War in Ukraine

Well, good afternoon, everyone! We are very, very fortunate to be here. We're an hour late. Actually, what happened is we're an hour late. You don't want to hear allegory details. Anyway, I know that the ABC students were notified as to the time change. And I may have had the memo, you know, I just didn't read it. Or I just thought, well, that's for them, you know, and I did. That time information was there, probably. But I went this morning to the website, you know, there it was. I just wanted to check. There it says 2 o'clock. But I know that there probably was some big banner in red flashing that said, not today. So, but anyway, we got here and we're just very thankful to be here. Also very good to be here with the ABC students. And we didn't have any water in the car and we were in a hurry. Sorry about just going through all this here. I want to start off with talking about what I'll be talking about. And that's what's happening in Ukraine. People have been asking questions about, you know, what do you make of it? Where is this all going? What does it mean? What does it mean prophetically? What does it mean as far as the identity of the nations? And are we at the time of the end? Is this the last events before the return of Christ? I'll answer some of these questions. There's a lot of questions to answer. I could talk for a long, long time.

And I have a number of slides that I'll be showing that were taken in the last two weeks in Ukraine about some of the damage, some of what the people that we work with have gone through, and some of the suffering and some of the events that are taking place. We are very grateful that it seems that there's been a quieting in the war, although with the Russians you can never know what that means. Perhaps they're regrouping. Some say that they are removing all their soldiers so that they can start gas warfare.

There's all kinds of speculations that are happening. But one thing we do do, because we're so connected with so many people in Ukraine, both Sabbath keepers, medical people, members of my family, that we do pray for them and pray very fervently for them. I know that I prayed very fervently in 2014 when Russia attacked. This was after the Crimean takeover and the attack in the east.

We prayed and prayed, and all of a sudden the war stopped. We've been praying and praying right now, and it seems to be abating. So we'll have to see just what happens and what it all means. But on February 24, just a little over five weeks ago, Russia brutally invaded Ukraine with artillery, rockets, cruise missiles, and even something, hypersonic missiles attacking civilian populations. It was gross. It was horrible. It was catastrophic. It was atrocious. Atroshates. There's been a lot of misinformation, and I'll try not to hype the facts that have taken place because there's a lot of things that we are wanting to believe, or people want us to believe what was happening, but there are definite facts of what has taken place from photographs and from first-hand reports.

There's a lot of misinformation. One thing for sure is that it's been a great humanitarian crisis. The attack on Ukraine eight years ago in 2014 brought out about a million refugees, which we thought, oh, that's a horrible number of refugees. What's happened right now is there are already five million refugees that have left Ukraine. Some say it'll top out at ten million. If it does, that means one out of every four Ukrainians will be leaving his country.

Poland has taken in two and a half million people, and we're involved directly with people who are moving people back and forth. There's a lot of things that are uncertain as far as even helping out. Many of you have helped out with money needed for the process of helping people, but in many places, we can't even get the money in or can't get the help in.

But now we're beginning to be able to do some of that, and I'll show that in a series of slides here after a bit. People have asked, is this the time of the end? As now, five million people are being scattered all throughout Europe, going to Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Germany, to Canada, to the United Kingdom.

We've had people in the church here contacting me from the United States and from Canada wanting to take families in until this crisis abates. Ukraine and Ukrainians are very near and dear to me because I am Ukrainian. I speak the language fluently, and I have traveled there many, many times. I didn't speak English until I was five years old. I remember my going to kindergarten, not really knowing the language, and my teachers called my parents and said, teach this kid some English, talk English to him. Of course, my parents barely spoke English themselves because they were World War II refugees who came over in 1949 after being in a United Nations relief camp for four years.

And that's where I was born. I was born in the United Nations camp in Hanover, Germany in 1947. Ukrainian culture and the Ukrainian pathos are the suffering nation. It's always been a suffering nation. And people, but the worst thing you can do is to call Ukrainian a Russian. Oh, you're Russian. No, no, no, no, no. We're a whole different breed. We may be USSR citizens, as my parents were, but Ukrainian is a very distinct culture, language, and identity. Russia, the USSR, absorbed 16 republics, which they later changed and combined into 15 republics. Many of these republics didn't want to be part of the USSR, but the Soviet Union took them over for their resources and to build an empire.

But my life with Ukraine really took off being an American. In 1967, I was a student at Ambassador College in 1967, 19 years old, and one of the faculty at Ambassador College asked me to go along with him and his wife on a trip to the USSR. It was the 50th anniversary of the revolution, and the USSR was relaxing its welcomeness to foreigners and really wanted them to see what the Soviet Union looked like after 50 years of the revolution. He asked me because I spoke the language, I speak Russian as well but not as good as Ukrainian, and I worked in photography.

