Day 603
But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,
my glory, and the lifter of my head.
Psalm 3:3
In the anthem of Ukraine, there are lines:
Our enemies shall vanish like dew in the sun.
We, too shall rule, brothers, in our country.
I haven’t been able to sing these lines ever since the full-scale invasion. I start choking and desperately beg God to remove our enemies so that they vanish, like dew in the sun. What a beautiful image, yet how hard it is to wait for its fulfillment!
Today, I saw a video shared by my friends from YWAM Kyiv. They continue their Waves of Hope project that brings restoration where Russia had brought destruction. They were rebuilding homes in the east of Ukraine in a village that used to be part of the active combat zone. There was worship and evangelism, but what touched me the most was a boy leading the villagers and the YWAM team in singing the Anthem. How long have these people been waiting for the enemies to vanish?
The anthem continues with the chorus:
We’ll not spare either our souls or bodies to get freedom
and we’ll prove that we, brothers, are of Cossack descent.
And once again, I am amazed by how prophetic these lines are, and I’m weeping, thinking about all the lives that were cut short in this fight for freedom. However, there is no turning back.
Lord, we beg for your mercy and justice!
Voice of Ukraine 
One response to “10/20/2023 – Our enemies shall vanish like dew in the sun…”
Four months ago:
“6/30/2023 –From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 491):
By this I know that you delight in me:
my enemy will not shout in triumph over me.
But you have upheld me because of my integrity,
and set me in your presence forever.
Psalm 41:11-12
I wish we could collect all the miracle stories of this war as a testimony of God’s goodness. I wish we could trace the lives of all the people who witnessed God’s power and see how these encounters affected their life paths.
Today, I read a story (by Reporters.) of a 16-year-old Mykyta from Bakhmut. They say his story is told and retold in the Lviv hospital as a miracle story.
Mykyta was one of the few minors who stayed in Bakhmut for so long. They kept putting off evacuation, but when life became unbearable, they packed their belongings and were ready to leave. It was January. Mykyta took his 14-year-old nephew and went to get some water from a local water station. That’s when that location was shelled. His nephew died on the spot, and Mykyta was severely wounded. His arms and legs were fractured, and he had a chest injury, a broken rib, a broken shoulder blade, and a damaged left lung. A man found him and took him to a military medical point near Bakhmut, but it was overflowing with wounded soldiers, so the boy received some urgent care and was sent to the next big city. Having passed through several hospitals, he ended up in Lviv. Mykyta was barely conscious this whole time and kept wondering if he would ever see his mom again. Thankfully, the Ukrainian military helped her evacuate the next day.
In Lviv, the doctors removed a three-centimeter-long (1.2″) metal fragment from Mykyta’s chest. The fragment was a hundredth of a millimeter from the heart at the time of the surgery. The operating surgeons say it’s a miracle that the fragment did not damage the two major heart vessels; otherwise, the boy would have died in seconds. He also believes that the boy’s life was spared for something important. Mykyta is sure that he survived to become a car mechanic and return to Ukrainian Bakhmut to see the city rebuilt from the ashes.
Before the full-scale war, Mykyta and his mother weren’t religious, but this experience changed that. “God gave me a second chance. Now I have two birthdays. The doctors said that I was born in a bulletproof vest,” the boy says. Mykyta and his mom were baptized in the hospital chapel.
“Write his name in Your book of life, join him to Your flock, so that through him Your holy name and Your beloved Son and Your Life-giving Spirit will be glorified”
(from a traditional prayer during the sacrament of baptism)”
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