The Tudor Dixon Podcast: Women of War: Resilience, Faith, and Family Amid Ukraine’s Ongoing Conflict
October 15, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode, Tudor speaks with Kristi Mock and Oleksandra Abramchuk about the human side of the war in Ukraine — the mothers, wives, and families enduring unimaginable hardship. They share deeply personal stories of loss and perseverance, exploring how faith and community have become lifelines in times of chaos. The conversation sheds light on the emotional toll of separation, the humanitarian efforts providing hope, and the unbreakable spirit of women determined to rebuild their lives and country. The Tudor Dixon Podcast is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network. For more visit TudorDixonPodcast.com
Learn more about Oleksandra & Kristi's work
Follow Clay & Buck on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/clayandbuck
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, we are going
to take you over to the Ukrainian and Russian war
that is going on, but we're going to take you
to kind of a different aspect of that, and that
is the moms and the women that are left behind,
something that I think that we are very spoilt here
in America. We don't really think about what happens when
(00:22):
your husband goes off to a war that he's unprepared for,
or when a war occurs, and maybe in some cases
the men just leave the family, and the men who
come home are suffering from PTSD and sometimes they leave
the family. What we haven't heard in the United States enough,
I think, is that there is a massive amount of
(00:44):
women who are not only on the ground fighting, but
they are in the house fighting with their kids every
day to make sure that they have food, to make
sure that they have clothes, to make sure that their
kids are getting education in the middle of a war zone,
something that we just don't experience here. We have so
much protesting and so many people on either side of
(01:06):
these wars that are going on worldwide who really have
no intimate connection to what's happening on the ground and
I got this pitch. And sometimes, you know, you probably
wonder how we decide which podcast we want to do,
But every so often something comes in my email box
and I go, wow, that is something I want to
know more about, and I hope you guys want to
(01:27):
know more about it too. So we are blessed today
to have Christy Mack with us and Alexandra Abramchuk, both
people who are working with groups in Ukraine. Alexandra, she
came to the United States from Ukraine. She is one
of those moms. Christy is a She assists with a
(01:48):
special project edit Illinois based Slavic Gospel Association. The Gospel
Ministry partners with local evangelical churches and ministry pastors in
Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. And like I said,
Alexander as a young mother who has come to the
United States, but she has many stories. So welcome to both.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Of you, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I just if we can start, Alexandra with you a
little bit about your story and the experiences of mothers
that are going through this in Ukraine. You came to
the United States because of this destruction and death and
destruction daily in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, so actually We didn't plan to come here, and
as you know, for men, they don't have this opportunity
to leave the country. They should stay and until they're
sixty they should be there in Ukraine. But for my husband,
he got an opportunity from his job to go abroad.
(02:51):
I was eight months pregnant then when he called me
and said, I'm abroad, would you mind coming to me
and we can be in a safer place. And I
didn't plan that. We didn't plan that, but go really
showed us this path that we can take and for
our baby to be born in a place where there
(03:12):
is no rockets flying over their heads. But it was
hard because all of a sudden, I had to say
goodbye to my family. To my parents, they were they're
still waiting to meet their grandson, their first grandson. I
had to say goodbye to my sister and she's really
struggling to being there alone. To my brothers. I have
(03:35):
two brothers, seventeen and fourteen years old. They also have
their own struggles going to school, having to stay half
of the day in a shelter because of the air
rate siren. But yet it was a hard choice for me,
But I have to decide either to stay with my family, parents, siblings,
or to be with my husband, because if he came
(03:56):
back home from his job, we didn't know how it
is and up and it was the choice that I
have made to give my son an opportunity to be
raised up with his sad or like, if you remain
in Ukraine, there is a high chance that you end
up raising your childe alone because men are either in
the army or or worse. So that's how it happened
(04:22):
to us. So we came to the United States last September.
It's been more than a year now. It's a blessing
for us to be here, to be like in a
peaceful place, but still have this heartache for our families
and for our nation.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
How old How old do the men? At what age
do the men get recruited into the army.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So starting from twenty five, but once you're eighteen, you
cannot leave the country.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So your brothers, you probably worry quite a about your brothers.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, he's seventeen and next year he has, like the
last year to decide whether to remain there or to
go anywhere abroad. But again it's the choice that my
mom has to make and for her. She doesn't want
to leave my dad alone, so it's another difficult choice
and decision.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Christy, how did you connect?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, my husband and I got married forty one years
ago and he was an aerospace engineer at that time.
But we left aerospace about seventeen eighteen years and actually
it's been twenty three years now to come into ministry
with Slavic Gospel Association. Eric is the vice president of
ministry operations and oversees all of the different ministries and
(05:49):
so he has gone about a third of the year.
But I have this really great opportunity to travel with
him maybe one or two times a year to different countries.
So we support and we do pastor and wives conferences
while we're there. And I met Alexandra about three years
(06:09):
ago now because we had taken some pastors and wives
over to Turkey for a gathering, and so we connected
right away because that was right after pretty close to
being right after the war started, and we connected right away.
But my ministry is to pastors wives, and so when
I go over with my husband and we travel together,
we try to take the pastors and their wives out
(06:33):
of their normal environment because a lot of them work
and serve very very hard, long hours, and so we
bring them to a retreat center and we give them
an opportunity to just sit together, first of all, with
their spouse, to be able to communicate with other people
who are in the same place that they are. The
(06:54):
ministry over there is difficult even without the war, but
in about a year a year and a half ago,
I was able to travel there and bring those couples
out of a war torn area, and Alexander with us
at that time too, and we heard story after story
of how these couples were serving people in their churches,
(07:20):
the ones that had stayed, the ones who were struggling
there at home, the ones who were leaving and trying
to find different places to find a new home. But
I have made I've had the opportunity to just sit
and chat with wives, with pastors, wives with single moms,
(07:41):
with young women who don't have kids, and it's just
been a huge blessing for me to be able to
make this connection with the women there.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You have some stories the Slavic Association, the Gospel Association
has shared some of these stories of young women who
are raising their kids by themselves. Tell us a little
bit about those women who are on their own. One
single mom, Elena, she is working by herself. Her windows
(08:13):
were actually shattered by a drone that went over, that
her children were injured. She's actually leaving them at night
and hoping to see them in the morning. I think
this is something we don't actually think about here. Like
I said, we're so spoiled here in the United States
to think that these women are alone. They have no
family around, they have to work. Now. Maybe they were
(08:36):
able to stay at home with their kids before, but
their husband gets taken off to war. Then they get
the call that they're alone for life, that their husband
has died, and she leaves at night to work and
her kids are by themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And this is story after story after story that we're
hearing about these women, and loneliness is one of the
biggest things. First of all, these women are dealing with
the grief of losing their husband. They're dealing with the
grief of their expectations of a marriage and what that
I mean, You marry for life, and so you don't
(09:13):
all of a sudden just get cut off and don't
have your spouse anymore in most cases, and so these
people are lonely they're dealing with the fact that they're
playing the role of mom and dad. And I know
that there was one story that came in that she
said that the hardest thing that she had to do
is raise her fourteen year old and fifteen year old
(09:34):
sons because she didn't know how to teach them how
to be a man. She didn't know how to teach
them how to even serve their families or be the
leader of their families. Because now she's trying to not
only be mom, but she's trying to be dad too,
and she's learning herself. People have one that some of
the women have shared stories about having to pick up
(09:57):
the roles of the husband as well, in working for
one thing and providing for the family, but also just
doing the little things around the house that they don't
normally do. They have to listen to their children say
why isn't Daddy coming home tonight, and to take on
(10:17):
that emotion that they're dealing with themselves. I know one
other lady wrote to us and said, I basically have
to force myself not to break down and lay down
on the floor and cry while I'm trying to help
my kids. These ladies have to take sometimes. I know
(10:38):
Alexander can tell you a lot more about that too.