So he said he needed a translator and he needed somebody to take pictures because he wanted to do a series of articles for the plain truth, which he did. He wrote five articles for the plain truth over the next year and a half after he returned. And we traveled to Ukraine along with half a dozen, well, probably eight or nine more of the republics of the 15th.

We visited Kiev, the capital, Odessa, and a very interesting trip to Yalta in Crimea. Then we took wild eutryps my wife and I managed, and we chaperoned trips for Youth Opportunities United for the church in 1986. 1988 to 1990, where we took a busload of students to Leningrad at that time, Moscow, and side trips to Kiev and to Stalingrad, or Volgograd, as it's called right now. In 1988, I had a family reunion. See, when we came to this country, to the United States, we were just among immigrants who didn't speak English, and orient themselves too well to other people, so people stuck together. But then when we grew up with no family, we had no contact with uncles, aunts, with grandparents, and basically all the immigrants stuck together, all the refugees stuck together, and they made each other part of their family.

But I did have a reunion in 1988 in Kharkiv. That's where my mother's people were from, and that's where many of my mother's relatives still live in Kharkiv, one of the most bombed cities in this last attack by the Russians. My cousin, Victor, same age as I am, lives there, or lived there, and he migrated, or he moved. He was evacuated to western Ukraine.

Then in 1991, we began working with Sabbath keepers in Ukraine, western Ukraine. With all these incidents, all these connections, who are unrelated to one another, just one after another came in my direction. And we met people who were of the similar faith, beliefs, as we were. They kept the Sabbath. They had the same understanding about the nature of God, the Holy Spirit, same understanding of prophetic events to take place, and we were very, very compatible. To this very day, we've been working with Sabbath keepers.

And I've had many, many visits to that area, and with Ambassador Foundation, at that time, we had projects to develop that area, and to respond to requests to teach English. We sent many, many students from Ambassador College over there on several different projects.

In 1996, when this was not first moved here to Indianapolis, another event took place of opportunity in Ukraine that I hadn't just kind of came to me. I had met a medical doctor in the United Kingdom at the Feast of Tabernacles. He was also an elder in the United Church of God, Morris Frone, who is now deceased. And he was retiring. He was a special cancer surgeon dealing with a pituitary gland, pituitary cancer. And we met at the Feast of Tabernacles in England. He said he was retiring and wanted to go to Ukraine to do some charitable work in his field.

And he said that one of his patients introduced him to somebody who was familiar with other doctors in Ukraine, in Chernihiv, about 100 miles north of Kiev, and was wondering if we could talk about that. He said, yeah, let's sure, let's go, let's go. I never thought we would go. But by April, that was a time when we moved here to Indianapolis, we did go.

And that was the first of three trips. And we have worked with a center. This was a year before the center was opened. It's been open now for 25 years. We had a very, very distinct part. We had a very, very powerful part in the development of that center and serving that center. The thing that was interesting about this is that it's located 30 miles due east of Chernobyl, the ill-fated nuclear plant that was destroyed in an accident.

As I said, Russians and Ukrainians have never really gotten along. They have never really been truly brothers from the standpoint of, like, people in Ohio being brothers or being people who are compatible with people in Illinois or Ohio.

It's not like states that just are very, very friendly, but they are peoples of different cultures, people who have come from totally different backgrounds, and people who have been dominated and who have been cruelly treated.

The location of Ukraine is north. I'll be showing some slides here in just a little bit, but I wanted to give you a little bit of a historical perspective. For one thing, the earliest history, and Ukrainians and Russians, for that matter, feel that the Apostle Andrew explored that area and probably even established the city of Kiev under the Dnieper River.

There are so many stories about the Apostle Andrew who had traveled in that area.

But the development of that area to the present first began in earnest by the migration of Vikings, the Vikings in Sweden and Norway.

The Vikings were the terror of the seas. They controlled or had traveled to the New World in about the year 1000 and had also gone as far as Kiev in the east. There was an article in the National Geographic magazine entitled, The Vikings Who Went East. Not the Vikings who went to the United Kingdom or to England, and Ravage did, or to Europe, but the Vikings who went east. And they established trading routes and they established governments along the Dnieper River in that area in the years 700s, 700s, 800s or so.

And the first princesses they were called, they were kind of like kings, over certain territory, were in that area of Ukraine.

