Faith at the Front

At each stop on Alexey Derkach’s [Ukrainian] route, members of Word of Truth Bible Church piled into the back of the gray-colored van. Black lettering covered both its sides. One sticker said “Chaplain” and showed a cross and a sword with the Greek letters alpha and omega. The other bore the words “Humanitarian Aid” printed in Ukrainian script.

Photographer Viacheslav Ratynski and I joined at the last stop, squeezing into the already-full space. The church volunteers struggled to rearrange the trove of cargo stuffed against the back seats. With the team finally settled, Derkachheaded east, across the wide Dnieper River, toward the front.

Since the start of Russia’s war on Ukraine in February 2022, Derkach and other church members have taken humanitarian aid to Ukrainian soldiers deployed along the country’s front lines. The pastor, who by day oversees a window installation business, acts as lead organizer of the church’s frequent trips to bring food, supplies, and even tactical gear to Ukraine’s often under-provisioned armed forces. Derkach helped launch the ministry last year, after realizing Ukrainian soldiers lacked such basic equipment as bulletproof vests. He and other Christians in Kyiv developed a do-it-yourself production site, made more than 1,500 vests, and distributed them free of charge to soldiers and combat-zone aid workers. The ministry paired each vest with a free Bible. Despite the life-and-death urgency of protecting Ukrainians in dangerous places, Derkach remains focused on evangelism. The bulletproof-vest production has since slowed down, but the church’s mission at the front continues.

“The highest priority in this ministry is to tell people the gospel,” Derkach said. “Since a soldier may die today or tomorrow, we feel a great responsibility before God to tell them the most important thing.” Outside the city, the highway cuts through massive, rolling fields of rapeseed, wheat, and other crops. They blazed with yellow blooms against an electric-blue sky. It’s more than just pretty countryside: Ukraine’s national flag is modeled after just such a horizon, with a yellow band below and a blue band above. The country has used the flag since 1848 and adopted it officially in 1992, less than a year after declaring independence from a then-crumbling Soviet Union. Ukraine joined the Soviet Union as a socialist republic in 1922. Ten years later, despite its breadbasket status, Ukraine suffered a massive famine that killed millions, during a time known as the Holodomor—Ukrainian for “death by hunger.” Through a deliberate policy of genocide, Josef Stalin aimed to starve Ukrainians, earn millions selling their crops for Ukraine’s road to independence and stable borders is both long and, given Russia’s new belligerence, unfinished.

All of that painful history endures in the memories of today’s Ukrainians, who say they are fighting to resist a return to Russian domination. Derkach describes the fight in spiritual terms. The war means “evil, pain, suffering, the death of innocent children, fathers and mothers and elderly people,” he said. “When we see this evil, we understand even more how big and terrible sin is.”

An hour down the highway, we drove past a sign that made Derkach stop and turn around to take a closer look. The sign, written in Russian, was meant for the country’s unwelcome foreign visitors. Using a pejorative term for the Russian people, the sign’s message followed with, “Welcome to hell!”

Such an outcome was exactly what Derkach and other Christian volunteers kept busy preaching about: that the war can, at any time, separate believers from unbelievers, the living from the dead, for eternity. “The war has not changed the meaning of the gospel,” Derkach told me later. “It has only showed how important it is to preach the gospel, because people are going to hell every day.”

On the outskirts of a small town in the Chernihiv region, Derkach pulled into a concrete loading zone, where a team of local volunteers stood sorting supplies. The barnlike space held volumes: canned food, electric generators, boots and galoshes, and boxes upon boxes of American military surplus. Backpacks with pixelated camouflage, stamped with
“U.S.” in bold black letters, lay in piles around the room. A Ukrainian and a U.S. flag hung side by side. Other parcels looked as if they had just arrived from American aid groups and donors: Several white containers bore the mark of North Carolina–based Samaritan’s Purse. Cardboard boxes with the words “Costco” and “U-Haul” stood in abundance.

The Word of Truth volunteers worked briskly, stacking the camo backpacks inside the van above packs of New Testaments in Ukrainian. I marveled at how far the supplies had traveled. While the volunteers finished, Derkach traded notes with the local organizers.

As the sun faded near the horizon, we jumped into the van and pushed ahead. The day had been fruitful, and long. Only well after dark would we cross the Dnieper River again. Derkach and his team prayed that the road would lead to victory. And to peace.

World Magazine, June 24, 2023, p. 70