But they take their children into the shelters, even in
the middle of the night. They have to get them
up out of bed and take them to a shelter.
So this emotional load that they carry of just not
having a normal life, a normal family is quite burdensome.
(11:03):
It's heavy, it's a very big weight. I think I've
explained before that what I saw when I was in
Ukraine and just observing as I walked that there was
all of these buildings that had been destroyed, and so
you see that as you're driving. Yet you see a
mom and a stroller, you know, walking her baby and
(11:25):
a stroller, or kids at the park with mom preparing
a lunch, or picking her kids up from school, and
so under this umbrella of wartime and drones and missiles
and you know, hearing the sirens all the time, the
women are trying so hard to keep some sense of
(11:47):
normalcy for their families and they have to fight for it.
It's not coming easy.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Alexandra, on the ground, when you're there, what is it
like for those women to hear or for I guess
anyone in Ukraine to hear about the worldwide battle of
do we support Ukraine, do we extend this war? Do
we try to go after Russia? What are people thinking
on the ground, Do they want intervention? How do they feel?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I would say half and half half of the people
they think that, okay, we will do whatever we can
and we'll make our best and we fight. And that's
why when the war began, like we didn't rely on anyone,
and many men volunteered and joined the army. I remember
my husband went to also volunteer and joining, and they said, sorry,
(12:41):
we have no weapons because so many men went to fight.
So our people wanted to be the first there to
fight and to protect and defend their country. But now
as we see that we have so many lives lost
already and we are short of weapons and everything. Of course,
(13:05):
people count on other countries and they come to the
point when they think, please do whatever intervene. We just
want it to end, not because we are so maybe
it's our like a big expectation or something. We just
(13:26):
want people to stop dying. That's it. We don't ask
for anything more than that. Just please. We don't want
to see death and destruction no more.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I saw a story of a mother who had left
her son overnight at her mother's house. And of course,
I mean, I think about the number of times I've
left my children at my mom's house for a sleepover
with grandma. And he requested, let me stay. I want
to be with grandma overnight, and she said, she hesitated, no,
(13:58):
we should go home, but and stay there, and she
let him stay, and the building was bombed and he
was the only casualty. He lost his life that night.
She had already lost her husband because he had gone
off to war, and she lost him in the war.
Then she lost her son. And the incredible pain you
could see in her eyes as she was going through
that guilt of why did I leave him? I mean,
(14:21):
I cannot imagine having to deal with the immense questions
of where am I safe on a regular basis.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
It's complicated. And even I have friends, young women, and
they were thinking, should I do anything to protect my husband?
We have two kids, what if we have three? And
then the men with three kids, they get special reservation
and they cannot be called up to army unless they volunteer.
(14:54):
So they face this choice and they think, on the
one hand, they always wanted to a big family. It's
not something that came up just just now. But they say,
we can have one more child. But then is it
fair to this child be worn into the war. But
how can we make it to the baby and suffer
(15:17):
and hear all these a riid sirens and the bomb
being and explosions. But again, like what if I lose
my husband and then my two kids they lose their father?
What if I what if I can avoid that? So
do I do anything for that? So it's a real
(15:37):
choice and decision that they face. And I have two
friends that they got their third baby this year, and
it's so complicated for them because, yeah, on one hand,
their men there, they are safe. But then having three
kids and you have to wake up in the middle
of the night, grab them all together and go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
We don't have special so you have to leave the
house to go to a shelter.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
The house, yes, because when the rocket is flying over
you and another rocket hits it down, the debris they
can explode, They can fall on your house, the house
can go on fire. And actually those debris they cause
that destruction more often than the rocket itself, because sometimes
(16:25):
the rockets are hit down in the air, but then
when they fall down, they they destroyed the destroyed houses,
So the people have to go anywhere to a safer place.
It's usually just a seller. We don't have special shelters
as in Israel, where people prepare and expect war. But
(16:52):
for us it was out of the side and we
were never prepared for these kind of things. So they
are slip deprived, both mothers and kids. They have sometimes
they became his They become hysterical because their nervous system
is immature itself. But then on top of that they
(17:13):
have to experience these auto medical things. Can imagine that.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No devastating Christy, what is what do you guys do
on the ground there? How does the SGA help?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
SGA helps the local churches first and foremost we have
there's been so much going on. There has been doors
have been opened front in the churches and that and
people are coming that maybe not would have not ever
even come through a church door before. But through these
(17:47):
churches they are ministering to the families that come first
and foremost people have had to leave the front lines
and come in further inward. And so in these churches
there's conversations, there is food, and beds and necessities for
toiletries and things like that. So they take care of
(18:10):
their physical needs. There's been a lot of humanitarian aid
that has been handed out, and they just take the
time first of all to meet those first physical needs
and then most importantly that spiritual need. They share the gospel.
They sit and they have a conversation with everybody coming
(18:32):
through the door. They meet them in the place that
they are, and then they had they take the opportunity
not to leave it just in that church. But then
we have many programs for widows for Compassion Ministry where
they're going out to the homes and trying to see
where people are needing food. We have Heat and Hope
(18:55):
Ministry because the winter is coming and it's it gets
really cold, and the heat has been a challenge and
so we're trying to do what we can to be
able to heat their homes. We had summer camps. Even
in the midst of war, summer camps were going on
where kids got to escape for one week to be
able to come and not worry about the sirens might
(19:16):
have still gone on, but the joy of just being
surrounded with happiness and fun was really great. And have
a Christmas program coming up where we do celebrations of
Christ's birth and we are ready to share. But it's
all through the local churches, and the local churches reach
out to their communities and be that light that they
(19:41):
so need to see.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right now, we've got more coming ups who stick around.
But if you're over fifty and you're worried about your
heart health, then listen to this. A sixteen year study
of over thirty thousand people found that nato Kin's, an
ancient Japanese superfood, can actually help reduce heart attack risk
and improve your cardiovascular health. Japan has the world's second
(20:02):
longest life expectancy for a reason. They've used this powerful
and natural enzyme for thousands of years. Luma Nutrition has
perfected a powerful natochaimese formula made in the USA and
third party tested for purity and quality by your supplements
from a source you can trust. Luma Nutrition was founded
by a former US Army officer and they are on
(20:23):
a mission to provide the highest quality natural supplements made
right here in the USA. You can try nato kaimes
today for up to forty percent off when you visit
Luma nutrition dot com. That's Luma Nutrition dot com. Luma
Nutrition dot com veteran owned proudly made in the USA.
Go there right now, stick around, We've got more. We
(20:49):
had heard when President Trump was elected, he talked quite
a bit about the fact that he wanted to see
these deaths stop, that there's three hundred earth three thousand
people dying a day, that we're seeing this war just
rage on and again. Here we don't think about what
it means to have an entire generation of men lost.
(21:10):
I mean, we've read about it. We've certainly read about
the Great Depression and what that was like and women
going back to work and women playing sports games to
try to keep the country in a positive mood. And
that was that. But that's for us, that's history. That's
something that we don't connect to. It didn't happen to
our generation. What do you see, Alexander on the ground
(21:31):
when you talk to people back home and for your
own family. But for these women, what do they see
as the future if this war does end? How do
you rebuild if you don't have men?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Many people don't think like that far because what they
think is like, do I survive tomorrow? Okay, let's make
it one step at a time, and it's actually the truth.