Names that are familiar to us, like Prince Oleg, Prince Oli in Novgorod, and then Prince Igor in what is Kiev, the Kiev in Rus.

And then a very, very well-known king called King Prince Volodymyr, who is the one who brought Christianity or mainstream Christianity to Ukraine. That came in the year 988 because the gods that they worshipped before that time were the Norse pagan gods, Thor, Woden, all those gods that we may know about. But these were the gods that they had worshipped. But Christianity was brought in in 988 AD. And he, along with his mother Olga, are responsible for, quote, converting this nation to Christianity. And the city of Kiev was baptized. They brought the whole city down to the Dnieper River and baptized the entire city.

Those who refused to be baptized were drowned. This was actually shown in a museum in Leningrad when I was there, showing that this was a forced conversion.

Kiev was a major and ancient city in Europe, way before the establishment of many of the German cities.

In fact, Ukraine, or Rus, as it was called, the Kiev and Rus, and France had a lot of relations. In fact, they had even the daughter of the King of France married into the royal family of Kiev. And this is how well advanced it was.

But then there was a series of invasions that enslaved this Kiev and Rus, which was a very beautiful, established, cultural entity on the Dnieper River. When you go to Kiev today, you see old buildings like the St. Sophia's Cathedral, that's nearly a thousand years old. You say that, you know, I may not be into cathedrals and that type of thing, but this is old. This is old in our world.

And the way that Christianity came to Kiev was Vladimir, or Prince Volodymyr, sent out emissaries to explore a few different religions. He wanted to get away from the Norse paganism. And so what they did was they sent emissaries to the Jews, looked into Judaism, looked into Islam, even. But the emissaries who went to Constantinople were people who were just so enthralled by the cathedrals and by the music and by everything to do with Christianity. They chose not to go the way the Muslims, because they don't drink. Of course, in Russia, you don't drink. That could affect your religion very, very badly.

But then, starting in the 13th century, in the 1200s, there were waves and waves of Mongolian marauders that came from the Far East. And for 200 years, they ravaged that country, destroyed the city of Kiev. There were actually two cities that were very, very prominent in the Kiev in Ukraine at that time.

One was Kiev itself, and the other one was Chernihiv, where we work now with the center of rehabilitation, which is exactly 100 miles north of Kiev. And Chernihiv actually was a nation of itself, of its own, and Kiev was a nation, but they were very, very close because they were of the same dynasty of kings. At that time, Russia, or as we know it today, Moscow was nothing. It really wasn't much of anything. It was the Kiev and Rus, with its cities such as Novgorod in the north, with Chernihiv and Kiev itself, that were a very strong entity of its own.

But then Moscow began to arise in the 13th, 14th, 15th centuries and gave rise to the Romanov dynasty of tsars. And then the Russians started dominating the Ukrainians and had for hundreds of years. Ukraine has a very, very sad history, which in spite of that, it kept its culture, it kept its identity through all the years.

What does the Bible say about the people of Russia, Ukraine? Because this might give a little bit of insight into what's happening and what the dynamics are in this area.

First of all, to answer the question, are we at the time of the end? Well, in one sense, yes. But is what's happening in Ukraine and the Russia war? No, it's not. It's not the apocalyptic battles that have yet to take place. Because Ukraine and Russia have had these skirmishes and wars for many years. And I'm just praying and hoping that this will die down to where the Russians will pull back, will say, look, it didn't work, it didn't work right now, we'll put this on hold, but we don't know. The Russians have a problem with telling the truth.

The words that we connect Russia, Moscow, come from biblical words. And we have published this in our publications over the years, in the Origin of the Nations, an article. Some of these are speculations, and just this is what it might be, and this might be who these people are. We don't fully and 100% know the full identities of these people. We have looked at the word ROSH, and so people quickly jump to the conclusion that this means the Russians. The word ROSH appears first time in Genesis 46 as one of the sons of Benjamin.

So, okay, fine, but we have no other further evidence. But where it does come into a little bit more focus of what it may mean and what its effects might be, would be in a few places in the book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel chapter 38, verse 1 and through 4. Ezekiel 38, 1 through 4.

