Voice of Ukraine

From: Maia Mikhaluk in Kyiv— 1111st day.

What Ukrainian church learned under fire.

Yesterday I posted a quote from Elon Musk’s recent interview to Rogan. Musk claims that empathy is a fundamental weakness of Western civilization. Rogan and Musk discuss how empathy is being weaponized and how it can be exploited. It is scary that some Christians resonate with this line of logic. Some speak about it openly, others will not say it, but silently align with it.

I am trying to understand how someone who says he/she is a follower of Christ can buy into this idea. People are getting pushed or willingly march into a scarcity mentality. When people focus on what they lack, they develop tunnel vision. When you believe there are not enough resources to go around, you begin thinking of others as competitors instead of individuals God has called you to love and serve. Then, of course, empathy should be silenced. I can understand how an atheist could think that. But God’s logic is so often opposite to human logic and that’s the beauty of it!

Let me share some of our experience over the past 3 years of war and various shortages. A year ago Kyiv was almost under siege, ruzzian troops were pushing on the capital, suburbs were occupied. The grocery stores in Kyiv were getting emptier, though there was no food hoarding – people were respectful to each other and bought every day what they needed for that day and next. Around that time, pastor Krotik Dima (Uman church) brought a van full of food to our church. It wasn’t just store-bought food. There were a lot of homemade jars of meat. Christians in Buzivka village, Uman region were slaughtering their pigs to send food to people in Kyiv who were under ruzzian siege. Was it a smart thing to do by human standards? The whole Ukraine was under attack. Resources were getting short. Shouldn’t people in Uman have saved their resources rather than helping some strangers in Kyiv?

Dima’s church has been faithfully serving thousands of internally displaced in their own community and for three years they continue making trips to areas that have been liberated from ruzzian occupiers. Those trips are not just tiring, at times they are dangerous as volunteer teams get to villages close to the front lines.

We have two dozen churches in our network. Most churches serve their communities sacrificially. But we do have a few churches that chose to go into “saving mode.” Who knows what tomorrow brings, right? Those churches don’t grow. If the church chooses to serve only its own, it stagnates—first of all spiritually. Looking at our churches, we can see a direct correlation between the church’s generosity to those outside of the church and the spiritual growth of people and church growth in numbers.

But how about empathy weaponized or exploiting the one who feels it? I believe we experience empathy, and we serve others, not with the expectation of getting something for ourselves. We feel the pain of others, and we help them because it’s the right thing to do. Of course, we are rejoicing when people understand that it’s God who is compelling us to serve and Who is helping them, we are overjoyed when someone comes to Christ. But our help does not have strings attached. People don’t always say thank you. Back in 2015, we were delivering food to Opytone, a town very close to the front lines, and after we distributed the food boxes and were leaving the area, someone from the locals coordinated a mine attack on our van. Did we feel exploited and stopped helping? Being shot at felt unfair, but we didn’t stop our humanitarian efforts. Galatians 6:9: Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Personally for me, the darkest time was when we were in constant curfews, sitting in our makeshift bomb shelter and not able to do much other than read news and worry about Sasha’s last days of pregnancy and safe arrival of our first grandchild. When ruzzian were pushed away from Kyiv and we were able to start humanitarian aid trips to areas that were liberated from ruzzians – it felt like a great relief – we were doing something to help others rather than focusing on our own fears.

I think all this is relevant to countries as much as to people and churches. Isolationism and justified selfishness will not lead to prosperity and happiness. A scarcity mindset leads to anxiety and depression. It will most likely lead to increasing one’s military budget in the long term. When you lose all your friends, suspecting that they are taking advantage of you, you don’t become stronger.

I totally disagree with Musk and Rogan. Empathy is a strength, but selfishness and greed for money and power are civilization’s weaknesses.

PS. The photos in this post are from a recent humanitarian aid project done by Uman Church Resurrection of Christ