Christian Witness and the War in Ukraine: A Conversation with Josiah Venture missonary Lee Humerian

Hey, everybody, welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm here with Lee Humerian, and we are going to talk a little bit about his life and what brought him to ministry. Lee and I actually just met formally a few weeks ago while I was over in the Czech Republic teaching a class for Wheaton College. Lee is in one of those classes, and we had the opportunity just to talk, but I was really fascinated by his life story as well as his work in Ukraine as a missionary. And so we're going to be talking about that today on the episode and welcome, Lee. Thanks for coming. Why don't you just start by telling us a little bit about yourself, and I'll pepper in some questions, but tell us about your journey. What brought you to Ukraine? You know, just give us the story. Absolutely, man. James, thanks so much for having me. It's a real treat for me to be here. Ukraine came part of our story, my wife and I, our story in 2014. So my wife was working at a church doing youth ministry, and that church would send short-term teams to Ukraine every summer doing English camps, leading with an organization called Desai Adventure, which is the organization that we work for now. And we, she got the job and then was tasked with leading this trip and had never seen it done before because she had just, it was a new job for her. So we came here in 2014, and three days after the Maidan revolution is actually when we landed here. So we kind of saw, you know, Ukraine in a different, a different light than it typically had been up to that point. Kind of that was what really sparked a new revolution and kind of ousted a Putin puppet president. And obviously that was the beginning of the original start of the, the, the Ukraine war with Russia. And we could get into the deep of it. When was that about, Lee? Just to give people a little bit on the history. When was that? What year? Yeah, so in 2014. 2014. Russia, yeah, initially annexed Crimea and kind of started, they invaded in the Donbass region, which is again currently occupied. And that, that conflict, you know, unfortunately, Crimea is still under Russian occupation. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. But in the Donbass region, a lot of the military, like, flee. There was just one day where they just dropped their guns and left in that same year of 2014. And so there was kind of this stalemate for years and years and years until the escalated invasion, you know, back in February 24, 2022. Yeah, so that was our first exposure to Ukraine. And it was a high school team. So it was me, my wife, four of their leaders, and had 20 high schoolers. So, of course, parents weren't really thrilled with the idea of us taking a team of high schoolers to a country that was in war. And at that point, you know, obviously, you know, the fog of war, you know, at that, the Internet was just not really a thing. Like to be able, you couldn't really check in to see, like, what's going on and understand kind of the scale of everything. And so parents did not want us coming here, understandably. So we ended up going to the Czech Republic, doing an English camp there, and just really fell in love with the Josiah Venture model for camps and the Josiah Venture model for using short-term teams. I think, you know, some missions organizations, I don't know, I've been on trips that have been fruitful where, you know, we've done different things like construction projects or things of that nature, which I think are a good thing. Josiah Venture uses American teams and has uses European teams as well to just be a bridge between the local church and non-believing campers. And so it was really cool to just kind of be a catalyst and see how this, this kind of discipleship movement works. You know, it was, it's small scale discipleship ministry that, you know, we got to be a part of and see firsthand. And so we've also, my wife and I felt kind of guilty about ditching Ukraine and not actually coming. We had visited Ukraine on a pre-trip just kind of meet the missionaries, see what we'd be doing. So in 2016, we came back, led a music and arts camp or helped, helped a local church lead a music and arts camp. And then the organization, Josiah Venture Ukraine, invited us to come launch, like be a part of their full-time staff and launch a kind of a music and preventative lecture program to schools. It's like this live concert slash lecture program. Like think the DARE program just on steroids with a live concert element. So I have a music background. My wife has a youth ministry background. And so it was this kind of this strange kind of perfect fit for the two of us to be able to like utilize things that we both love for, for, you know, God's movement here in Ukraine. So that was in, we got back to the States August, 2016, prayed and fasted, sought counsel. I mean, never, never thought about being full-time missionaries ever. Yeah. Never on my radar. So 2016 was still a short term, right? Cause that would have been post high school and you were in, you were in college, correct? At that point. Exactly. So I had, I graduated 2009, so I was just, I was touring in a metal band for, it was like, I started full-time in 2012 and, you know, was still doing that at the time. We, we visited Ukraine, had to get a fill-in drummer for that summer to go on that trip. But that was August, 2016. We felt confirmation, filled out an application August 