Now the word of the Lord came to me, Ezekiel writes, Son of man, set your face against Gog of the land of Magog, the prince of ROSH. So we have a connection here with Gog, land of Magog, this prince of ROSH, which was a name of a person rather than a whole community and a nation. Meshach, which we speculate may be the Russian people because Meshach, Moscow kind of sounds similar, that it may be that, and Tubal, and prophesy against him. And say, Thus says the Lord God, behold I am against you, O Gog, the prince of ROSH, Meshach, and Tubal. So we have this prince of ROSH, and we have Meshach as well, which was a whole nation, connected with Gog in the land of Magog. And Gog and Magog take on a legendary and a sinister meaning biblically, and Meshach is tied in with them. Meshach is not Ukraine. Ukraine, we feel, are the people of the Medes. A son, actually a brother, of Meshach called Madai. And these people, which became the Medes, along with the Persians, became the Ukrainians. That's how we publish it in our literature. Ezekiel 39, and you, son of man, prophesy against Gog, he speaks about this, and says, Thus says the Lord, behold I am against you, O Gog, prince of ROSH, Meshach, and Tubal. So twice it's stated here. But again, you have Gog and Magog as people of some type of importance, kind of a nefarious importance. So Gog and Magog symbolize something sinister having to do with the end times. It appears not only here in Ezekiel, but also in the book of Revelation. They represent historical people that existed in the times of Ezekiel 38 and 39, but also they come up in Revelation chapter 20, and they come up even after the millennium.

Now there's a couple of things. We've heard all this explained many times over, but I think it would be good for us right now to have a little bit of just a quick refresher on some of the information about Gog and Magog. Now there is, I recommend, I don't have the time to go through the whole prophecy. There is a Beyond Today television program called What is Gog and Magog? Who are Gog and Magog? It's an excellent program. In fact, we listened to it coming up here on Beyond Today.

The way to find it, it's about five years old, is go to the search box on the ucg.org website and type in GOG, G-O-G, in the search box, and it's the third entry down. So I really strongly recommend you take a look to try to understand a little bit about what's happening because it's gone into with some detail. But Daniel 11. Daniel 11 is a prophecy which is the longest continuous prophecy about end time events leading to the time of Christ.

Daniel 11 and verse 40. At the time of the end, here's the context, at the time of the end, the king of the south shall attack him. That's attacking the king of the north. And the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind. So we have a war between the king of the north, who we believe is the United States of Europe or Union or whatever, however it's formed, which is actually coming to form right now because of the altercations in the east. King of the north will fight against the king of the south with whirlwinds, with chariots, horsemen, many ships. He shall enter the countries, overwhelm them and pass through.

He shall also enter into the glorious land. In many countries shall be overthrown. So here we have a meeting of the king of the north and the king of the south, which we believe are an alliance, a confederation of Islamic nations. But here in verse 44 of Daniel chapter 11, But news from the east and the north shall trouble him.

The king of the north. Okay, when you go from Europe, the continent of Europe, and you go to the north and the east, you have the vast realm of Russia and further. We don't know exactly. All will be involved. News, tidings from the north and east will trouble him. Therefore he shall go out with fury to destroy and annihilate many. So here we have really big-time war coming at the very end with the things that take place. The war will be between Europe and with the tidings that come from the north and the east. The book of Revelation points out a number of very grotesque events that take place.

Revelation chapter 9, verse 13, The sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar, which is before God, saying to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates. So the four angels who had been prepared for the hour and the day, month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.

Now the number of the army of horsemen was 200 million. I heard the number of them. And the only way we could get to that type of scale of people is by looking at the hordes and the populations that are in that. This is what happens just before the return of Christ. So you have this confrontation between the king of the north and the 200 million. There's nuclear exchanges that take place here continuing in verse 17. And thus I saw horses in the vision, those who sat on them, had breast placed of fiery red, highest in blue, and sulfur yellow.

And the heads of the horses were like the heads of lions, and out of their mouths came fire, smoke, and brimstone. By these three plagues a third of mankind was killed. And this indicates nuclear exchange, in exchange of the killing of millions of people very, very quickly by the fire and smoke and the brimstone, which came out of their mouths. And their power is in their mouths and their tails. For their tails are like serpents, having heads, and with them they do harm. This is all things that are leading up to the return of Jesus Christ. The story continues also in Revelation 16 and verse 12 through 14.

Revelation 16 verse 12, the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and his waters were dried up. So that the way the kings from the east might be prepared. And I saw unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs which go out to the kings of the north of the whole world, to gather them together for that great day of God Almighty, for that great battle, the battle of Armageddon.

And the return of Jesus Christ is to stop the total destruction of the earth. He comes in at this time to end what takes place, or what has started. Revelation chapter 20 and verse 7, And when the thousand years have expired, Now this is now fast forward now, a thousand years into the future, Satan, who had been restrained now during the millennium, will be released from his prison, and will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog.

