Ukraine needs our support: missionaries, development staff are a way for us to show love.

Much of the month of February is in the season of Epiphany on the church calendar--a time when the church gives particular attention to its missionary and evangelical responsibilities. A small part of February 2004 is also in the season of Lent--a time when Christians reflect on the selflessness and compassion of Jesus and the implications of these two characteristics for his followers.

In my thinking upon the meeting of these two seasons in the month that includes Presbyterian World Service and Development Sunday, and during our year emphasizing spirituality, some things I have read come to mind. St. John of the Cross wrote: "When the evening of life comes we will be judged on love." Walter Brueggerman has remarked: "Communion with God can't be celebrated without attention to the nature of the community." And a newspaper article stated that our society will be judged on the basis of how it regarded and treated the weakest and most vulnerable in the community.

Without a doubt, a rich Christian spirituality is cultivated in the church and within individuals when sustained attention is given to the imitation of the compassion and selflessness of Jesus. Through Presbyterian World Service and Development, we have the opportunity to imitate these characteristics by supporting projects that give aid to vulnerable and suffering folk and help communities and individuals gain a sense of dignity and the joy of hope.

In late September 2003, my wife, Chris, and I visited Hungarian Reformed Christians in Hungary, Romania and the western part of Ukraine as well as four Presbyterian staff in that part of Central Europe. In Ukraine, we were made aware of the dehumanizing and oppressive features of the Communist regime that collapsed 13 years ago. We also encountered conditions that were sobering and perspective-changing for us. Poverty, chronic unemployment (sometimes as high as 90 per cent), gravely inadequate access to poor-quality medical resources and facilities, excessive bureaucracy, and schools with woefully inadequate resources are only a few of the conditions. Some unemployed folk in desperation engage in alternative forms of income generation such as smuggling (gasoline and cigarettes) and prostitution. These activities are heavily controlled by organized crime. Consequently, the Mafia's involvement in most aspects of the Ukrainian way of life and its influence in both the public and private spheres of community life result in profound amounts of corruption.

Two Presbyterian staff, Dr. David Pandy-Szekeres and Steve Ross, are located in Ukraine. They fulfill a variety of duties with the Reformed Church of the Sub-Carpathian Ukraine. David has significant responsibilities in relationship to the residential schools operated by the church, particularly for procuring financial resources. He also serves as the convener of a committee responsible for the implementation of a project of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank of which PWS&D is a member. The project was developed in the wake of the severe spring floods in 2001 that affected 300,000 people and destroyed roads, homes and fields. This flooding decimated an already deprived and vulnerable region. The project assists people to begin the slow process of returning to traditional forms of livelihood, to reduce the small landholder's vulnerability to floods through a network of "dry" high-quality seed banks, and to distribute the annually produced excess seed to small landholding farmers. The project included provision for technical knowledge and access to quality wheat, corn and rye/grain seeds through regionally grown seed banks maintained on church land.

Steve Ross coordinates part of this project. I was touched by what he wrote recently about his work, revealing both the value of the project and the difficult conditions under which folk have to live:

The fall of 2002 was terribly wet. Therefore, the seed was not planted until early December. It was never really given a chance to grow before the snow and ice came. The winter was long and harsh. We then received two weeks of spring, and then moved right into a heat wave in May. However, the summer proved to be the driest on record, with blazing heat. The wheat that we had planted in order to harvest and distribute had little chance of success. The weather did not co-operate, so we had to distribute what we were given. We finally gave wheat seed in 100-kg to 250-kg increments, depending on farm size, to 183 small farmers who were affected by devastating floods in 1998 and 2001.

As we distributed the seed from the warehouse, I was able to watch some of the people who were receiving the seed. Of course, everyone was happy to receive the wheat because it is of a very good quality. However, the poorer farmers were more excited to be acquiring free wheat seed. This was really evident among elderly farmers. While the younger generations have different possibilities in making money, the only means of making a living for an elderly citizen is through agriculture. Therefore, it should have been little surprise to me when I saw an old lady praying in the lineup while she waited for her wheat seed. I did not really understand until it was her turn to be registered. She gave her passport as identification (an old one that still displayed the Soviet symbol of the hammer and the sickle). As one of the project's team members opened the passport, a 20 hryvnya note (local currency in Ukraine equivalent to $5 Cdn) fell to the table. She was asked why there was money in the passport. She responded by simply stating, "I have to pay, don't I?" She was trying to bribe us.

The more I thought about the needless bribe from the elderly lady, the sadder it became. I realized this is what it was like for her throughout her whole life. Having to bribe an official to receive what you wanted or needed was and, unfortunately in many cases, is still the situation in Ukraine. Because of shortages of everything, the black market has become the most common way of doing business. Because consumers usually outnumber the amount of available needed products, the sale usually goes to the highest bidder, with the managers pocketing the extra money. This theory is just "supply and demand"; however, when the same economic practices are taking place with governmental officials, where the individual is forced to pay somebody's pocket to receive basic services, then there is a problem. This is why she could not understand that she was being given the wheat. We explained to her that we were a charitable organization, and that it was not necessary for her to pay us. We wished her well and told her we hoped God would bless her with a good crop of wheat.

I encourage you to remember David, Steve and the folk they serve in your prayers. May God find us faithful in our prayers for the vulnerable in out world and active in our demonstration of selflessness and compassion through our support of projects that alleviate suffering and create a measure of hope.

More about our Central European journey in the March issue.