From: Sergei Nakul (pastor of Big City Church in Kyiv and military chaplain): Today was the usual service, with the usual songs, with the usual sermon, with the usual reading of St. John. Letters, with ordinary prayers, with ordinary donations, with ordinary church members, with ordinary pastor. But in all this seemingly ordinaryness shone the unusual, incredible, inspiring, grand, breathtaking unusualness of our extraordinary God the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Spirit! He chose our ordinary to fill it with his unusual! And this is the unusual beauty of the ordinary worship!
God can do extraordinary things. And He makes them. From time to time. When He sees fit. But, at the same time, He acts in ordinary things to which we may get accustomed to and which may not impress us, though in their ordinary power. This is what our fathers in the faith called ordinary means of grace (ordinary means of grace) – the Holy Scriptures, mysteries, prayer. Faithful use, on a regular basis, of these ordinary means of grace, in the context of Christian koinonia, in our ordinary everyday lives, is more than sufficient. We can admire unusual things and expect them. The main thing is that we do not forget to admire the ordinary means of grace, and to appreciate them.
Voice of Ukraine 
6 responses to “1/7/2024 – He chose our ordinary to fill it with his unusual!”
One year ago:
From Lyuda (Day 319): Dear brothers and sisters, Yesterday we had a nice completion of a Christmas season. As we gathered with our group of refugees in the café a local folk musicians came to play for us. It was such a joy to sing Christmas carols and Ukrainian folk songs. There are many carols very joyful and happy proclaiming the new era that came with the birth of Savior who was born from the virgin. In the old times these carols were widely performed all over Ukraine.
During the time of the Soviet Union time the godless rulers worked hard to make people forget their traditions trying to substitute the main holiday with pagan celebration of the New Year and fairy tale images.
But people still remember these songs, they were passed from mouth to mouth, from grandmothers to mothers and from mothers to children. The folk songs are beautiful, too. One of them which I love very much is “Cheremshyna”about a shepherd taking his sheep home in the evening. He walks through the wood listening to birdsong enjoying the smell of blooming cheremshyna (bird cherry bushes) and from the other side his girl-friend is walking to meet him. Their date place is near the river where the shepherd stops to let his sheep drink cool water.
Yesterday evening our music group were preparing for the worship and also they planned the new program for this month. Vika, the girl from our youth group, is learning playing the guitar and is very exited to be a part of our music group. The music style of our group is changing, they learn many new hymns. They stayed in the church till late and Sergey stayed with them. We are glad that Veronica, the girl who came back to the church after her long absence, is also showing interest and wants to help with sound system. Ivan is teaching her to do it.
We wish you to have a good worship today.
In Christ,
Lyuda
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From: Lyuda Betina ( Day 677):
Dear brothers and sisters,
Happy New Year! We wish you a year full of blessings and joy! May God bless your families and your churches.
In our culture, New Year has always been a big holiday and people usually celebrated all night with fireworks and champagne. But this year, the first day of the new year is a day of mourning for us.
Massive attacks on our cities continued throughout the holiday season. Odessa suffered many blows. The drone attack continued all new year night and there are deaths, ruined buildings, and wounded people. This morning, the city is recovering from the attack along with the whole country.
In the midst of all what is happening now our church seem to be an island of safety and stability. We had a very good Christmas worship full of love and joy. Our church building is very warm and light due to the solar batteries we installed on the roof. The program that our youth prepared was wonderful.
We were glad to have Dr. Anya and all her family with us. Vitaliy, her husband was back home from the hospital and could come to the church. Now he is in hospital again, he has just had a surgery on his arm. Please, pray for the recovery of the functions of his arm.
Our youth decided to spend new year’s night in church, not so much to celebrate, but simply to be together. They cooked dinner together and prepared a movie to watch. Sergey and I came in the evening and spent some time with them. It is a great blessing to see them grow and mature.
Christmas is a good reason to visit people, greet them and bring them a good news. We made a lot of home visits last week and each of them was special. We also prepared Christmas programs for the groups we lead.
With a big joy the local defense group responded to the program we prepared for them. They listened to a Christmas story and we had some discussion of the events when Jesus was born, then we played hand bells and gave gifts. The volunteers and the soldiers there all joined our meeting and were very happy. I am so glad that the hearts of people are open for a good news now.
But the most exciting event happened when we visited our neighbor Victor on Christmas day. We have been caring for this person for quite some time. He is seriously ill and has been on the verge of death several times. He is very lonely. His adult children do not communicate with him, holding a grudge for having been abandoned by him in childhood. He does not know how to build relationships with people due to his tough character. It was very difficult for us to talk to him about spiritual things, because he didn’t want to listen about God. But we continued to visit him, bringing him food and helping with different things. Sergey gave him injections and helped with other medical procedures. At some point we saw him smiling, this was great progress for a man who lived in anger all the time. Last week we came to him on Christmas day in the morning, brough him some food, put a white table cloth on his table, we decorated his room to give him an atmosphere of Christmas. He felt very bad that day, he could hardly breathe and could not get up from his bed. Sergey gave him a shot and helped him to use breathing apparatus. I sat down on his bed and asked if I could pray for him, he said yes. I prayed and then I asked if he would pray with me. He wheezed that he would like to but it is very hard for him to talk. I told him that he can repeat after me mentally. I prayed the repentance prayer asking Jesus to come into the heart and he prayed with me. It was a miracle. When Sergey visited him few hours later he saw that Victor felt better, he could get up and eat. The next day he could talk better, he told Sergey he wants to go to the church with us. He is still too week to go somewhere but we ask God to strengthen him and give him this opportunity to go to the church and to see the atmosphere when the body of Christ meets together.
The situation at the front is very difficult. The enemy is constantly sending barrages of fire towards our positions. Our soldiers are very tired, but they are holding on with all their might. Paul Lukoshkin came home for two days last week, but we did not see him. He was so tired that slept almost all the time. We received messages of gratitude from the military to whom we sent the packages with gifts. We are glad that we were able to bring them at least a little joy.
Despite the fact that the situation is very difficult and it doesn’t seem like anything can change in our favor, we never stop hoping and believing in Victory. And Victory comes with the Lord.
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One year ago- Jan.20, 2023
From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 330)
..Today’s picture (credit unknown) shows an incredible rainbow seen in many parts of Kyiv today. A rainbow in January is a unique phenomenon, but I’m sure it was not accidental – “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” (Genesis 9:17)
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From: Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 704):
May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
may the Lord rejoice in his works,
who looks on the earth and it trembles,
who touches the mountains and they smoke!
Psalm 104:31-32
It’s interesting how, often in our conversations, we slip into memories of the first weeks of the invasion. We retell these stories to each other for the hundredth time, yet we will return to them the next time we see each other.
There are also plans we still make for the time “when the war is over.” There are so many places we want to show our son, and he keeps asking if we’ll ever go there.
Our memories help us keep hoping. Today, we stopped at a Crimean Tatar stand to get some of their traditional food. It immediately brought back the good old memories of the places we visited in Crimea and worrisome wondering about people we knew who still live there. We were telling our son stories of our visits there, and it felt like we were telling him about another planet just because it feels so distant and unreachable now.
Well, at least we have the memories. But our children don’t. Many of them were too young to remember life before the full-scale war (let alone the initial invasion of 2014).
We hold on to our memories and God’s faithfulness, and that’s where our hope is found.
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