Some people might be thinking, “Why are you going back to Ukraine? Why aren’t all of the missionaries pulling out of there right now? Isn’t that place a warzone??!??” I understand. The only answer we really have is, “It’s harvest time.”

Before we left, Katya and I were talking with a friend, and she showed us a section of the book “No Longer a Slumdog” by K. P. Yohannon. It was very encouraging in what we were doing. The quote really speaks for itself:

Someone once said, “Harvest is a fixed time.” In my village in India, there are hundreds of farmers. My own brothers are farmers. When harvest time comes, no one goes on vacation. No one says, “Let’s go away for a month and enjoy life; then we’ll come back and do the work.” Why?

Because within a few weeks time, the rain will begin to fall. The season will change, and the entire harvest will be destroyed if it is not brought in. We must never say, “Later… tomorrow… next month… two years from now I’ll be part of the harvest.” The opportunity will be gone.

That quote is exactly what we are feeling about Ukraine – now is the time to be there. Now is the time to go! We were at a church a couple of weeks ago that was considering scaling back their missions to Ukraine because of the risk… I understand! I don’t believe anyone should go and throw themselves in front of danger just because it’s a rush or something. We, as Christians, are commanded “not to test the Lord thy God.” However, as Jesus said, as long as we have light, we need to be at work. In other words – as long as we have the opportunity to get the Gospel out to as many people as possible, we need to be about that work.