Impressions of
Visit by Sabbatarian Leader
September 15, 1998
Ivan Yurishko, a leading Ukrainian Sabbatarian businessman from Khust, Ukraine visited Beverly and me from Thursday September 10 through Monday, September 14th while on a first-time visit to the United States. His visit and our contact with people who stood up and have been tested on their faith has again lifted our spirits, made us feel closer to what God is doing in people's lives, wherever they may live on the earth, and made us feel thankful for what we have. It also makes us feel inadequate about what we actually do in comparison to what tools we've been given to do things with.
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With Ivan we spent the four days together in hours of discussion that ranged from how to better proclaim the Word of God to how to develop small businesses to just sitting together and reading the Bible and prayer. It is not unnatural for these people to carry on an excited and animated discussion about some finer points of a Proverb or wonder what Mark of the Beast might be. They want to know what others feel about what they're thinking about. In talking to the Sabbatarians, you will find people who are extremely well-versed in the scriptures.
Again, hearing about their experiences under Communism and the hardships endured when they met on the Sabbath in homes and had the police come in and break up Sabbath meetings, about meeting secretly for years was inspiring and made me realize how much we take our freedoms and luxuries for granted.
My relationship with the Sabbatarian Ukrainians began in 1991 when I met their leader Michael Palchey who had then recently emigrated from Ukraine as a religious refugee. I have a section on this Web site in which I have written about our experiences with these people and their continuing challenges, including two congregations in Tajikistan which had evacuated under death threat to Ukraine.
As many of your heard the news about what these people have gone through, you responded Since our first visits in 1993 here are just some of the ways we have helped:
- Shipped sewing machines so that they could develop cottage industries
- Shipped over a ton of fabric
- Started an Ambassador University Student project to teach English as a Second Language (ESL)
- Sent three containers of humanitarian aid (food, medicine, clothing, equipment) through existing US Government programs. The total weight shipped so far has been 60 tons. Value of goods shipped: $500,000. Cost to us: less than $20,000. Much of this went to the Tajikistan refugees who had resettled near the mouth of the Dnieper River
- Cash donation for Tajikistan refugees to buy fuel and repair homes to get in shape for the winter of 1997-1998.
- Gifts of copiers, computers, a laser printer to their Mission
- Several shipments of Ukrainian and Russian Bibles.
- In late October 1998 we are shipping another 40 foot, 20 ton container of humanitarian aid to western Ukraine which has suffered a rotting crop due to excessive rain this past summer.
- In late January 1999 we are bringing a team of 20 or more doctors to operate mobile clinics in and around Khust. 750 pair of eyeglasses will be made on the spot for pensioners and the poor.
One of the more excting recent developments has been their printing our translated into Russian booklet Sunset to Sunset, God's Sabbath Rest. Our plans now call for them to print most of the literature that we have translated into Russian. The booklet The Gospel of the Kingdom is ready for them to publish. In addition they will print the more than 20 Good News reprint articles that have been translated into Russian.
Talking with Ivan Yurishko I'm struck by the intense desire to serve and please God. When we talked about printing and distributing literature there seemed be no barriers. Possibilities were endless. Finances were inconsequentional because for years they have learned to operate on no money at all. Of course, Ivan Yurishko is a can-do person who has become a success in a governmental and economic system that does everything possible to squelch the human spirit.
One of our next projects will be to develop small business initiatives by helping these people with micro-loans and advisors to help them help themselves.
- Victor Kubik