15th, moved June 15th the next year. So it was like 10 months later when we, we got here, it was really fast. Like our lives just totally flipped upside down. And Kitty got pregnant and we had our first kid in June, the following year. So like literally in the span of two years, our lives totally run in just a new trajectory. Pretty wild. So, and we've been there since we've been here. Yeah. I'd mentioned, you know, one of my buddies who helps me out with this, Nate, he was big in the music industry. He worked for Caleb and did a, he's done a few other things. He was big in the skate scene as well. And so I mentioned Phineas to him. So you're a part of, you've mentioned you're a part of a metal band, Phineas, right? And so he's like, for nine years of my life. Yep. He's like, yeah, absolutely. I know Phineas. So he was excited that I was going to be talking to you today. Yeah. Well, Nathan, thanks for the love, man. They're, they're still going. They played Japan in March and I was a little jealous, but you know, we still, we all stay in touch and, and they're good. They're good men. It was nine years of my life, you know, seven, no, five of which living in a van, you know, with these guys. So you get pretty close in many ways, you know? Yeah. So talk a little bit about, I mean, you know, that's a, that is a quick turnaround, brother. I mean, 20 months to go from, you know, living in the States doing your thing, moving over to Ukraine and then having a kid, right? Yeah. So talk a little bit about your ministry there up to this latest escalation and kind of what you were doing, you know, what your full-time role was kind of in between these two periods when you moved and then when the Ukraine conflict started here most recently. Absolutely. So we moved to launch in Ukraine to this ministry called Exit, which is kind of a, it's a music outreach program that uses preventative lectures to connect churches with teenagers in public schools. And so it's, it, it's, it was, it's awesome. And it was something that I got to use kind of some of my artist relations background and just tech background and stuff. We put on this huge concert in the morning at a school. So imagine, I mean, you're, you're, if you're a, you know, a junior high kid or a high school kid, you come to school one day, all of a sudden your gym is just got this stage and lights and, you know, it's backdrop and there's just artists performing, you know, it's just, okay, this is going to be not a normal day of school. And that's totally what it was. We just, we would, the school would give us the whole day.

During the week, the church would be with us. And one of the lectures was just essentially games, you know, where the church team would be with us. We'd be in the gymnasium playing games with these young people. And then we'd invite them to an after-school activity, which the church team would, we would equip the church team to run. And if they had like a youth group, they would just do something that looked like their typical weekly gathering. So it was a way to kind of cast a net, you know, so to speak and get a lot of non-believing youth or, you know, seeking youth to connect it to the event. And then we would equip the church leaders to then reach out, connect with them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. And so it was a way to kind of cast a net, you know, so to speak, and get a lot of non-believing youth or, you know, seeking youth to connected to the event. And then we would equip the church leaders to then reach out, connect with them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. And so it was a way to kind of cast a net, you know, so to speak, and get a lot of non-believing youth or, you know, seeking youth to connect it to the event. And then we would equip the church leaders to then reach out, connect with them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. And so it was a way to kind of cast a net, you know, so to speak, and get a lot of non-believing youth or, you know, seeking youth to connect it to the event. And then we would equip the church leaders to then reach out, connect with them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. And so it was a way to kind of cast a net, you know, so to speak, and get a lot of non-believing youth or, you know, seeking youth to connect it to the event. And then we would equip the church leaders to then reach out, connect with them, invite them to coffee, get to know them. So that was what we came to do up until COVID. Our last tour, our last exit tour event in Ukraine was October of 2019, it would have been. That was our last tour. So how central is the, I mean, you know, you're obviously trying to bridge between public schools, which I think is a great venue if you can get it, over into the church. So how central is the church to sort of Ukrainian life? I mean, over in the States, you know, at this point, I would say church is fairly peripheral for most people. You know, it's sort of something that's there and they sort of tolerate it, but it's not a locus for community for a lot of Americans. And so what role does it play in Ukraine? That's a great question. So last year, I actually just looked at these stats. In 2022, about 72% of Ukrainians like claimed orthodoxy as their religion. I think it was 9% Catholic and then 2% Protestant. And so, and the more West you get in Ukraine, it was actually more, more religious. The farther East, there were actually higher, a little bit higher numbers, not, not