People stopped planning vacation, and they stopped planning renovation in
their house. Whatever. Just we have to make it till
(22:06):
tomorrow and we will see, and it's we can already
see the consequences of this ongoing war. In August, when
my brothers were about to start the school, it turned
out that there is no transportation for them, and many
parents started to write letters to the government. What happened
while there is no transportation and the fact is that
(22:31):
there are no men to be the drivers, and there
are not enough women to replace them because they're already
on other working places. And it's already one of the
things that you can see. Or it was the season
of harvest also August September, and the fields uh were
(22:55):
not like the harvest was not gathered because the was
there were no men who could use a tractor and
go and take it all. So our economy suffers from
that as well. Or there are now my sister wrote me,
and I keep receiving messages that there are huge power
(23:17):
outages in Ukraine because last night they bombed the electrical
plans and what they try to do is destroy our
energy system. Since they when they cannot prevail on the battlefield,
what they try to do is make people even more
depressed by even taking these such usual things as electricity
(23:43):
and heating in your home. And now my family stays
without hitting and light for half of the day, and
it's only the beginning of the winter season, because in
Ukraine it begins in early November. So imagine for people
and for young families with kids being the winter, no heating,
(24:04):
no light. You can cook food properly, you can hitch
your child. We've been there, but we didn't have a
child back then, and it was complicated. You cannot work.
I remember working online and you had only two hours
per day when you had electricity. Some either cook or
(24:26):
do your laundry, and sometimes you spend days without even
having a warm meal or wearing fresh clothes.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It's something we don't even think about here. I mean,
if we have our power out for a few days,
we just think that this is like a complete government shutdown.
How could this possibly happen? But I think the weather
in Ukraine in Michigan, I think the weather in Ukraine
is somewhat similar to the weather that we have here
in Michigan. And I and we are also headed into winter,
(24:59):
and certainly we cannot imagine having this situation where you
just don't know if you're going to have heat, you
don't know if you're going to have energy, you don't
I mean the ongoing war. What was Ukraine like before this?
Were there regular concerns of bombings?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Never?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It was just a Western country.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
We've never thought even of such a thing, and.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
We were.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Oriented on developing and having strong European connections, and just
we were young country. Ukraine became independent in nineteen ninety one,
so it's like in her thirties, you know, right, it
(25:50):
was with a lot of ambitions.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Actually, yeah, well, and you mentioned the harvest. I think
for people that are listening, they need to understand that,
you brain is critical to Europe when it comes to
I mean, you're considered the bread basket of Europe. You're
considered the area where all all of the flower is harvested,
so the majority of what Europe is using to make
(26:14):
their own food. You would think that there is a
great concern over whether or not Ukraine survives this because
certainly you don't want that kind of resource to fall
into the hands of Russia. So really your economy is
built on manufacturing and agriculture, and those two things are
very heavily focused on men to make sure those those
(26:35):
industries are successful.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yes, and I remember my friends. I have friends in
Spain and they wrote me lest here that their price
on groceries rows up because of this fall down in
our economy, and because of we couldn't produce that much
salt and oil, the price on their olive rose up highly.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well, that's what And obviously we know that there's a
motive behind Vladimir Putin going in there to he wants
to take it over. Certainly there's a concern of if
you get Ukraine, what's next? Does he go to Poland.
We've been talking about all of these things in the
United States, but we're very far removed, and I think
it's easy to forget the struggles on the ground. These
(27:24):
mothers who are alone tell us some of the stories
of loneliness, Christy that you've been able to. We've seen
some of these women band together and say, you know,
we decided as a group, we're going to raise our children.
We're going to try to raise up strong sons. At
the same time, they're learning to use weapons, they're learning
to defend themselves. They are also wearing army fatigues and
(27:46):
going out and fighting. There's got to be a massive
fear of not only being alone, but also their children
being raised without them, because certainly if they're going out
to the front lines, that's dangerous too.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I think this has been just a great struggle
for the women. It's very sad. It grieves our heart
that there's so many men who are dying for sure,
and we can't ever neglect to think about that as well.
But these women who are left behind or trying to
do this on their own, are carrying just this heavy weight.
(28:27):
That is, you know, when it's a physical weight and
an emotional weight and a spiritual weight. There's really not
a safe place unless you are intentionally looking for something different.
And I think that, Like I have a story that
actually Alexander and I gathered together of one of my
(28:47):
friends who actually this is a missionary pastor who works
in Ukraine near the front lines, and he goes in
every day every week. They load up a van and
they go straight to the front lines. They deliver food,
they deliver what they can for all of the people
who are left near the front lines and then they
(29:11):
drive as fast as they can back again. They load
up again, and they go right back and they're risking
their lives. They're doing that every day. He's not in
the military, but he's serving. He's part of SAW the
Gospel Association. Now. His wife, Natalia every morning gets up
and helps him get ready and puts on all of
his armor that he needs because there's a good chance
(29:34):
that he won't come back that day. He needs to
be protected. And so there is one day that he
didn't make that normal phone call that he was supposed
to make to just let her know that he was okay,
and she got really upset and she was just really
worried about him, and he finally did make the phone caller.
(29:57):
She got a phone call, but it was from another
person who had said that he ended up get getting
hurt out there, and she said that it's just the unknown,
the not knowing. Am I going to lose my husband today?
Am I going to be able to raise my kids?
We've had story after story of moms who have said
(30:19):
they're exhausted, they don't know how to make it through
a day. They get up and they move forward doing
what they know. They're supposed to. Just like Alexander said,
we don't think too far in advance because we have
to make it through today. And so they don't plan
as many wedding showers or even weddings or baby showers.
(30:43):
The norm has completely gone and it's just trying to
make it through a day. They're exhausted from their work.
They're working now, but then coming home in the evening
and still doing all of the things that a couple
you does together in keeping a home, and so all
(31:04):
of the stories. They may have different names, and they
may have different homes or different communities, but the big
thing is is these women are doing it on their own.
And so we're thankful that they do have the support
of the churches because a lot of them are getting help.
A lot of them do have a woman who can
(31:25):
come and sit alongside them and have a conversation and
encourage them. They can maybe even take their kids for
a couple of hours to say, have some free time.
They're doing Bible studies. You're seeing a lot of women
who are coming under the churches for that.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
What is that like? I mean, this is the former
Soviet Union. There was not a lot of ability to
hear the Gospel in the Soviet Union. So this is
probably a lot of unchurched people that are hearing the
gospel for the first time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I would imagine they are, and we have seen a
lot of people accepting Christ and their lives are completely
turned around. So the people who are being steadfast that
had faith before aren't like running and giving up or
what they're doing instead is they're getting stronger, they're trusting
God more, they're moving forward, they're trying to figure out
(32:21):
how they can help others. And then the ones walking
through the door that have never heard it before, they're
seeing something different in the people of the church. They're
seeing that they're wrapping their arms around them and they're
meeting their needs, and they're making sure that they're safe,
and they're coming close to them and lifting them up
(32:41):
and encouraging their hearts. And maybe it is just through
a conversation or a hug or a sharing the gospel
getting a warmer.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I really think that's the biggest story here, and I
understand the whole You know, you're looking at war, you're
looking at death, you're looking at loneliness. But in the
midst of this God is affecting lives and I think
that's the power of women who are out there that
have sons that say, I don't know what's going to
happen to my son having the Gospel there. We've heard
(33:15):
so many stories of young men in Ukraine that walk
into a Bible study, that walk into a church and
they go, this is different than the doom and gloom
that I see outside of the church. And I do
think that in it, God does miracles. God does miracles
every single day. But the church is beyond those four
walls and it is being seen. I hear that that
(33:39):
it is being seen on the ground. We've had so
many people who are in Eastern Europe, missionaries who are
in the Eastern Europe, and even in our own church
had young men come in and go I had no
reason to keep living like I really didn't see any positivity.
I was stressed. I mean, the post traumatic stress disorder
is not just the older men or the men that
(34:00):
have gone to wards, the young men as well.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Well.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I lost my father. I didn't have any hope. I
walked in and I saw Jesus and I saw something
totally different than I'd ever seen before. Yes, yeah, that
to me is the miracle in this.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
At SGA, I have the privilege of leading a storytelling
ministry and Alexander was actually one of our storytellers for
quite some time. But what they're doing is they are
observing what is happening and how God is at work
through his people, and it's every day, story after story
after story. Sometimes I'm like, I have tears coming down
(34:39):
my cheeks because I'm reading of either great pain from
a young orphaned child who has gone into an orphanage.