Here it comes up again. Now this may not be literally the people that connected with Meshach, but they are an expression, a symbolic of people who are evil, godless, and just won't want to see the glory of God after a thousand years, to gather them to battle, whose number is as a sand of the sea, and went up to the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints of the beloved city, which was unwalled cities.

These are people who never could understand the goodness of God. God is still holding something back, even after seeing the millennium, and seeing all the goodness and all the blessings of God, they still reject Him. And fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and false prophet are, or were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. This is the second time that Satan the devil is put down. So that's the story of what takes place. I honestly don't believe that Ukraine will be part of this.

Ukraine has a heritage of being a place that has had cultures that were Israelite that came through, such as the Scythians. It's been a very rich land that's been wanted by others. The people have not been warlike. And even my name, Cubic, comes from Jacob, Jacob, Yakubic. There are indications that these people have a temperament totally different.

The Russians have a temperament, and even the Far Eastern countries have a temperament of conquering, of subjugating peoples. Ukraine has never had that. It's been a country that's been subjugated. Now, that is my take on this, and I see how Ukraine has been treated. I would like to now turn to, as if I can, I'd like to give you a few slides here to show what's happened at recent times. First of all, here's Ukraine, in Europe. It's located just north of the Black Sea. It's a large country. It's almost the size of Texas. It's a little bigger than California and a little bit smaller than Texas, in square miles.

But that's standing, you see it's right there against Russia. It has a long border. The longest border it has is with Russia, which has been hostile to it. It has no national borders. You just cross over. No mountains, no water, and that's been part of the problem. Here's Ukraine if you superimpose it on the United States. You see it would stretch from Chicago to New York and Raleigh, North Carolina to Toronto. So that's how big Ukraine is, and those are some of the major cities. Kiev, our second largest city is Kharkiv. That's where my family is from. Also, Lviv, third, which is my other side of the family from my father's side, is more from western Ukraine.

Here it is a little bit more, showing its placement. It's right in the middle of everything. And it is a very rich land. 20% of the black earth on this earth is in Ukraine. Top soil is 3 to 4 feet deep. The only other areas that are compared to it are would be Illinois, Iowa, the lands there, and San Joaquin Valley. But otherwise, this is one of the major agricultural areas of the world. It's been called the breadbasket of Europe, and people are concerned about the fact that if it doesn't have a crop this year, it'll create a worldwide crisis in food. Here's another view of Ukraine, except it shows it more connected to the east, to the countries to the east.

There's Ukraine. Let's see. And then you have Kazakhstan, which is a Muslim country. All the Stan countries are Islamic. Kazakhstan is almost the same size as the US continental United States in size. And then, of course, you have China right here.

Here's Ukraine, and I'll show you the two areas where we work.

The area where we work with the Sabbatarians is way, way in the far west. We've been working with these people now since 1991, over almost pushing 30 years. And we have had just the... well, actually, we have gone 31 years that we've worked with these people. And I talk to them every week. They have major efforts here to take care of refugees who are coming from all over Ukraine to the west as they want to get out of the country to Poland here or to Slovakia or to Hungary. I might just tell you some of the cities that people are escaping. Kiev, of course. Another one is Zazapodosia, which is the site of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. It's not the world. The Russians took it over. And those areas were under great threat of being shelled and bombed, so a lot of the population had left those cities and are headed to the west. This is one of our ABC students from three years ago. His name is Bladik Yurishko.