substantially higher, but a fewer, like, I think 10% atheists, like in Eastern Ukraine, that kind of thing. So it's a highly religious context. And so coming out of the Soviet Union where, I mean, even as you see with, you know, Patriarch Kirill over in the Moscow Orthodox church, like him, not just like condoning, but kind of supporting, you know, the Kremlin and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That's that's the history, or at least the history for the parents, the grandparents here in Ukraine is orthodoxy is this kind of a part of life. It's a part of the Ukrainian heritage. And so there are a majority of Ukrainians. Again, I have nothing against orthodoxy. I think a lot of Ukrainians are there. It's just very rote. They're going through the motions, kind of doing their rights, you know, doing these things in order to kind of be clean in order to do whatever they kind of want, you know, the rest of the week. And so, and I think, I think I love liturgy and I think there's a lot to, you know, high church model and things like that, things like this. I literally just wrote a paper for the other class I'm in this semester about Kirill and Methodius and like this movement. So it's, it's all very fresh in my head. But, so the church, you know, in Lviv, especially Lviv is like one of the Western most cities geographically, and also it's one of the most Westernized cities in Ukraine, highly religious, highly religious population here. And so like on Christmas, people will just, it's common greeting to just say Christ was born today, you know, let's praise him. Or like on Easter in the church on Easter, we would say he is risen, right? Here you would say it. If I'm getting into a taxi, the driver would be like, he is risen, you know, he is risen indeed. So it's high, it's a highly religious context. And so people know who Jesus is. They believe in him. A majority do, but they don't necessarily belong to a local community. If they go to church, it's kind of, it's a personal thing, right? And then they don't, it hasn't really changed much of their behavior other than, you know, when they're celebrating certain traditions or things like this. So the Protestant church, because it's, this is changing, but even in the six and a half years that we've been here, when we first got here, it was like, we had to be super careful because the Protestant church was viewed along the lines of like, kind of like a Mormon church or Jehovah's Witnesses. And so, and there's a pretty, like Jehovah's Witnesses are kind of, they're on a lot of corners here. And so if we were to do some kind of street evangelism as Protestants, we would just be immediately lumped in with Jehovah's Witnesses. So we had to be very mindful about kind of our strategy and even like, I remember one, one exit event that we did, you know, our after school activity was at a church. And so kids, you know, some kids would walk up, see the building and just turn around and leave because they were kind of afraid of like, Oh, this cult of Christianity, this, this Protestant movement is like, because it's only 2% in the country. It's still kind of viewed as, as like something to be afraid of. It's changing and young people. I mean, you're thinking, you know, Ukraine received its independence in 91. So young people, like even in their, you know, early thirties, didn't live with that kind of like that oppression. And so young people are a lot more open, but you know, we've had young people get connected to our ministries and their parents forbid them to attend or, you know, a young person might repent and believe in Jesus and want to get baptized. But then, you know, the parents will say like, no, absolutely not. Like you've been baptized in, you know, the Orthodox church or the Catholic church. And so the church itself is prevalent. But as Protestants, like there was definitely, we had to kind of live in tension, you know, understanding kind of our, you know, what we, our ultimate goal was, but also understanding we needed to respect the authority of the school system and being in a public school, we wanted to respect their authority. We would promise, you know, to say like, we're not going to say anything from stage. We're not going to say anything, you know, we're not going to proselytize your, your students here in, in the school grounds. We're going to invite them to an afterschool activity. And because what we were offering was so high quality and there's, there was nothing else being like typically being offered like that in, in Ukrainian schools, typically even knowing who we were, Ukrainian schools would say yes on like, again, with the stipulation that we would not publicly do anything, you know, that would be questionable in a public school, which I think is understandable and reasonable. So I mean, would it be fair to sort of characterize the Orthodox church as the way I think of it, it's like the default operating system, right? And so it's, it's got its certain functions that it's going to perform, but it's not going to perform much more than that. And so what parents are really concerned about is losing that sort of something that has become very much a part of, let's say the country's heritage to a sect, right? Which in the United States sounds weird to kind of think about, right. Protestantism as a sect, as opposed to sort of the dominant religion. But for you guys in Ukraine, it's, it's a sect. It's, it's something that is viewed with a great deal of suspicion, not necessarily because of Jesus, right. You know, it's but because you're actually maybe trying to pull people away from something that is really highly valued and, and isn't a bad thing necessarily, but it doesn't seem to me like every time I've run across Orthodox churches and I, I obviously I don't have the experience with it. You do, but they don't seem particularly active on the youth side, right. They're much more just the, Hey, let's do liturgy. We'll do even song, you know, those kinds of things, which wouldn't necessarily appeal to youth. Is that a fair characterization? Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I think that is the, that's the thing that is kind of

