full. Three girls had actually come by train fourteen hours away just because they knew we were going to be there. And so they were, the people were ready to hear this. I don’t know what they had told them about us but they were ready.

And so we did our seminar, and we left the ending for questions. And beautiful questions were answered. Beautiful things were asked and I just remember seeing so many heads nod and say, “That’s so true, you know. Christ. It’s all about Christ.” Whatever we look for, it should be Christ-like. Whatever we’re going to be, for whoever were looking for, we have to be Christ-like. Everything is to be Christ-like. And so, pretty much the foundation of our seminar was laid there at that last church. That we look for somebody to draw us closer to Christ and so we may fulfill His mission here on earth. And so that was a beautiful thing, and afterwards we had a lot of questions as well. We had people with testimonies, powerful testimonies just to share with us personally and it was beautiful. They gave us some Ukrainian spoons, traditional spoons that they use there, and beautiful things. And then we finished up at Dnipropetrovsk again, the Eastern Conference Church, [and] said goodbyes to the stronger friendships we had made there. And it was really sad for me at least, I don’t know for the rest of us here, I’m sure it was. But it was just sad knowing that there’s so much stuff to say when it comes to God’s Word.

Dee:
Yeah.

Eileen:
And I was thinking, “There has to be more churches. It’s okay. I can stay here two more weeks. Let’s go to more churches. We’ll find them. Well, just to know that God said, this is it.” And so, so many youth were there, they had read the book [Messages to Young People]. They were changed. We had testimonies because of the book. Because of these seminars, people came back to Christ. Uzzie had these experiences as well because of these seminars. Just so much happened. And so the main thing that I got out of Ukraine is that, mission life is life. It’s not spring break, it’s not Christmas break, it’s not the summer, it’s not “I’m a student missionary for a year”, but mission life is life itself.

Dee:
Amen.

Eileen:
Whether you work at HEB [Texas grocery store] bagging groceries, you’re a missionary there. Or whether you’re a pastor which is some people think that’s the highest you can get in spiritual life, it doesn’t matter what you are, you’re a missionary. And so, we’re planning to go back to Ukraine. They invited us [in] six months to do The Great Controversy which is a very powerful book and they’re going to be reading it, we’ll be doing seminars as well.

Dee:
Oh, how nice.

Eileen:
They’re going to be giving these books [The Great Controversy] out to non-Adventists. That’s what they dream, trying to take it away, trying to take it to different areas. We’ll be doing the whole country, eight conferences in total. So we need more people. We need a bigger team. We need more presenters. We need prayer warriors. We need nurses on our team to make sure we don’t get ill. We need preachers, we need evangelists, we need unity and we need young people. And so, we’re hoping to be back in Ukraine and to do something bigger than what we already did. We just laid a foundation at Ukraine this past Christmas. And so when we go back we hope to leave there and have a Synergy team built already at Ukraine. And so that they can then do Russia, Belarussia, Latvia, Romania and then they start spreading out. And so that’s what we want to do, the Synergy group is getting ready to go back and to do more, by God’s will.