Yet that's where he met Christ because of our Orphans
Reborn program and so and then all of a sudden
he's living a new life. And the same thing is
happening in Ukraine with the widow and their kids and
(35:01):
even the men on the front lines. The chaplains are
going in and they're telling There was one person, actually,
one of the men who was on the front lines,
and he told the story of a chaplain who had
come and he said, there's like nothing here for us,
day in and day out. We are just like trying
to survive. And you come and you talk to us
(35:24):
and you give us hope, and that makes us want
to go on. It makes us want to live. And
so that's what's moving Ukraine. Is something is happening in Ukraine,
and there is definitely hard stuff there and I hear
it a lot and I cry with them. But God
(35:44):
is there and He is working, and there are so
many new believers in the midst of all of this,
and so many great stories of His glory, his honor,
and it's all through His people that are being raised up.
It's a beautiful story.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We are so used to hearing
people today say that it's just life is so hard.
There's so much division. The entire world is divided. There's
these wars going on. We're slowly seeing these wars come
to an end. We're really praying that that is the
(36:22):
same situation that happens in Russia and Ukraine, that this
war will come to an end. But I do believe
that we are seeing a revival as well. I do
believe that we're seeing this in the United States. I've
heard about this in Eastern Europe. I've heard about what
you're talking about. Alexandra. Before we go, share your testimony
of what you've seen when it comes to sharing the
gospel in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, So what I can say, even in the first
days of the war, when people were completely shocked and
they didn't know where to go. There was no food anywhere,
there was no even connect you couldn't call anyone. People
started coming to church and the church opened their doors,
(37:06):
even though many people fled. And I remember in our church,
which had like six hundred members, there were probably ten
people left only. But they opened the door and they
prepared the food from what they had. They seen songs
all day long. They invited everyone to come and they
(37:28):
went to we have like a basement where we have
our youth meetings, and they said, it's just your new home.
Please stay there. So after it all became more stable.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
And then because we have troops in our region, So
when they left h and everybody returned, the coup of
the people returning, church became functioning as usual. These people
came and they became, they believed, and then they baptized
and now they are coming on a regular basis. Then
(38:03):
we have many women who lost their husband, and I
have a friend she's also a young widow, and she
started the ministry telling these women that you have a wound,
but only Jesus can heal it. No therapists, no self
help books, only Jesus can do that. And she goes
(38:24):
on retreats to the mountains with these women where they women,
where they can just relax, change their focus, look at
the nature. And she speaks how she got healed and
that Jesus did that to her. And she also gives
(38:46):
practical advice how you can serve these women just being there,
just supporting them, inviting them to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners
because they are all by themselves else and they are abandoned,
and when it comes to holidays, it's when they mostly
feel this loneliness. But showing them the other perspective, it's
(39:12):
what gives hope. And what I appreciate even about our
church is that it was so flexible to say, Okay,
we were oriented on this ministry, but now these people
need us, so we're going to start a new ministry.
There are many internally displaced people who came from eastern
(39:33):
part of Ukraine. They lost their homes, and we started
a new ministry for moms who came from those parts,
and we said we can babysit her children for two hours,
come and join us for a devotional and they started
coming and they started inviting their friends, and they said,
you're the first people who actually not cared only about
(39:57):
my children, but about myself, and you ask about my pain.
And sometimes those devotionals it's only about like talking about
the grief. And sometimes they spend to our crime. But
they have to tell what they feel to someone, and
it's better be people in the church. And this ministry
(40:19):
become that big that we even have like two gatherings
per day, like in the morning and in the evening.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I want to say before I let you go, I've
been looking at what is behind the revival that we're
seeing across the globe. Obviously, after we lost Charlie Kirk,
we in the United States said what is going on?
Why is you know, why are we being so spiritually attacked?
And I do think that as the power of Christ rises,
(40:49):
then obviously the spiritual attack is stronger. But I did
some research on the power of faith, and I was
as I was doing this, I found that there was
a study done in New Orleans after the Katrina hit.
After the big hurricane hit New Orleans, there was a
study that was done between two thousand and five and
(41:10):
twenty ten, and the study showed that the communities that
had the highest church membership recovered the fastest, and they
found that they recovered the fastest for exactly what you're
saying is that there was a home base for everybody
where they felt safe. They could go there, and they
always knew that no matter how bad things got, there
was somebody that was there to help them to lift
(41:31):
them up. And through that as they started to rebuild,
there was so much support for entrepreneurship and helping people
get back on their feet and make something of themselves
that they actually saw the economy grow faster than they'd
seen it in any other area. So as I as
I leave you today, I want you to know that
(41:51):
what you do sharing the gospel there is so much
more important than hearts and minds. This is generational growth
for these communities and generational growth in Christ. So I
know we say, okay, well, you know you plant one
seed and you hope that it creates so many more
seeds that come from that, And that is truly what
(42:12):
you are doing, because not only are you planting that
seed for those families that will then grow in Christ,
but they will grow as a community together and their
community will flourish because Christ is there and the spirit
is so strong. So thank you for sharing this, thank
you for telling us this. And as I read that
(42:33):
about Katrina, it gave me so much hope for areas
like Ukraine, like Israel, like Gaza, like these places that
have been destroyed that once faith, that little seed sprouts,
that that seed can create so much growth in so
many different areas. So before we go, can you just share, Christy,
how people can support the Slavic Gospel Association.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, so we probably the easiest thing for you to
do is to go to our website, which is SGA
dot org. There is story after story of just exactly
what we've been talking about, plus more because we work
in other countries as well. You can read the stories
and then there are links there that take you to
(43:17):
all of the different ministries like Orphans Reborn and summer
camps and Biblical someone at seminaries. We have so much
to offer there, just in ways that you can get
be partners with us basically, but more than anything, prayer.
Prayer is something that we all hold very close and
(43:38):
we do constantly lift this up because this is God's
ministry and He has a plan and a purpose for
all of it, and we can see it when we
do get these stories back of how he's building his
churches over there, and you can, if you want to,
you can get involved with a specific church planter who
is over there, a missionary pastor who does have one
(44:01):
of these local churches that does where the ministry is
based out of. And so everything is on the website though,
and just continue to pray for Usk, continue to pray
for Ukraine, and continue to pray for the widows, the
single moms, because it's a hard place to be, but
we have seen just a glorious things that are happening
(44:24):
in their lives.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
We're called to pray big. We're called to pray specifically.
And now as you have heard this story, if you're
listening today and you've heard this story, share this with
your children, because just as we've talked about, it's important
to spread that seed and spread the gospel, also spread
that involvement in other people's lives, because that's what we're
called to do. Is we're called to lift up the
(44:47):
entire church. This is our church, no matter where it
is in the world. Lift them up in your prayers,
talk about them at night with your kids. Make sure
that there is a connection of believers across the globe.
Thank you so much for you do. I so appreciate
having you guys on. Is there anything else you want
to say before we let you go?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Thank me this way And one more challenge too. As
we're praying for Ukraine, single moms and widows are here
in the United States as well, so look around we
need to be helping them. They're lonely here too. They're
dealing with grief, maybe dealing with not having a babysit
or not having anyone to talk to, not having somebody
(45:27):
to go to. The holidays are coming up, so look
around if there's anybody in your community, and maybe reach
out to them too.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
That is so beautiful, absolutely, and I'm so glad that
you are connected and that you came on today. Alexandra
and Christy, thank you so much, Thank you, thank you,
and thank you all for joining us on the Tutor
Dixon podcast. To remember for this podcast and others, you
can go to Tutor Dison dot com, the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasting. You can
(45:56):
watch the full video on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor
Dixon and join us next time. Have a blessed day.