He was only able to, because of visa, be able to attend ABC for one semester. But he's back there now. He's married. And he's leading an effort to settle, resettle people in homes. This is his father, Yevon Yurishko, who we've known for 31 years. There's Blad. And that's his little daughter, Sarah. She's got a little prayer scarf over her that's traditional there. They've been praying. This is before the bombing started. This is their congregation. This is their church building, where they hold services on the Sabbath. And they started putting beds in to settle some of the refugees in a temporary way before they could get them on their way. Then they started building bunk beds. They built these from scratch. But this is church services two weeks ago. These aren't...everything that I'm showing you are pictures that have been taken in the last two weeks. And the church there has done a massive campaign to feed the people. This is soup that they were giving to them. But these people have come in from all over. And it's kind of a holding place until they get them across the border, namely to Poland. A lot of things have been shipped in from the West. And this is one place where we can get things into, because it's not been bombed yet. And so a lot of things have gone in. And actually we've been able to wire money into the banks there and be able to help in that way. In other areas that we work, such as Kharkiv or Cherniv, banks aren't operating. Nothing's working. And then here, aid that has come in. The whole church is an all-church effort. They take all that aid. They're creating little boxes and things for children. One of the things is that the refugees, only the women and children are allowed to leave the country. All men under 60 are required to stay in their country and are expected to defend the country. So, Ivani Rishko himself, he says, I just turned 61. I'm just past the military age. So that's what they're working with. And that's part of the crisis itself, is that you have 5 million women and children out there in those countries. It's a dream world for sex traffickers and human slave trade. Here's a reception room in the church. This is a church that we actually helped them build a number of years back. They met at an old Jewish synagogue that was turned into a mission, but now they have put up their own building. And they're very servant-minded. So we have helped them ourselves from the fund that we have. And also, they have many other of their friends who have already gone to the United States and settled in places like Portland, Oregon, which is one of the big places. And in the state of Missouri. Here's a view from the balcony of the beds there that they have done. And it's been a whole church effort to get this shelter going for these people. And they have just hordes of people coming in, and they serve everyone. They take care of everyone. And Vlad, the ABC student, his job, what he's been doing, has been going through the whole community, going through the whole province, knocking on doors. Can you take a family in? Can you take a family in? Here's more of the bunk beds that they have built. Here they are outside the church. Here they are building them. Here's a woman kind of varnishing it or whatever. So that's there out in the West.

Here are some of the refugees now that Ivan, who has a van, is in his van. He's either in Slovakia, in Hungary, or in Ukraine. And they're close by. The border is only about an hour, hour and a half away. So he takes them to the border and just drops them across to other relief agencies that pick them up. Here's a family that's come in from the East. Ivani Rishko was very involved in printing our Bible study course in Russian. And he printed a thousand copies of each lesson on his own. And so he has those available there for the refugees to pick up. You can recognize the picture on that Bible study course. He's attended the Feast of Tabernacles with us in Estonia. Here's another one of our refugees. Her name is Edita Meringer. She was one of the street kids. And we fell in love with her. She was just a little girl about 10, 11 years old and came from a very difficult family. And every time that we'd go over there, she just kind of clinged to Beverly and wanted to use my camera.

But she's grown up now. She's married. And she has just a little story about her. Her mother died at a very young age in her mid-20s of female disease. And now Edita has the same disease. So she's just very, very concerned and asks us to pray for her, which we do. And Bev and I on WhatsApp communicate with her or on Messenger. And right now her sister has left to go to Slovakia. Vika is her sister's name. And I asked Edita, are you going to go, too? She says, no, because my husband can't go. And I'm going to take my chances. I'm going to just stay back. I don't want to be separated from my husband. When these people separate at the border, they don't know when they'll see each other again. If, when, how, how the war is going to take place. But this is Edita. And she still calls Beverly her mom. And in fact, we helped her with some surgery in Kiev a number of years back. And now her surgeon has come to live with her. She says, you have a safer place than I do here in Kiev. So her surgeon in Kiev has come out to Western Ukraine, which is kind of a safe zone in the country. So the other place that we work in is, like I mentioned, is Chernihov, up in the north. Whoops. Anyway, big red dot you see above that Chernihov. And see Kiev's to the south. They're 100 miles apart. And one time they were two separate principalities, but of the same dynastic chain. And Chernobyl, as you see, is to the west right here. And so our Center for Rehabilitation is in Chernihov, where we have had a 30-year run with helping. Here's my cousin from Kharkiv. Ask him to send me a cheerful picture. This is the best you could do. But we talk. We have talked over the years. We're exactly the same age. We're both the same age. But he was able to get out of Kharkiv. Here we are. We're talking on WhatsApp. Bombs are going off about a mile or two away. He said, Victor, you've got to get out. You've got to get out. Yeah, well, what am I going to do with my dogs? I've got a cat and I've got chinchillas. He had all this stuff. I mean, these people, all these things that they worry about. We finally got him to leave by train. And trains are running very well in Ukraine. They run only at night with all the lights turned off. At night, everything is turned off. All lights are turned off. That's the safest way. They change their train schedules all the time. They send them on alternate tracks. I mean, they have an amazing way. He finally made it all the way to the cubic side of Ukraine. And he thought he was safe there for a while. Then the next morning they heard explosions five miles away in the city of Brivne, which had that. Here are these people living with this. It's almost like a weather report. And what it is, is just the latest attack by the Russians. Here's his granddaughter. Her name is Kamila. And you see her little Ukrainian flag, an American flag. And she was evacuated out to Slovakia. So she's safe. She and her mother. But her dad has to stay back. No men are allowed to leave.