drum lessons, like what? Like that doesn't make sense. So surely they want your money or something, surely there's some kind of catch. And so sometimes, you know, even, you know, some of the more, you know, open students, let's say, like they'll just ask right away, like, what do you want from me? You know, like, what's the catch here, you know? And it's like, dude, no, this is just, we just, we love you and we want you to have a safe place where you can be yourself and get to know this man that we love named Jesus and have him get to know you as well. So, I mean, he already knows you, but you know, be in relationship with him. And so there is this sense of, wait, this is something's different. And so, but I, I mean, I think those assumptions, once they, once they set foot typically into a ministry and experience, I mean, once you experience the love of Jesus, I mean, it's like Paul on the road to Damascus, right? I mean, once he experienced that, his life was changed, his life changed forever. And I think once you experience that love of Jesus, you know, you understand that something is different here. You know, there's this environment, there's this atmosphere that I'm feeling that I don't feel anywhere else. We've had kids that have said they're staunch atheists, come to our music ministry at our church called Fusion for years because they've, they're like, I feel different here than I feel anywhere else. So they're, they're experienced, they haven't repented and believed in Jesus yet. This, this one kid in particular I'm thinking of, but he still comes because he's experiencing something he hasn't experienced anywhere else, whether in the Orthodox church or, you know, in other places. So you're obviously getting, you know, good success with the youth. Do you see a lot of parents sort of embracing it? I mean, how does that all work? How does that bridge play out? I mean, I love the idea of the public schools and the youth and all that. And then, you know, do you get a lot of, I don't want to say converts, but people pulling over from the Orthodox church to actually be part of your local church communities simply because you're caring for their kids and they appreciate that. There had uh one of the longest running fusions in our, in our city of Ukraine. Like they had kind of this reverse thing where their kids repented and believed in Jesus. They became leaders in the, in the fusion ministry and music ministry. And then they started, like their parents would get connected. Like there was a, there was three moms that repented and believed in Jesus through their, their kids, like evangelizing to them. And so it's kind of this, this really unique, uh, flip, which is, I think pretty beautiful. Can you imagine like, I mean, I grew up in a Christian home. I can't imagine being the person that, you know, brings the gospel to my, my parents. Um, so it's this really beautiful picture where like, they actually have their own mission field right at home, you know, with their, their family and their friends and stuff. And so, um, it's not necessarily the most common thing for sure, but I, I do think that I could think of one of the guys I disciple. I, I, he was, he was one of the most skeptic, skeptical people, but he just loved our group. And I would always, he was the first guy I shared the gospel with in Ukrainian. And, uh, it was something like 967 days from when I met him. I actually taught English at his school. That's how he got connected. They came to our English club and then he got connected to our music ministry, heard the gospel a bunch of times. And we were actually at home on home assignment when he repented and believed in Jesus. And I was just like, wow, man, I couldn't have been there with you. Um, he did video chat me that night. Yeah, you could have waited then. So I was like, all right, it's, it's an important decision. You can do it while, while I'm gone. But, uh, but like his mom was just like really afraid, you know, of, of, and, and she's actually, she, she kind of rejects just religion in general. Um, she would say that there's, you know, they're in it for the money, things like that. And so, um, you know, a lot of, and he, he still has doubts. And I, I tell him like, dude, brother, that's totally normal. Like, like there is, you know, faith, faith. Yeah. Everybody has, has them. Absolutely. Um, but his mom was definitely pretty afraid at first, kind of like, what are you getting involved in? And he's just, he's gotten super involved. He became like, he's our, our lighting director at our church. Just, uh, he's like sings on one of our worship teams. You know, he was kind of Just all in, you know. And, um, his mom was really concerned, but I think at, you know, she, Our music ministry does concerts at the end of every semester and after the camp. And