Welcome to the Tutor Dixon Podcast. Today, we are going
to take you over to the Ukrainian and Russian war
that is going on, but we're going to take you
to kind of a different aspect of that, and that
is the moms and the women that are left behind,
something that I think that we are very spoilt here
in America. We don't really think about what happens when
(00:22):
your husband goes off to a war that he's unprepared for,
or when a war occurs, and maybe in some cases
the men just leave the family, and the men who
come home are suffering from PTSD and sometimes they leave
the family. What we haven't heard in the United States enough,
I think, is that there is a massive amount of
(00:44):
women who are not only on the ground fighting, but
they are in the house fighting with their kids every
day to make sure that they have food, to make
sure that they have clothes, to make sure that their
kids are getting education in the middle of a war zone,
something that we just don't experience here. We have so
much protesting and so many people on either side of
(01:06):
these wars that are going on worldwide who really have
no intimate connection to what's happening on the ground and
I got this pitch. And sometimes, you know, you probably
wonder how we decide which podcast we want to do,
But every so often something comes in my email box
and I go, wow, that is something I want to
know more about, and I hope you guys want to
(01:27):
know more about it too. So we are blessed today
to have Christy Mack with us and Alexandra Abramchuk, both
people who are working with groups in Ukraine. Alexandra, she
came to the United States from Ukraine. She is one
of those moms. Christy is a She assists with a
(01:48):
special project edit Illinois based Slavic Gospel Association. The Gospel
Ministry partners with local evangelical churches and ministry pastors in
Ukraine and the former Soviet Union. And like I said,
Alexander as a young mother who has come to the
United States, but she has many stories. So welcome to both.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Of you, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
I just if we can start, Alexandra with you a
little bit about your story and the experiences of mothers
that are going through this in Ukraine. You came to
the United States because of this destruction and death and
destruction daily in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (02:30):
Yeah, so actually We didn't plan to come here, and
as you know, for men, they don't have this opportunity
to leave the country. They should stay and until they're
sixty they should be there in Ukraine. But for my husband,
he got an opportunity from his job to go abroad.
(02:51):
I was eight months pregnant then when he called me
and said, I'm abroad, would you mind coming to me
and we can be in a safer place. And I
didn't plan that. We didn't plan that, but go really
showed us this path that we can take and for
our baby to be born in a place where there
(03:12):
is no rockets flying over their heads. But it was
hard because all of a sudden, I had to say
goodbye to my family. To my parents, they were they're
still waiting to meet their grandson, their first grandson. I
had to say goodbye to my sister and she's really
struggling to being there alone. To my brothers. I have
(03:35):
two brothers, seventeen and fourteen years old. They also have
their own struggles going to school, having to stay half
of the day in a shelter because of the air
rate siren. But yet it was a hard choice for me,
But I have to decide either to stay with my family, parents, siblings,
or to be with my husband, because if he came
(03:56):
back home from his job, we didn't know how it
is and up and it was the choice that I
have made to give my son an opportunity to be
raised up with his sad or like, if you remain
in Ukraine, there is a high chance that you end
up raising your childe alone because men are either in
the army or or worse. So that's how it happened
(04:22):
to us. So we came to the United States last September.
It's been more than a year now. It's a blessing
for us to be here, to be like in a
peaceful place, but still have this heartache for our families
and for our nation.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
How old How old do the men? At what age
do the men get recruited into the army.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
So starting from twenty five, but once you're eighteen, you
cannot leave the country.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So your brothers, you probably worry quite a about your brothers.
Speaker 3 (05:01):
Yeah, he's seventeen and next year he has, like the
last year to decide whether to remain there or to
go anywhere abroad. But again it's the choice that my
mom has to make and for her. She doesn't want
to leave my dad alone, so it's another difficult choice
and decision.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
Christy, how did you connect?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Well, my husband and I got married forty one years
ago and he was an aerospace engineer at that time.
But we left aerospace about seventeen eighteen years and actually
it's been twenty three years now to come into ministry
with Slavic Gospel Association. Eric is the vice president of
ministry operations and oversees all of the different ministries and
(05:49):
so he has gone about a third of the year.
But I have this really great opportunity to travel with
him maybe one or two times a year to different countries.
So we support and we do pastor and wives conferences
while we're there. And I met Alexandra about three years
(06:09):
ago now because we had taken some pastors and wives
over to Turkey for a gathering, and so we connected
right away because that was right after pretty close to
being right after the war started, and we connected right away.
But my ministry is to pastors wives, and so when
I go over with my husband and we travel together,
we try to take the pastors and their wives out
(06:33):
of their normal environment because a lot of them work
and serve very very hard, long hours, and so we
bring them to a retreat center and we give them
an opportunity to just sit together, first of all, with
their spouse, to be able to communicate with other people
who are in the same place that they are. The
(06:54):
ministry over there is difficult even without the war, but
in about a year a year and a half ago,
I was able to travel there and bring those couples
out of a war torn area, and Alexander with us
at that time too, and we heard story after story
of how these couples were serving people in their churches,
(07:20):
the ones that had stayed, the ones who were struggling
there at home, the ones who were leaving and trying
to find different places to find a new home. But
I have made I've had the opportunity to just sit
and chat with wives, with pastors, wives with single moms,
(07:41):
with young women who don't have kids, and it's just
been a huge blessing for me to be able to
make this connection with the women there.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You have some stories the Slavic Association, the Gospel Association
has shared some of these stories of young women who
are raising their kids by themselves. Tell us a little
bit about those women who are on their own. One
single mom, Elena, she is working by herself. Her windows
(08:13):
were actually shattered by a drone that went over, that
her children were injured. She's actually leaving them at night
and hoping to see them in the morning. I think
this is something we don't actually think about here. Like
I said, we're so spoiled here in the United States
to think that these women are alone. They have no
family around, they have to work. Now. Maybe they were
(08:36):
able to stay at home with their kids before, but
their husband gets taken off to war. Then they get
the call that they're alone for life, that their husband
has died, and she leaves at night to work and
her kids are by themselves.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
And this is story after story after story that we're
hearing about these women, and loneliness is one of the
biggest things. First of all, these women are dealing with
the grief of losing their husband. They're dealing with the
grief of their expectations of a marriage and what that
I mean, You marry for life, and so you don't
(09:13):
all of a sudden just get cut off and don't
have your spouse anymore in most cases, and so these
people are lonely they're dealing with the fact that they're
playing the role of mom and dad. And I know
that there was one story that came in that she
said that the hardest thing that she had to do
is raise her fourteen year old and fifteen year old
(09:34):
sons because she didn't know how to teach them how
to be a man. She didn't know how to teach
them how to even serve their families or be the
leader of their families. Because now she's trying to not
only be mom, but she's trying to be dad too,
and she's learning herself. People have one that some of
the women have shared stories about having to pick up
(09:57):
the roles of the husband as well, in working for
one thing and providing for the family, but also just
doing the little things around the house that they don't
normally do. They have to listen to their children say
why isn't Daddy coming home tonight, and to take on
(10:17):
that emotion that they're dealing with themselves. I know one
other lady wrote to us and said, I basically have
to force myself not to break down and lay down
on the floor and cry while I'm trying to help
my kids. These ladies have to take sometimes. I know
(10:38):
Alexander can tell you a lot more about that too.
But they take their children into the shelters, even in
the middle of the night. They have to get them
up out of bed and take them to a shelter.
So this emotional load that they carry of just not
having a normal life, a normal family is quite burdensome.
(11:03):
It's heavy, it's a very big weight. I think I've
explained before that what I saw when I was in
Ukraine and just observing as I walked that there was
all of these buildings that had been destroyed, and so
you see that as you're driving. Yet you see a
mom and a stroller, you know, walking her baby and
(11:25):
a stroller, or kids at the park with mom preparing
a lunch, or picking her kids up from school, and
so under this umbrella of wartime and drones and missiles
and you know, hearing the sirens all the time, the
women are trying so hard to keep some sense of
(11:47):
normalcy for their families and they have to fight for it.