This is Victor. He sent me these pictures of what his town looks like. It was a bombing that has taken place. And Victor, even though his house was not destroyed, all the windows were shattered. He said these explosions, even a mile away, they just create such a pressure that it smashes the windows. And they said that one thing right now that one American group is working on is to replace windows in homes. The home isn't hurt, but all the windows are shattered. And here it is. There was snow on the ground when he took some other pictures of his house. And there's no windows. They're all shattered. So they're trying to stay warm. Here's another explosion that took place in Kharkiv.

Just horrific, horrific damage that's been taking place over civilian areas. These are not military targets at all. The Soviet military hasn't done squat. But so they took the other attack of being cowardly and attacking hospitals, attacking senior citizens' homes. I mean, we just can't believe that people can treat each other this way. Here's a Kharkiv train station. People trying to get out. Look at all those people. Tens of thousands of people trying to get on that train. Bev and I were there when we had our family reunion. My mother was a refugee. My mother was 16, a year younger than my granddaughter here, when she went to work in Germany as a worker in the German factories. And she was put on a train. Kharkiv probably could have been very much this same place right here. But look at all the people. Five million people have gotten out. This is as of a few days ago, and they feel like the number will rise to ten. Okay, back to Chernihov now. This is Dr. Vasil Pashnik and his wife. This is when we were there for the 10th anniversary. I had Katherine Roland was with us, and the Snyder's daughter was with us as well on this trip in 2006. This was in happier times. He is really a celebrated physician. The president of Ukraine visited this location. He has just set a tremendous record. And then this is my nephew, Colin Kubik, who worked there for a whole year, volunteer work at this clinic. And he's learned to speak Ukrainian very, very well. Dr. Pashnik and his wife is the head neurologist in the province, and Dr. Pashnik is the head pediatrician in the province. But here they are today. They're living at that center, a rehabilitation, with the kids.

They're only down to about 50 kids. There's a staff of 36 watching out for 50 children. They can't get them out of the city because the bridge, the whole routes have been closed off. And I'll show you, the main bridge south, Takia, was destroyed last Sunday. But here they are. Temperature is in the 40s, and they sleep with their clothes on. And that's Dr. Pashnik, his wife, to the right. And they're a long-time secretary in the Takia Shulka, who we have gotten to really, really admire and love over the years. Here's the city of T They could. They have a center which is probably no more than a mile or two from downtown. We've been there many, many times. Never thought that this type of thing would ever happen. There's more destruction. Here's Natalia Shulka in Better Times. I communicate with her on a messenger almost every other day or so. And they only have electric power two hours a day, and they just use that power to charge their phones and be able to get back to us. But we do have communication with them, and this is probably the most challenging at all. That little sign there reads, Ukraine starts with you. This is her right now. She says night after night of bombing, just continually on edge, wondering if the next bomb will hit her. Here's a bridge. This is the main bridge from the south, from Kyiv, that crosses into the town of Tia. It drops you right almost in town right away. And here's what the Russians did last week. They destroyed this bridge. There is absolutely no reason for it. It could have been a humanitarian corridor. It had no military value. It was not the kind of thing that you just do. It is very barbaric behavior. Here's this bridge, you know, at night. Then the Russians destroyed the sports stadium in town. And of all things, it was called the Yuri Gagarin Sports Center. Yuri Gagarin was a Russian cosmonaut, the first one to go around the world. They destroyed their own namesake building. But this is the stadium. Here's the stadium, just totally disheveled. This was last week. You hear about this in the news, but this just goes on over and over again, story after story. This looks like, not sure what this was, but it looks like books there. So it was a school or library or something that was destroyed.

Here's a crater. Look at this crater from a bomb, a rocket that had hit.

And so they cook for the kids outside. I've got a makeshift grill. This is a beautiful center. It had a kitchen. It had a place for people to stay overnight. It had just a wonderful staff, beautiful pictures and everything.

And now they're just in survival mode.

And just one more thing to say about what we're doing with Ukraine. Right now in Ukraine, there's fear that there won't be any crops put in this coming year. But one of our elders, you may know him, Neil Kinsey. Who here knows the name Neil Kinsey?

He's an elder in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He has a consulting company which has consulted a lot in Ukraine. Ukraine is one of the top five agricultural areas of the world. He has many clients that he does soil testing with. He's worked in 50 countries in all states in the United States, and he works with a company in Ukraine that wants to get the crop in.

