About a week ago, I got back from Kharkiv, where I taught a seminar about planning contextualized worship based on a seminary course that Dr. Jim Ehrhard and I put together and based on my masters thesis concerning 1 Corinthians 9:19–23. The church leaders there were very receptive, even surprisingly so; however, while I was there, civilian parts of the city were hit by guided bombs, which are one of the most powerful weapons that russia has in its aggression against Ukraine. This is not the only way that they specifically target civilians—I saw yesterday that a “shakhed” drone was used to kill a mother and her child while they were out walking in a park in that same area. The child was killed instantly in a stroller, while the mother died several hours later in the hospital.
Even with all of that, God is still moving in Ukraine. He is still shining and helping us to be a light here. Yesterday, I returned from another short trip to a songwriting retreat with Room for More, which is a collective of songwriters led by Jon Markey, a pastor and American missionary living in Ternopil, about two hours from Lviv. We went to the mountains to get away, write songs, share them with one another, and help each other to finish our songs.
It was a huge blessing to be able to meet other songwriters and to feel a part of that community. Two of the girls from our worship team also went with me, Ira Khryniuk and Katya Kravchuk. Ira is just getting started as a songwriter, but her first two songs are simply amazing, while Katya has written dozens of songs, both worship-related and otherwise. Please pray for the three of us, as we are probably the main three songwriters that will be working on the worship album for Ukrainian Bible Church in Lviv.
This war isn’t going anywhere soon, especially with the sanctions being removed against russia by Trump; however, we are still committed to be a light, to minister, and even to continue writing worship songs in this time of great need in Ukrain. Please continue to pray for our safety—over just the past 24 hours, there have been 15 air raids in Lviv alone, where we live, which is one of the safer cities in Ukraine. An air raid means that a missile or drone is headed toward the city and ends either when the munitions hit their target or are destroyed by our anti-aircraft forces.
