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 In his article "Freedom Isn't Free: An Independence Day Reminder From the War in Ukraine," Nolan Peterson writes - "This is a place of mourning. In July 2014, the ground here was covered in framed photos, candles, and flower garlands. Bullet holes scarred the surrounding street signs and trees. The bullet holes are still there today. On that day in July 2014, my first in Ukraine, a crowd lingered around this otherwise ordinary patch of earth." I've been there too. The first time was summer 1983 on a tour with my family. Ukraine then was part of the USSR. Our guide was a school teacher who was earning extra money during the summer. She was committed to socialism. She showed us blocks of apartment buildings under construction, saying the goal was to have 50 square meters (about 550 sq. ft.) for a family of four. I told her that our own house in America had 50 square meters for each of the four people in our family, two cars in the garage, etc. What I didn't say was that 4 or 5 of our coworkers had been killed behind the Iron Curtain, and that I had been arrested there once. We had been on a team that smuggled millions of Bibles, New Testaments, and Christian books behind the Iron Curtain. Several of us spent time in communist jails. Many of our contacts were Christians who led the protests that eventually brought an end to communism in Eastern Europe. Some then became leaders of those countries. One was Cardinal Woytila, who became Pope John Paul II. Later, in 1991, my wife and I were in Moscow during the coup that attempted to overthrow Mikhail Gorbchiov: tanks in the streets, crowds by the hundreds of thousands demonstrating, soldiers with machine guns guarding public buildings. We ended up spending 17 years in Russia as missionaries, and went back to Ukraine in 2009 to speak at an international conference for workers with disabled people. Get the whole story: read the full article & get our free weekly newsletter: subscribe below! |