And we're partnered with LifeNets to help this company to be able to get the proper things that they need to come in there. Hopefully things will die down now that they can get their crop in in March.

Okay, so we started an emergency fund, and we've been just very thankful for the support that we've gotten from everyone. It's been very, very gratifying from you.

So I just wanted to be able to show you a little bit about what we're a snapshot of our life in working with Ukraine.

We just don't know how good we have it in this country.

The Ukrainian people are beautiful people. Of course, I would say that because I'm Ukrainian, and I would want you to think the best of me. But they don't deserve this. They don't deserve this type of treatment by anyone. And now Europe is dangling with the Damocles sword that if you come in, the Russians say, you're going to experience something you've never experienced before. In other words, threats of chemical warfare or threats of nuclear war. And believe me, if a nuclear war exchange started in Europe, it would be devastating 30 to 85 million people. I have several scenarios on my website that show the type of devastation that would take place if a nuclear war started. Everybody's just trying to be very careful.

My question is, is that, okay, we'll get through it this time. When is the next time going to happen? Who's going to do it? Who's going to actually push the button and let it happen? We'd be praying and be asking God to please, as we sigh and cry, not just out of frustration, all of these people are sinners, but crying for all the people who have died, all the children that have suffered, hundreds of children, like the beautiful little girl, have died.

Just in the past week, it was indiscriminate bombing that's taken place by people that have no feeling at all. I do feel like with Satan the devil stirring people up, as he has Gog and Magog, along with Meshach, I do feel there's a connection there of a spirit that is just very, very different from just natural human kindness that we would have one to another. We would never do this to your child, to my child. But this is cold-blooded, it is thoughtless, it is horrific. And it's this spirit that dominates these people. I feel like that same spirit was in Stalin, who was genocide, killed 60 million of his own people. Plus what happened in World War II, they have no regard for human life at all. Do you know who the number one genocide person in history was? Mao Zedong, from China. He's responsible for killing 80 to 100 million people. So when we talk about this Gog and Magog, this confederation of being driven by Satan the devil, it's there right now. People who have no regard for human life, people who will not listen to God, people who have been so far away from God, that their nature has turned so horrifically against him. The Soviet Union, when communism came in, in 1917, the one big thing that they did away with was God. They also tried to do it with family, the outlawed marriages, but they found out that that didn't work. You know, it just didn't work. So marriages were put back into place. But as far as God is concerned, we used to buy books from Russia, and if the term God was used, it's always in lowercase. You know, they just wanted to show you their contempt for God, total contempt. They turned their churches into museums and into everything else. And because people have not learned morality, people have learned to be immoral and hateful. When we traveled, my wife and I, to the Soviet Union over and over again, the nature of people was so horrific, rude, one to another.

In fact, even we had people who came to conversion in Estonia and Lithuania that became members of the church. But the way they even treated each other, because of the old habits, I thought, do people talk this way? You know, see, Ken Shoemaker, I don't like you. And they just tell you that if they just happen not to agree with you, they'll start talking to you, and they'll point their finger in your face and be open. And I said, you know, we don't do that. You know, in our culture, we're just not that way. But these people have been so far away from decency, which we normally have. We're going to treat each other very nicely here after services, that we love each other. And that's part of what we do as a church, is to develop this loving spirit one towards another. But in these societies, there is no love. There's been hatred for years. There's been vengeance towards one another, revenge for years. And I just really feel like when I see the Gog and Magog, however that plays out, whether it be a combination of Russia, China, I honestly don't feel that Ukraine will be part of that, because I think that those people are different. As I feel also, the people of Estonia, which are not Slavic at all, they're more Scandinavian, won't be part of that. Lithuania, Poland, other countries like that won't be part of this block of people who really have no heart.

Really have no heart. I just remember when we traveled as well, is how we were treated at the airports. As a foreigner, you were always treated very, very nicely. They opened the doors for Bev and me, they'll get on the plane, you know, and everything really friendly. And here one of the local people there, these push them through the door. I thought, I can't believe that people do that, you know, one to another.

The type of training that they will have to receive is going to be learning little things to show love and compassion. Our Judeo-Christian ethic, I don't think we realize just how powerful it is. As much as we dislike our country and just crazy people, you know, running it in politics, we get frustrated and everything, it is so far better than it is in those countries. So anyway, my point today was kind of talk a little bit more from the heart and just kind of a little bit freewheeling here. But I wanted to show you a little bit about what's going on in Ukraine, what our experience has been, what we're doing, and also a little bit about those people and their heritage.