she would come and attend the concert to watch her son play. And, uh, and that was just kind of getting there, hearing us speak, realizing we're not, we're not trying to manipulate. We're not trying to, you know, get money or, you know, I don't know, we're not, we're not doing anything strange. We love Jesus and we love your kid, you know? And so, um, I think that, you know, once you have those interactions, it just helps, helps them open up. She, I don't think she has attended, I don't think ever, like a service herself. Um, I think she's listened to like our, you know, our, our broadcast. And then her son has, a lot of the questions her son asks me, like when we, uh, spend time together will be like things that, he's like, is your mom asking you this? And, and, you know, so, so he's trying to be equipped. That's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. That's a really cool. Well, some things, you know, some things trickling over are great, but yeah, unfortunately some things not as, not as good. Not, not so good. Well, you know, you got us up to COVID, so, um, you know, your last event at the schools was in October, 2019. So COVID hits, you know, you sort of have to do something different. What did you guys end up doing through COVID? How did, I mean, was it lockdowns and shutdowns and all that kind of fun stuff in Ukraine too? Or how did that operate for you all? Ukraine was one of the, became one of the most open European countries. Um, and so we were, we were, it's hard, honestly, my memory since the start of the war is really bad. Like that's just a fog in there. I think it was, it was just, we had a few months of lockdown, not like, you know, not anything super strict. We could go to the grocery store, you know, we could go, you know, to essential places or whatever. They're, you know, um, take, we could, I remember just doing daily walks. Our, our youngest, or excuse me, our oldest was, should have been, uh, turning two at the time. And then we were, he was pregnant with our second. Um, and so COVID, uh, we kind of just stepped back and tried, uh, you know, just Sideventure tries to be an innovative organization. And I know that was, that was kind of a buzzword during COVID, like innovate, pivot, all those things. So we, you know, we tried to reinvent school ministry and at that time I had actually just become, I was the director of the exit school ministry in Ukraine. I had just become the international exit director at that point. Like my first international meeting was like going to be in March of, you know, 2020 or whatever. And so that, that didn't happen. And so, um, it was just kind of this trying to, trying to step back and say, okay, how do we, how do we kind of support schools? How do we bless teachers? So we would do English lessons online. We would, we actually started, um, through Exit, we had a great, and not just through Exit, but through like years and years of kind of, um, really grind work that our, uh, one of our co-leaders, uh, Christy Williams did early, you know, she's, her and her husband

have been here. There are team leaders that have been here for 16 years, maybe 17 now. And so years and years, they were just trying to teach English in schools, you know, get, get some grunt work to, like, literally, we had the Department of Education in Lviv asking our organization to equip their teachers with a lecture series. So during COVID, we were like doing Zoom lectures with, you know, a couple hundred teachers on the Zoom. Actually, tomorrow I'm doing a lecture. We're continuing that on. So it's still something that post-COVID is doing, still a Zoom thing. Yeah, so I'll do a lecture on the five top teen addictions. That'll be fun tomorrow. But it's that, like, we just tried to do, to just still be present as we could. And then once the challenge was, is that exit, the exit school program, the tour portion was such a massive thing. And schools started doing, you know, rotations where this day, this class would go and the next day they wouldn't, and that kind of sort of thing. And so exit tour, this kind of large-scale program just became unfeasible. And so we were doing the small scale school ministry. I was trying to help launch that in some other countries into side venture, but a lot of other countries were far stricter than, than Ukraine was. And so we, that, it just became language intensive, you know, where we just really tried to bolster our Ukrainian and local church ministry, and then as much national ministry as possible. So kind of a lot of us, like most of our school ministry became really small scale. I would go into schools and teach English and things like that. But none of this kind of, none of those big events that we were doing pre-COVID. Exactly, yeah. Well, cool. So post-COVID, now you're sort of in the throes of the conflict. And so help us understand, you know, how that's impacted your ministry and what's really going on. Yeah, so when, when Russia invaded again in February 24th of last year, you know, 2022, that, we were here. We were here in Lviv. And It was early. It was like 5 in the morning or something like that. I remember waking up super early, didn't look at my phone, had a, I had a great morning with the Lord. And then, you know, we, we were having for the last, probably month to two months leading up to the war. We were having kind of daily, all of the second culture staff. So we have a, we have at that point, we had, I think seven American units and one Czech family that we