It's not coming easy.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Alexandra, on the ground, when you're there, what is it
like for those women to hear or for I guess
anyone in Ukraine to hear about the worldwide battle of
do we support Ukraine, do we extend this war? Do
we try to go after Russia? What are people thinking
on the ground, Do they want intervention? How do they feel?
Speaker 3 (12:17):
I would say half and half half of the people
they think that, okay, we will do whatever we can
and we'll make our best and we fight. And that's
why when the war began, like we didn't rely on anyone,
and many men volunteered and joined the army. I remember
my husband went to also volunteer and joining, and they said, sorry,
(12:41):
we have no weapons because so many men went to fight.
So our people wanted to be the first there to
fight and to protect and defend their country. But now
as we see that we have so many lives lost
already and we are short of weapons and everything. Of course,
(13:05):
people count on other countries and they come to the
point when they think, please do whatever intervene. We just
want it to end, not because we are so maybe
it's our like a big expectation or something. We just
(13:26):
want people to stop dying. That's it. We don't ask
for anything more than that. Just please. We don't want
to see death and destruction no more.
Speaker 1 (13:37):
I saw a story of a mother who had left
her son overnight at her mother's house. And of course,
I mean, I think about the number of times I've
left my children at my mom's house for a sleepover
with grandma. And he requested, let me stay. I want
to be with grandma overnight, and she said, she hesitated, no,
(13:58):
we should go home, but and stay there, and she
let him stay, and the building was bombed and he
was the only casualty. He lost his life that night.
She had already lost her husband because he had gone
off to war, and she lost him in the war.
Then she lost her son. And the incredible pain you
could see in her eyes as she was going through
that guilt of why did I leave him? I mean,
(14:21):
I cannot imagine having to deal with the immense questions
of where am I safe on a regular basis.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
It's complicated. And even I have friends, young women, and
they were thinking, should I do anything to protect my husband?
We have two kids, what if we have three? And
then the men with three kids, they get special reservation
and they cannot be called up to army unless they volunteer.
(14:54):
So they face this choice and they think, on the
one hand, they always wanted to a big family. It's
not something that came up just just now. But they say,
we can have one more child. But then is it
fair to this child be worn into the war. But
how can we make it to the baby and suffer
(15:17):
and hear all these a riid sirens and the bomb
being and explosions. But again, like what if I lose
my husband and then my two kids they lose their father?
What if I what if I can avoid that? So
do I do anything for that? So it's a real
(15:37):
choice and decision that they face. And I have two
friends that they got their third baby this year, and
it's so complicated for them because, yeah, on one hand,
their men there, they are safe. But then having three
kids and you have to wake up in the middle
of the night, grab them all together and go anywhere.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
We don't have special so you have to leave the
house to go to a shelter.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
The house, yes, because when the rocket is flying over
you and another rocket hits it down, the debris they
can explode, They can fall on your house, the house
can go on fire. And actually those debris they cause
that destruction more often than the rocket itself, because sometimes
(16:25):
the rockets are hit down in the air, but then
when they fall down, they they destroyed the destroyed houses,
So the people have to go anywhere to a safer place.
It's usually just a seller. We don't have special shelters
as in Israel, where people prepare and expect war. But
(16:52):
for us it was out of the side and we
were never prepared for these kind of things. So they
are slip deprived, both mothers and kids. They have sometimes
they became his They become hysterical because their nervous system
is immature itself. But then on top of that they
(17:13):
have to experience these auto medical things. Can imagine that.
Speaker 1 (17:19):
No devastating Christy, what is what do you guys do
on the ground there? How does the SGA help?
Speaker 2 (17:27):
SGA helps the local churches first and foremost we have
there's been so much going on. There has been doors
have been opened front in the churches and that and
people are coming that maybe not would have not ever
even come through a church door before. But through these
(17:47):
churches they are ministering to the families that come first
and foremost people have had to leave the front lines
and come in further inward. And so in these churches
there's conversations, there is food, and beds and necessities for
toiletries and things like that. So they take care of
(18:10):
their physical needs. There's been a lot of humanitarian aid
that has been handed out, and they just take the
time first of all to meet those first physical needs
and then most importantly that spiritual need. They share the gospel.
They sit and they have a conversation with everybody coming
(18:32):
through the door. They meet them in the place that
they are, and then they had they take the opportunity
not to leave it just in that church. But then
we have many programs for widows for Compassion Ministry where
they're going out to the homes and trying to see
where people are needing food. We have Heat and Hope
(18:55):
Ministry because the winter is coming and it's it gets
really cold, and the heat has been a challenge and
so we're trying to do what we can to be
able to heat their homes. We had summer camps. Even
in the midst of war, summer camps were going on
where kids got to escape for one week to be
able to come and not worry about the sirens might
(19:16):
have still gone on, but the joy of just being
surrounded with happiness and fun was really great. And have
a Christmas program coming up where we do celebrations of
Christ's birth and we are ready to share. But it's
all through the local churches, and the local churches reach
out to their communities and be that light that they
(19:41):
so need to see.
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Right now, we've got more coming ups who stick around.
But if you're over fifty and you're worried about your
heart health, then listen to this. A sixteen year study
of over thirty thousand people found that nato Kin's, an
ancient Japanese superfood, can actually help reduce heart attack risk
and improve your cardiovascular health. Japan has the world's second
(20:02):
longest life expectancy for a reason. They've used this powerful
and natural enzyme for thousands of years. Luma Nutrition has
perfected a powerful natochaimese formula made in the USA and
third party tested for purity and quality by your supplements
from a source you can trust. Luma Nutrition was founded
by a former US Army officer and they are on
(20:23):
a mission to provide the highest quality natural supplements made
right here in the USA. You can try nato kaimes
today for up to forty percent off when you visit
Luma nutrition dot com. That's Luma Nutrition dot com. Luma
Nutrition dot com veteran owned proudly made in the USA.
Go there right now, stick around, We've got more. We
(20:49):
had heard when President Trump was elected, he talked quite
a bit about the fact that he wanted to see
these deaths stop, that there's three hundred earth three thousand
people dying a day, that we're seeing this war just
rage on and again. Here we don't think about what
it means to have an entire generation of men lost.
(21:10):
I mean, we've read about it. We've certainly read about
the Great Depression and what that was like and women
going back to work and women playing sports games to
try to keep the country in a positive mood. And
that was that. But that's for us, that's history. That's
something that we don't connect to. It didn't happen to
our generation. What do you see, Alexander on the ground
(21:31):
when you talk to people back home and for your
own family. But for these women, what do they see
as the future if this war does end? How do
you rebuild if you don't have men?
Speaker 3 (21:45):
Many people don't think like that far because what they
think is like, do I survive tomorrow? Okay, let's make
it one step at a time, and it's actually the truth.
People stopped planning vacation, and they stopped planning renovation in
their house. Whatever. Just we have to make it till
(22:06):
tomorrow and we will see, and it's we can already
see the consequences of this ongoing war. In August, when
my brothers were about to start the school, it turned
out that there is no transportation for them, and many
parents started to write letters to the government. What happened
while there is no transportation and the fact is that
(22:31):
there are no men to be the drivers, and there
are not enough women to replace them because they're already
on other working places. And it's already one of the
things that you can see. Or it was the season
of harvest also August September, and the fields uh were
(22:55):
not like the harvest was not gathered because the was
there were no men who could use a tractor and
go and take it all. So our economy suffers from
that as well. Or there are now my sister wrote me,
and I keep receiving messages that there are huge power
(23:17):
outages in Ukraine because last night they bombed the electrical
plans and what they try to do is destroy our
energy system. Since they when they cannot prevail on the battlefield,
what they try to do is make people even more
depressed by even taking these such usual things as electricity
(23:43):
and heating in your home. And now my family stays
without hitting and light for half of the day, and
it's only the beginning of the winter season, because in
Ukraine it begins in early November. So imagine for people
and for young families with kids being the winter, no heating,
(24:04):
no light. You can cook food properly, you can hitch
your child. We've been there, but we didn't have a
child back then, and it was complicated. You cannot work.
