Mark Finley shares 4 lessons he learned from the Ukrainian refugees in his recent visit and how they can make a difference in your life too.

<p>Mark Finley shares 4 lessons he learned from the Ukrainian refugees in his recent visit and how they can make a difference in your life too.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

HopeLives365

Mark Finley

Four Earth Shaking Lessons Ukrainian Refugees Taught Me

My wife and I left on April 19 to minister to the Ukrainian refugees in both Poland and Hungary.

Poland has had 2.5 million refugees cross the border and have been overwhelmed with the logistics of ministering to each of these refugees, but are doing a fantastic job.

The reason we went was to give these refugees hope and courage based on the Bible promises, and also work with those that were ministering to them to help them to have some extra strength as they ministered.

We went to minister, but we were actually ministered to.

And I'd like to share with you 4 lessons that are really earth-shaking lessons, 4 surprising lessons that we learn from these refugees.

As we heard stories of them trapped in basements for days with bombs exploding.

As we heard about their escape stories, coming out of these narrow corridors, seeing burned-out Russian tanks, seeing dead people lying on the street, and seeing rocket attacks, and listening to the whir of the bullets that were flying through the air, walking sometimes for hours in the shivering cold.

As we listened to these stories, Our hearts were filled with pain and sorrow, but yet there was an inner strength.

Some of these refugees had to leave families behind.

Some of them, most of them, women and children, came by themselves.

But here are 4 vital lessons that we learned in our trip to Hungary and Poland that can make a difference in your life and mine today.

The first lesson that we learned was that God gives us strength at the time that we need it most.

Often, We look at people going through crisis and we say, I could never do that, I could never get through that crisis.

But at the moment of crisis, when we have an experience with God, He adds strength to our weakness and enables us to get through it.

I love the promise in Isaiah 41 verse 10.

It says this, fear not for I am with you.

I read this promise to refugee after refugee, fear not for I am with you.

Be not dismayed, that's don't be confused with what's happening to you.

For I am your God, I will strengthen you.

God says when you get through that crisis, I'm gonna strengthen you.

When life is falling apart, I'm gonna strengthen you.

When you're confused and wondering what's going on, I'm gonna strengthen you.

When the night is dark and the journey is long and the road is rough and the mountain is high, I'm going to strengthen you.

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Fifth, I'm going to hold you up, and I'm not going to let you fall apart.

Let me tell you some amazing stories from these refugees that claim that promise, that this promise was fulfilled in their life, that in most difficult circumstances they found strength in God.

I'll call her name Maria, to protect her identity.

She was for 21 days in a dark apartment basement.

There were 160 people jammed in that basement with her.

She told us that there were times that she would see her own breath.

As she was in that basement, she lost consciousness of time because there were no windows there, and she was in there for that three-week period, as I mentioned, and she didn't know whether it was night, didn't know whether it was day.

Bombs were exploding all around, and she felt the earth shaking.

Some people were so traumatized by what happened, they died in that basement.

So here is Maria, cold, thirsty, hungry, crammed in there with 160 other people.

And She told us that at night, she would sit in a corner with her Bible, and it became the corner of peace, where she was sharing the love of God, and others would gather around her and tell her to read to them.

She read the promises of Christ, the promises that he would strengthen them, the promises of his second coming.

The crisis did not make her bitter, it made her better.

She did not nurse her scars, she shined like the stars.

Because the darker the night, the brighter the stars shine.

So a crisis can either make you bitter, it can make you angry, or it can make you a better person.

Let me tell you the professor's story, how God showed up at the time of crisis.

It's 1 thing we learn from the refugees, that when we need him in these crisis moments that God is there.

He has said in Matthew 28, verse 20, lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the world.

A professor at an Adventist college in Busha, in the Ukraine, who also was a professor at our college in Poland called Parkal Boleszka, told us that he sensed when he was in Ukraine at our college there that the Russian forces were moving in.

He told 3 ladies that were at the college, look, pack your things in 5 minutes.

There were 2 young men with their AK-47s.

He said all that time we were living between life and death.

We saw burned out tanks, burned out cars, we saw bombed homes, we saw people dead and dying, but we kept moving ahead, moving ahead.

And finally at this checkpoint, we were stopped.

They said, get out of the car, open the doors.

They checked the car, ransacked it, looked at it, had me open the trunk.

He said, I opened the trunk, and he said, I didn't know what was gonna happen at that point.

I didn't know if they were taking me behind the car to shoot me.

And he said, I looked at 1 young man, young soldier, and I said to him something like this, you know, after this war is over and you go home, make your mother proud.

Don't do anything that would disappoint your mother.

Who put that thought in his mind to speak to this soldier about his mother and touch that tender cord in his mother's heart?

You could not have dreamed up that scenario, but at that moment, God put it into mind.

When we need it most, God gives strength.

God gives us strength when it's most needed.

We discovered that new and fresh and again and again in the stories the refugees told us.

Secondly, the refugees taught us the importance of family relationships.

You know, sometimes you take a husband for granted, a wife for granted, children for granted.

But when I interviewed these refugees, here's a wife who's left her husband and son behind.

You see, the law in the Ukraine was if you're between 18 and 60 and you're a male, you cannot leave the country unless you and your wife have 3 children because they felt that it would be difficult for a woman to navigate out of the country with the 3 kids and she'd need the support of her husband.

And as she talked to this pastor's wife, there were tears just streaming down this pastor's wife's face.

She has 3 children, 1 17, 1 a little girl, a little younger.

She and the 17-year-old and the girl left, her son and daughter.

She also had a 19-year-old son that couldn't leave.

Her husband and her son did not leave because her husband would not leave the 19-year-old son.

She did not know whether they would survive or not.

And the most important thing other than Christ in that pastor's wife's life was to be reunited with her husband, to be reunited with her son.

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Four Earth Shaking Lessons Ukrainian Refugees Taught Me

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