were meeting daily on zoom in the morning, like early in the morning, just to talk through everything. Like, we were getting, I was, I got a couple of calls from the State Department in the weeks leading up to, you know, the invasion just saying like, hey, are you staying? Why aren't you leaving? You know, where are you located? Sign up for this thing so we can help you if you need it. And so there was just obviously a lot going on just with Russia kind of posturing on the borders. And then that morning, I remember that we all met on zoom and then, you know, and then they were telling, they were all sharing with me, even my wife was, had looked and seen these images of, you know, tanks crossing the border, you know, just, just devastation. Airports had all had all gotten attacked with, with missiles. And then, you know, air raid siren starts in our city. And that was kind of like, okay, like this, we have a decision to make now. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide, or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. You know, a go bag. Our car was full. Our car actually has, you know, unleaded fuel and natural gas tanks. And they're both totally full. Like I would always keep them full. So we could drive like to Spain, you know, if we needed to. And so it was, it was, we were ready, but when that happened, it was like, oh no, what do we do? So we, we, we started packing and our Ukrainian teammates that actually, they are from the east and they moved, you know, um, initially in 2014. Um, and They recommended that all foreigners leave the country because at that point, I mean, early on, you just didn't know what to expect. You know, if Russia invades and they occupy, you know, you become a potential bargaining chip or whatever for the Russian army or for the Russian government to use. And so there was just, we were advised to leave. That was, that was, that was a really, that was, you know, we'd never. Even though everything was happening, you know, around Ukraine, like they were posturing and, you know, threatening invasion and all this. Like I have a video, a Marco Polo I sent to one of my friends in America on February 23rd, just of me in city center in Lviv just being like, see, life is normal here. Like everyone's freaking out, you know, everything's, you know, everything's fine. And then the next morning, you know, we're, we're driving out of the country. You know, I was calling, calling the guys I disciple, calling our pastor of a local church. And, and I remember this conversation I had with the pastor of a local church. Like he, like, he was just like, you guys are great missionaries. Like he essentially said goodbye, you know, assuming that we would, we would be gone for good, you know? Um, it was just, it was just such a foggy moment where you just didn't know what was going to happen. And it was that week at an international meeting I had that week, one of our, one of my teammates that lives in the Czech Republic, um, he had offered like, hey, if something happens, you just have, you have a place to stay here. So I like, you know, I called him on that drive, like, hey, we're coming, man. Yeah. Hope you meant it. Yeah, it's like, yeah, he did. He did, but I guess you got it. He had a lot of people in his house that first week, um, including us. But it took, we were like, it was 13 hours at the border, um, you know, just, just standing there waiting to get out. And that was, that was one of the quickest on our team. We had some teammates that waited 60 hours just in a car in line just trying to get out because, I mean, that was the And it was like Poland up to that point, Poland had like very strict border crossing laws where you couldn't cross, like, it was just like, because COVID, like, like COVID restrictions. You could fly into the country, but you couldn't drive in at that point. And so it was just like, you know, chaos where they were just like, okay, that doesn't, that's not a good law anymore. So that, that morning, uh, we left. We got to check the next morning at 5 a.m. check time. Um, I'd been awake for, you know, 24 hours or whatever. And our, the president of our organization, I was one of the first of our teammates to get out. Um, and so our president of our organization calls me and says, hey, we're meeting tonight. We want to talk strategy. And I'm, you know, delirious. Like, I just, I don't know what my life is anymore, you know? So I'm like, of course, like I'll be there. And so that we really started that week, you know, sending buses in to evacuate people full of humanitarian aid, getting humanitarian aid in. And so for those first, so from that moment, really, you know, late February, all the way up until late April, um, our whole Daciavich Ukraine team and a lot of the neighboring countries totally shifted their focus to war support, you know, humanitarian aid, uh, receiving refugees. And honestly, dude, I've, I mean, that is the Protestant church, I think, in Ukraine in those months and, and even the first, even up until this point, uh, really, that's, I think some of the perception of the Protestant church began to change because of the response the church had both within Ukraine and outside of it. Um, I, I don't know that there was a single Protestant church that didn't have Ukrainian refugees living in it in all of the neighboring, you know, in Ukraine, Western Ukraine, Central Ukraine, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Germany, all the way up to, you know, the Balkans.

