A LIGHT FOR UKRAINE’S PATH

BY SERHIY BASARAB

On a sunny weekend in August of 1989 my friends took me, a young University of Notre Dame student, to Chicago. They said that as a Ukrainian I must see the Ukrainian Village. It was quite a memorable experience. We visited many interesting places, including a small bookstore. There I found a Bible in Ukrainian. It was rather expensive for a student, but I decided to purchase it anyway: at that time Ukrainian Bibles were almost impossible to come by in Soviet Ukraine.

Could I (or anyone else) foresee that in two years a Bible Society would be formed in Kyiv, and by the fall of 2018 it would print and distribute about 12 million copies of the Word of God?

I was meditating on these things this past Thursday, November 9, when I took a group of MMK colleagues to the central office of the Ukrainian Bible Society.

We are grateful to the UBS leadership – Dr. Grigory Komendant, Father Vasyl Lutsishin and Anatoliy Raichinets – for extending this invitation. It was a mutually beneficial dialogue. On the one hand, my colleagues Irina, Sasha and Oksana were able to gain deeper insights into multi-faceted activities of the Bible Society. On the other hand, we were able to share what MMK does as a UBS partner.

Quite often our mission is associated primarily with sacred music. The KSOC concerts presenting Bible-based classics in the language of the people are well known and deeply appreciated. We were able to broaden that perspective by focussing on less familiar aspects of MMK. The UBS leaders listened with great interest to Irina Donchenko’s story about her Bible lessons and counseling sessions in Donbass. 

Irina told about one widow who confessed she spent all of her life investing wrongly in material things. Instead, she should have invested in THIS — and she showed to Irina a large print New Testament, a present from MMK. It was equally moving to hear Oksana Polevichenko tell a story about young military widows who are drawn to the Word of God. Three of them have joined a weekly Bible study at Central Baptist Church in Kyiv.

MMK has been a member and partner of the Ukrainian Bible Society since 2006. MMK representatives have sat on UBS board. Kyiv Symphony Chorus have sung at UBS conferences. Over this period of time, we have purchased and distributed thousands of Bibles in many regions of Ukraine, including Donbass. 

But this year our collaboration has risen to a new level. 2018 is the Year of God’s Word in Ukraine. To mark it in a special way and to stir the nation’s interest in the Bible, the UBS launched two major projects. 

In early July, the National Reading of the Bible was held in the heart of Kyiv, near St. Sophia Cathedral. For three days and nights – without a letup! – over 300 readers from all denominations (including three MMK representatives) read all the books of the Bible from a big stage installed in St. Sophia Square. After the last chapter of Revelation was read, the Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus provided a fitting conclusion to this marathon by presenting a Bible in Song program.

Likewise in July a process of hand copying Scripture started. People in every region of Ukraine have been encouraged by the UBS to participate in this project. Each person is asked to copy one verse. So far about 7,000 verses have been copied. 25,000 more verses still need to be copied.

Sasha, Irina, Oksana and I were happy to make our modest contribution to the National Hand-Written Bible. Moreover, at this UBS meeting, a preliminary agreement was reached to celebrate the Day of the Bible at St. Paul’s Church in January or February 2019. One of the UBS leaders would preach at St. Paul’s on that day. Several copying stations would be placed at the church. All those who wish to copy scriptures would be able to do so.

As I said in the very beginning: who could foresee that all these wonderful things would be happening in Ukraine? And to me they all began with a serendipitous discovery of the Bible in one of Chicago’s bookstores. (Although I have to admit that I realized a true value of that investment years later — when I began to read at least a small portion of the Scripture daily).

Fortunately, today Ukrainians do not have to go that far to discover the Bible and its timeless truths, which are a lamp to our feet and light for our path.