I remember working online and you had only two hours
per day when you had electricity. Some either cook or
(24:26):
do your laundry, and sometimes you spend days without even
having a warm meal or wearing fresh clothes.
Speaker 1 (24:38):
It's something we don't even think about here. I mean,
if we have our power out for a few days,
we just think that this is like a complete government shutdown.
How could this possibly happen? But I think the weather
in Ukraine in Michigan, I think the weather in Ukraine
is somewhat similar to the weather that we have here
in Michigan. And I and we are also headed into winter,
(24:59):
and certainly we cannot imagine having this situation where you
just don't know if you're going to have heat, you
don't know if you're going to have energy, you don't
I mean the ongoing war. What was Ukraine like before this?
Were there regular concerns of bombings?
Speaker 2 (25:17):
Never?
Speaker 1 (25:19):
It was just a Western country.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
We've never thought even of such a thing, and.
Speaker 1 (25:28):
We were.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
Oriented on developing and having strong European connections, and just
we were young country. Ukraine became independent in nineteen ninety one,
so it's like in her thirties, you know, right, it
(25:50):
was with a lot of ambitions.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
Actually, yeah, well, and you mentioned the harvest. I think
for people that are listening, they need to understand that,
you brain is critical to Europe when it comes to
I mean, you're considered the bread basket of Europe. You're
considered the area where all all of the flower is harvested,
so the majority of what Europe is using to make
(26:14):
their own food. You would think that there is a
great concern over whether or not Ukraine survives this because
certainly you don't want that kind of resource to fall
into the hands of Russia. So really your economy is
built on manufacturing and agriculture, and those two things are
very heavily focused on men to make sure those those
(26:35):
industries are successful.
Speaker 3 (26:38):
Yes, and I remember my friends. I have friends in
Spain and they wrote me lest here that their price
on groceries rows up because of this fall down in
our economy, and because of we couldn't produce that much
salt and oil, the price on their olive rose up highly.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Well, that's what And obviously we know that there's a
motive behind Vladimir Putin going in there to he wants
to take it over. Certainly there's a concern of if
you get Ukraine, what's next? Does he go to Poland.
We've been talking about all of these things in the
United States, but we're very far removed, and I think
it's easy to forget the struggles on the ground. These
(27:24):
mothers who are alone tell us some of the stories
of loneliness, Christy that you've been able to. We've seen
some of these women band together and say, you know,
we decided as a group, we're going to raise our children.
We're going to try to raise up strong sons. At
the same time, they're learning to use weapons, they're learning
to defend themselves. They are also wearing army fatigues and
(27:46):
going out and fighting. There's got to be a massive
fear of not only being alone, but also their children
being raised without them, because certainly if they're going out
to the front lines, that's dangerous too.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I think this has been just a great struggle
for the women. It's very sad. It grieves our heart
that there's so many men who are dying for sure,
and we can't ever neglect to think about that as well.
But these women who are left behind or trying to
do this on their own, are carrying just this heavy weight.
(28:27):
That is, you know, when it's a physical weight and
an emotional weight and a spiritual weight. There's really not
a safe place unless you are intentionally looking for something different.
And I think that, Like I have a story that
actually Alexander and I gathered together of one of my
(28:47):
friends who actually this is a missionary pastor who works
in Ukraine near the front lines, and he goes in
every day every week. They load up a van and
they go straight to the front lines. They deliver food,
they deliver what they can for all of the people
who are left near the front lines and then they
(29:11):
drive as fast as they can back again. They load
up again, and they go right back and they're risking
their lives. They're doing that every day. He's not in
the military, but he's serving. He's part of SAW the
Gospel Association. Now. His wife, Natalia every morning gets up
and helps him get ready and puts on all of
his armor that he needs because there's a good chance
(29:34):
that he won't come back that day. He needs to
be protected. And so there is one day that he
didn't make that normal phone call that he was supposed
to make to just let her know that he was okay,
and she got really upset and she was just really
worried about him, and he finally did make the phone caller.
(29:57):
She got a phone call, but it was from another
person who had said that he ended up get getting
hurt out there, and she said that it's just the unknown,
the not knowing. Am I going to lose my husband today?
Am I going to be able to raise my kids?
We've had story after story of moms who have said
(30:19):
they're exhausted, they don't know how to make it through
a day. They get up and they move forward doing
what they know. They're supposed to. Just like Alexander said,
we don't think too far in advance because we have
to make it through today. And so they don't plan
as many wedding showers or even weddings or baby showers.
(30:43):
The norm has completely gone and it's just trying to
make it through a day. They're exhausted from their work.
They're working now, but then coming home in the evening
and still doing all of the things that a couple
you does together in keeping a home, and so all
(31:04):
of the stories. They may have different names, and they
may have different homes or different communities, but the big
thing is is these women are doing it on their own.
And so we're thankful that they do have the support
of the churches because a lot of them are getting help.
A lot of them do have a woman who can
(31:25):
come and sit alongside them and have a conversation and
encourage them. They can maybe even take their kids for
a couple of hours to say, have some free time.
They're doing Bible studies. You're seeing a lot of women
who are coming under the churches for that.
Speaker 1 (31:43):
What is that like? I mean, this is the former
Soviet Union. There was not a lot of ability to
hear the Gospel in the Soviet Union. So this is
probably a lot of unchurched people that are hearing the
gospel for the first time.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
I would imagine they are, and we have seen a
lot of people accepting Christ and their lives are completely
turned around. So the people who are being steadfast that
had faith before aren't like running and giving up or
what they're doing instead is they're getting stronger, they're trusting
God more, they're moving forward, they're trying to figure out
(32:21):
how they can help others. And then the ones walking
through the door that have never heard it before, they're
seeing something different in the people of the church. They're
seeing that they're wrapping their arms around them and they're
meeting their needs, and they're making sure that they're safe,
and they're coming close to them and lifting them up
(32:41):
and encouraging their hearts. And maybe it is just through
a conversation or a hug or a sharing the gospel
getting a warmer.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
I really think that's the biggest story here, and I
understand the whole You know, you're looking at war, you're
looking at death, you're looking at loneliness. But in the
midst of this God is affecting lives and I think
that's the power of women who are out there that
have sons that say, I don't know what's going to
happen to my son having the Gospel there. We've heard
(33:15):
so many stories of young men in Ukraine that walk
into a Bible study, that walk into a church and
they go, this is different than the doom and gloom
that I see outside of the church. And I do
think that in it, God does miracles. God does miracles
every single day. But the church is beyond those four
walls and it is being seen. I hear that that
(33:39):
it is being seen on the ground. We've had so
many people who are in Eastern Europe, missionaries who are
in the Eastern Europe, and even in our own church
had young men come in and go I had no
reason to keep living like I really didn't see any positivity.
I was stressed. I mean, the post traumatic stress disorder
is not just the older men or the men that
(34:00):
have gone to wards, the young men as well.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Well.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I lost my father. I didn't have any hope. I
walked in and I saw Jesus and I saw something
totally different than I'd ever seen before. Yes, yeah, that
to me is the miracle in this.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
At SGA, I have the privilege of leading a storytelling
ministry and Alexander was actually one of our storytellers for
quite some time. But what they're doing is they are
observing what is happening and how God is at work
through his people, and it's every day, story after story
after story. Sometimes I'm like, I have tears coming down
(34:39):
my cheeks because I'm reading of either great pain from
a young orphaned child who has gone into an orphanage.