Working and all of our Ukrainian teammates save a couple families, a couple of women and kids, stayed in Ukraine. So we had people do, you know, we would send humanitarian aid in, our Ukrainian teammates would receive it, and then they would be the ones distributing it to local churches. And it was all happening through local churches, you know, Christian volunteers. The people driving the food to the front line areas, they're youth pastors, they're youth workers, they're these volunteers that they want to help, they want to be the hands and feet of Jesus, and they're literally, you know, going to the front lines and delivering, you know, physical aid. But also, we talked about this kind of two-handed approach where we wanted to also provide for spiritual needs too. And there are churches close to the front lines now that had, you know, a few dozen members before the war that have now hundreds of people. Like, people will line up, you know, an hour before service because they want to get a seat. And so I do think that, you know, when there's a clear evil, when there's a clear need, and there's, you know, people that are meeting that clear need, you know, obviously that's going to impact people's hearts. And so for those first months, it was all kind of humanitarian aid and refugees. I mean, it was as much as we could get in and as many as we could get out. I think we ended up, I was in charge of organizing the buses along with two teammates, two of my teammate Lisa and my teammate Elena here. And we evacuated 3,280 people and found that, like, those are people we got to, like, we would bring them into our, we have the hotel that you stayed at when we had our classes in Czech Republic. That was one of our hubs. And we had another hub not far down the road in Poland. So those were full of just Ukrainians, you know. And we would be there to greet them in their home language, you know, in Ukrainian language. Some people had a place, had family somewhere that they could get to, and we'd help get them there for free, give them some cash, you know, to help get them there. Some people came and they only had their backpack, they had their suitcase. They'd lost everything, you know. They left eastern Ukraine and they have nowhere to go. And so we would find them, there would be a local church would take them in, a family would take them in. So that's what we were doing. And it was, I mean, it was, you know, it was 18-hour days. I mean, it was just insane, dude. It was intense, you know. And when you're, you know, get home, you just check the news, you know. You're just, are my friends okay? You know, what's going on here? And so it was just kind of this, I got into a really, a really unhealthy, you know, rhythm of just, you know, not sleeping much, just, you know, so much. I mean, it was just, you want to help, you know. And buses, buses would cross the border and the drivers would call me at two in the morning and be like, hey, where am I going? You know, so it was just chaos, man. It was chaos. And then we had a, our organization does an annual spring conference in the beginning of May. So leading up to that, that was kind of like the pivot point for our team where some of our folks that were here went back into Ukraine immediately following that conference. My wife and I and our two kids, we went to America for three weeks to raise money for our Ukrainian teammates. And then coming home from that trip to America, we moved back to Ukraine. That was June 3rd of 2022. So about, when would that be? That'd be March, April, May. So about four months after the start of the war, three months and some change after the start of the war, we moved back to Lviv of Ukraine and have been here ever since. And so you started kind of back, easing back into your more normal ministry endeavors, right? What are you seeing that's different? Like, how are people feeling different? Because I know a lot of this migration you're talking about and the refugees are coming east to west, right? And so there's, there are some cultural differences that I know you and I talked about. We were there in class that are kind of influencing things, but also just, you know, the dynamic you talked about. The Protestant church now has shown up, right? And shown up in a way that they didn't have to. There's no, there's nothing in it for them, right? And so it sort of starts to diffuse some of those maybe objections that it's like, well, these people are only out for money. Well, not when they're sending food and buses and to people who have nothing that can pay them. All right. So, yeah. What's the new dynamic like? How new is it? Good question. Yeah, it's for us, you know, because Josiah Venture Ukraine, you know, there was about half our team that, less than half our team probably left the country and more than half stayed because there was a constant presence and a constant, we were constantly trying to, you know, serve, empower and equip our local church partners. And, you know, this church would tell this other church about, you know, hey, Josiah Venture Ukraine has sent me, you need some aid, like call them, they'll get you a truck, a semi-truck or whatever. So our network of local churches that we worked with really expanded. Okay. And so I remember, you know, we had our first like team Zoom. I don't even remember when this was. It might have been April. You know, it was like months after the start. So it's just, you imagine, you know, we're all just running a hundred miles an hour and then we stop and get on a Zoom. That was actually a weird, like, you know, Ukraine, part