In a “day of small things”, it is very important not to undervalue those blessings and mercies that the Most High grants us every day. The Covid-19 pandemic has hindered our mission work in Ukraine. Ukrainians are notorious for breaking the quarantine rules and, as a consequence, the number of infected people is increasing rapidly every day. The number of those vaccinated is increasing very slowly because people are afraid of the after-effects of vaccination. Since the beginning of the vaccination programme, only 8.7% of the population have been vaccinated.
However, in spite of this present difficulty, it is our deep conviction that it is a great privilege for us that the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland sent missionaries to Ukraine a quarter of a century ago. The Protestants of this large European country lived in spiritual isolation under the reign of communist terror. The congregations they had contact with were mostly Arminian in their teachings. The ministers and preachers knew practically nothing about the fundamental doctrines of the Reformation: predestination, election, justification, adoption and sanctification. The followers of the Anabaptist movement professed the doctrines of free will, universal salvation, and the real possibility of losing salvation.
After the collapse of communist ideology, a spiritual vacuum appeared. Some Ukrainians were carried away by horoscopes; others became regular clients of psychics, sorcerers and false healers. A small portion of citizens, in search of the truth, began to attend the services of various churches. The deceived people urgently needed to be given spiritual medicine – the Word of God and the confessional documents of the Reformation period. Missionaries of the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland chose, as a priority for their activities in Eastern Europe, the spiritual enlightenment of the people sitting in the spiritual darkness of superstition and prejudice.
In recent years, there has been a marked increase in interest in Calvinism among Christian youth. Recently, at the request of teachers of the Bible school in the city of Poltava, we sent 30 sets of books for students containing: The Westminster Confession of Faith (480 pages), An Exposition of The Westminster Confession of Faith by Robert Shaw, A Catechism of the History and Principles of The Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland and Memoir and Remains of Rev Donald Macdonald. It is our prayer to God that this literature will become an effective means of spiritual blessing for the readers.
Representatives of various denominations admire the theology of the Reformation, but they say they cannot refuse to “speak in tongues” or undertake to keep the Sabbath Day according to the commandment. Their spiritual mentors intimidate them by saying that criticism of, for example, the use of “strange tongues” is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, and that Sabbath observance is a return to the law of Moses. These and similar questions are all clarified in the teaching of the Bible as it is explained in The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms.
A few days ago we visited a military unit of border guards, 40 kilometres from Odessa, whose servicemen in July this year had participated in the Sea Breeze-2021 multinational naval exercises on the Black Sea together with the British destroyer HMS Defender. We helped the military to organise a room for public worship at the military base and supplied five Bibles in Russian and Ukrainian, as well as religious documents from the Reformation period and other spiritual literature.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, residents of Ukraine continue to contact us with requests for Bibles. We continue to grant these requests and to send Bibles by mail. Our Mission has the possibility of getting spiritual literature printed in Odessa at a low price and of high quality, which we hope to avail ourselves of.
However, all the work we do and hope to do would not be possible were it not for the prayers and voluntary donations of people in the Free Presbyterian and other Churches, which we thankfully acknowledge. “Then Samuel took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called the name of it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us” (1 Sam 7:12).