Yet that's where he met Christ because of our Orphans
Reborn program and so and then all of a sudden
he's living a new life. And the same thing is
happening in Ukraine with the widow and their kids and
(35:01):
even the men on the front lines. The chaplains are
going in and they're telling There was one person, actually,
one of the men who was on the front lines,
and he told the story of a chaplain who had
come and he said, there's like nothing here for us,
day in and day out. We are just like trying
to survive. And you come and you talk to us
(35:24):
and you give us hope, and that makes us want
to go on. It makes us want to live. And
so that's what's moving Ukraine. Is something is happening in Ukraine,
and there is definitely hard stuff there and I hear
it a lot and I cry with them. But God
(35:44):
is there and He is working, and there are so
many new believers in the midst of all of this,
and so many great stories of His glory, his honor,
and it's all through His people that are being raised up.
It's a beautiful story.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Let's take a quick commercial break. We'll continue next on
the Tutor Dixon Podcast. We are so used to hearing
people today say that it's just life is so hard.
There's so much division. The entire world is divided. There's
these wars going on. We're slowly seeing these wars come
to an end. We're really praying that that is the
(36:22):
same situation that happens in Russia and Ukraine, that this
war will come to an end. But I do believe
that we are seeing a revival as well. I do
believe that we're seeing this in the United States. I've
heard about this in Eastern Europe. I've heard about what
you're talking about. Alexandra. Before we go, share your testimony
of what you've seen when it comes to sharing the
gospel in Ukraine.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, So what I can say, even in the first
days of the war, when people were completely shocked and
they didn't know where to go. There was no food anywhere,
there was no even connect you couldn't call anyone. People
started coming to church and the church opened their doors,
(37:06):
even though many people fled. And I remember in our church,
which had like six hundred members, there were probably ten
people left only. But they opened the door and they
prepared the food from what they had. They seen songs
all day long. They invited everyone to come and they
(37:28):
went to we have like a basement where we have
our youth meetings, and they said, it's just your new home.
Please stay there. So after it all became more stable.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
And then because we have troops in our region, So
when they left h and everybody returned, the coup of
the people returning, church became functioning as usual. These people
came and they became, they believed, and then they baptized
and now they are coming on a regular basis. Then
(38:03):
we have many women who lost their husband, and I
have a friend she's also a young widow, and she
started the ministry telling these women that you have a wound,
but only Jesus can heal it. No therapists, no self
help books, only Jesus can do that. And she goes
(38:24):
on retreats to the mountains with these women where they women,
where they can just relax, change their focus, look at
the nature. And she speaks how she got healed and
that Jesus did that to her. And she also gives
(38:46):
practical advice how you can serve these women just being there,
just supporting them, inviting them to Thanksgiving or Christmas dinners
because they are all by themselves else and they are abandoned,
and when it comes to holidays, it's when they mostly
feel this loneliness. But showing them the other perspective, it's
(39:12):
what gives hope. And what I appreciate even about our
church is that it was so flexible to say, Okay,
we were oriented on this ministry, but now these people
need us, so we're going to start a new ministry.
There are many internally displaced people who came from eastern
(39:33):
part of Ukraine. They lost their homes, and we started
a new ministry for moms who came from those parts,
and we said we can babysit her children for two hours,
come and join us for a devotional and they started
coming and they started inviting their friends, and they said,
you're the first people who actually not cared only about
(39:57):
my children, but about myself, and you ask about my pain.
And sometimes those devotionals it's only about like talking about
the grief. And sometimes they spend to our crime. But
they have to tell what they feel to someone, and
it's better be people in the church. And this ministry
(40:19):
become that big that we even have like two gatherings
per day, like in the morning and in the evening.
Speaker 1 (40:28):
I want to say before I let you go, I've
been looking at what is behind the revival that we're
seeing across the globe. Obviously, after we lost Charlie Kirk,
we in the United States said what is going on?
Why is you know, why are we being so spiritually attacked?
And I do think that as the power of Christ rises,
(40:49):
then obviously the spiritual attack is stronger. But I did
some research on the power of faith, and I was
as I was doing this, I found that there was
a study done in New Orleans after the Katrina hit.
After the big hurricane hit New Orleans, there was a
study that was done between two thousand and five and
(41:10):
twenty ten, and the study showed that the communities that
had the highest church membership recovered the fastest, and they
found that they recovered the fastest for exactly what you're
saying is that there was a home base for everybody
where they felt safe. They could go there, and they
always knew that no matter how bad things got, there
was somebody that was there to help them to lift
(41:31):
them up. And through that as they started to rebuild,
there was so much support for entrepreneurship and helping people
get back on their feet and make something of themselves
that they actually saw the economy grow faster than they'd
seen it in any other area. So as I as
I leave you today, I want you to know that
(41:51):
what you do sharing the gospel there is so much
more important than hearts and minds. This is generational growth
for these communities and generational growth in Christ. So I
know we say, okay, well, you know you plant one
seed and you hope that it creates so many more
seeds that come from that, And that is truly what
(42:12):
you are doing, because not only are you planting that
seed for those families that will then grow in Christ,
but they will grow as a community together and their
community will flourish because Christ is there and the spirit
is so strong. So thank you for sharing this, thank
you for telling us this. And as I read that
(42:33):
about Katrina, it gave me so much hope for areas
like Ukraine, like Israel, like Gaza, like these places that
have been destroyed that once faith, that little seed sprouts,
that that seed can create so much growth in so
many different areas. So before we go, can you just share, Christy,
how people can support the Slavic Gospel Association.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Yeah, so we probably the easiest thing for you to
do is to go to our website, which is SGA
dot org. There is story after story of just exactly
what we've been talking about, plus more because we work
in other countries as well. You can read the stories
and then there are links there that take you to
(43:17):
all of the different ministries like Orphans Reborn and summer
camps and Biblical someone at seminaries. We have so much
to offer there, just in ways that you can get
be partners with us basically, but more than anything, prayer.
Prayer is something that we all hold very close and
(43:38):
we do constantly lift this up because this is God's
ministry and He has a plan and a purpose for
all of it, and we can see it when we
do get these stories back of how he's building his
churches over there, and you can, if you want to,
you can get involved with a specific church planter who
is over there, a missionary pastor who does have one
(44:01):
of these local churches that does where the ministry is
based out of. And so everything is on the website though,
and just continue to pray for Usk, continue to pray
for Ukraine, and continue to pray for the widows, the
single moms, because it's a hard place to be, but
we have seen just a glorious things that are happening
(44:24):
in their lives.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
We're called to pray big. We're called to pray specifically.
And now as you have heard this story, if you're
listening today and you've heard this story, share this with
your children, because just as we've talked about, it's important
to spread that seed and spread the gospel, also spread
that involvement in other people's lives, because that's what we're
called to do. Is we're called to lift up the
(44:47):
entire church. This is our church, no matter where it
is in the world. Lift them up in your prayers,
talk about them at night with your kids. Make sure
that there is a connection of believers across the globe.
Thank you so much for you do. I so appreciate
having you guys on. Is there anything else you want
to say before we let you go?
Speaker 2 (45:05):
Thank me this way And one more challenge too. As
we're praying for Ukraine, single moms and widows are here
in the United States as well, so look around we
need to be helping them. They're lonely here too. They're
dealing with grief, maybe dealing with not having a babysit
or not having anyone to talk to, not having somebody
(45:27):
to go to. The holidays are coming up, so look
around if there's anybody in your community, and maybe reach
out to them too.
Speaker 1 (45:36):
That is so beautiful, absolutely, and I'm so glad that
you are connected and that you came on today. Alexandra
and Christy, thank you so much, Thank you, thank you,
and thank you all for joining us on the Tutor
Dixon podcast. To remember for this podcast and others, you
can go to Tutor Dison dot com, the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasting. You can
(45:56):
watch the full video on Rumble or YouTube at Tutor
Dixon and join us next time. Have a blessed day.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show News
Hosts And Creators
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Show Links
WebsiteNewsletterPopular Podcasts
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com