of the survival instinct is some dark humor, you know. So there was a lot of laughter, you know. I don't know that other people would have been laughing, you know, if they had been a fly on the wall there, but it was a real sweet time to kind of just be back together as a team. We hadn't been together, you know, in a long time. And I remember just our team just kind of just refocusing. And our team leaders did an incredible job. Ben and Christy Williams did an unbelievable job just kind of assigning, like, being able to understand needs and just kind of say, okay, here's a group of people that can do, like, you'll be responsible for, you know, organizing trauma renewal retreats. Or you'll be communicating with these churches. You'll be doing this. And then churches, it's like end of May, and all these churches start contacting us and, like, and asking us, hey, are you guys still doing camps this summer? And we were like, we were planning on it. Like, we didn't think that was going to be a thing at all. And we ended up organizing 13 camps. And everything Josiah Venture does is through the local church. So this is empowering 13 churches to do, you know, to do youth camps. And it was, and that, you have to understand, that was, I think, the most we had ever done in Ukraine. And so it was just absolutely, and that was in 2022 when the war, the year of the war started, the summer of the war started. This summer we did double that. And so ministry is just booming. That's the bad word to use. Ministry is really, you know, it's absolutely enlargening in an unbelievable way. I think, you know, when there's, again, when there's great need and there's people trying to offer to meet those needs as best they can. You know, I think a lot of youth teams are broken. You know, youth pastors are gone serving the front lines or delivering aid, you know, or half the team, you know, some of the team has left the country. And so when you kind of, when the dust settles, you realize, man, we need help. Like, we don't have the same capacity that we had before. Oh, there's this youth organization that does, that equips youth teams for ministry. Oh, they have some resources that they can help us, you know, supplement, you know, camp scholarships for some of our young people. You know, and so I think just because by the grace of God, and this is, again, this is all through local churches in, you know, rest of Europe. This is also local churches, churches and individuals across the world that are sending finances, that are asking how they can help, that are coming and doing what they can. So the fact that we had financial resources, but then also that our team was able to be present again. You know, we were all almost, almost our entire team was back on the ground in Ukraine that summer. And so kind of the unthinkable almost happened where, you know, ministry is just absolutely, as literally probably tripled or quadrupled because the need is greater. You know, and like what Jesus talked about, you know, the workers are fewer, I would say now. You know, there are some organizations that have left and unfortunately they, you know, there's just fewer, fewer workers, you know, both foreign and domestic. There's fewer Ukrainians. You know, unfortunately that's due partially to the fact that a lot of men and women are serving on the front lines. A lot of people have passed, have perished because of the war and people have

you'll read about Katie and I's ministry in Ukraine. You can just put a slash humerian, H-U-M-E-R-I-A-N. And, you know, one of our social media manager, Gwen, does a phenomenal job posting our podcast as well. She has some great stories on there. She has stories with, you know, even if you wanted to hear more about, you know, Josiah Adventure's work during the beginning of the war or just, you know, and kind of a whole spectrum of things. Those are awesome ways to connect. Any social media, Josiah Adventure, that's the way to connect. Nice. We'll put, I'll make sure we get some of that in the show notes. And just encourage everybody to take a look at this. I mean, I know we've got Israel going on right now. And so over in the States, you know, Ukraine has taken a bit of a backseat to Israel at this point, but obviously still going on. Obviously, the church still stepping up. Obviously, a lot of needs still there. And so we want to make sure we get the word out about it and keep folks kind of in the loop about what's happening in Ukraine. So Lee, thanks for being here, man. Thanks for taking the time. I know it's probably, I don't even know what time it is over there. Almost 10 p.m. So not too bad. There you go. So not too bad. Not too bad. I knew it wasn't 2 in the afternoon, but I wasn't sure what time it was. So thanks for taking the time, bro. I really appreciate it. And everybody check out some of these links in the show notes where you can connect and look at what Josiah Adventure is doing and be prayerful about the folks who are working over in Ukraine, but also be prayerful about how you might help out in Ukraine. So thanks, Lee. And I really appreciate you being here. And we'll have to do it again sometime. I would love that, man. It's a privilege. Thank you, man. All right, man. Take care. I want to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you will find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. What do you do when your world is falling apart? How do you march when it would be easier to stay where you are and die? Join me every week on the March or Die podcast, and we'll discuss that and so much more.