A Saturday Evening Post

Ivan is a freelance Sports writer from Mariupol. He became a Christian in 2001 when he was fifteen years old. He and his family are putting their lives back together day by day. This is one family, there are thousands more like them throughout Ukraine. Let Ivan’s story have an impact on you!  

Before I begin, I would like to say that I want to glorify God for everything he has done for me and my family. Without Him, I would be nothing. 

I will never forget the morning of February 24, 2022.  I woke as a military operation in Ukraine was announced. I could already hear explosions in the distance. We lived close to the eastern edge of the city. 

I took my wife Nastya and our 3-year-old daughter, Alisa to the center of the city where Nastya’s relatives had an empty apartment. We hoped to wait out the war in safety. The three of us lived quietly for several days until we lost electricity and gas lines, so we moved in with my wife’s grandfather and brother. Soon water and heat were cut off for the entire city. We lost connections to the internet and phone; we were cut off from the outside world.  

We cooked over a fire, and we got water from a pipe in a nearby kindergarten; all this, under shelling and explosions. 

On March 10^th Russian aggression became intense in our area. Explosions continued throughout the day. We got up at 5-6 in the morning and met our neighbors in the corridor in our building to avoid flying glass from the windows. The walls trembled from airstrikes.  My daughter was very afraid, she always talked about the bad guys shooting. We prayed constantly but saw no change. 

On March 13, the air strikes began, literally every 5-10 minutes. We had no windows left in any of the apartments it was getting dangerous to sit on the steps in the corridor. A shell hit our building in the neighboring entrance and a fire started in our neighbor’s apartment. We learned that the whole family died instantly. At least five of our close neighbors died that day.  

We went to the basement of the building where most of the residents of the nine-story building already were. The basement, was cold and damp, like a dungeon. We cried when our daughter asked us what we were going to do because had no answers. We spent the night in the basement on the cold floor. We had nothing to eat. Alice had a few cookies and sweets but we didn’t have anything else. She was still hungry, but going outside and cooking was out of the question. 
I  prayed, 
“Lord, please do something – or just take us home, let a bomb hit us, end our suffering. We are ready to die. Or let this stop we can’t survive another day down here.”  

At that time, and in that place, I had no idea God was working out a solution for us.  

Seemingly out of nowhere, my father-in-law came to us. He said “We’re leaving, Now! The road to Melekino from Mariupol has just been opened.” I was shocked he was one of the first able to get into Mariupol, no one had been allowed to enter or leave for the last two weeks. (Melekino was twelve miles from us.) We had heard nothing from him, we didn’t even know if he was still alive, but he here was! 
I knew this was God’s answer to our prayers! Half an hour before there were strong air strikes, the area was shelled with tanks and rockets, and somehow Vladimir had come through it and stood in front of us. Part of me wondered if he was real. This was the hand of God.  
We quickly packed and drove Vladimir’s car to Melekino.  It was March 14th. I will never forget this day. Driving through the city, we saw how much the city had changed in the two weeks while we hid in our apartment. As we drove houses were burning, and almost all the houses were destroyed. Those images are forever stamped on my memory. I felt carried by the hand of God out of Mariupol. While we drove, there was not a single shot, not a single explosion. Literally 30 minutes before there was war, there were airstrikes from an airplane in this area, but while we drove, there was complete silence. Only 30 minutes before, I was ready to die, and here I was driving away from the nightmare, Alive!  

I started crying, not from fear this time, but because I asked God, why He loved us so much? Why did he let us survive? God must have some other plan for us. 

I want to say that God accompanied us from the first to the last minute in this difficult time. I saw His hand, through every movement, and in every decision, we made in the most difficult moments in Mariupol. After that, there have been many difficulties that I, Nastya, and Alice have been through. But I will never tire of repeating – God is great, and we have survived to this moment only because of Him! I want to praise Him for His love and mercy, and I will definitely never forget what He has done and continues to do for His children.