My daughter learned to make doll clothes when her grandmother came to visit us in Ukraine. They sat outside and sewed for hours together. She remembers once having a picnic outside with a fruit salad in a bowl carved from a watermelon. Before war came to Ukraine, children played innocently outdoors, much like many of us remember doing in our childhoods long ago.
Many of us even remember neighborhood children playing so long together that parents provided lunch for whatever group happened to be at their house at lunchtime that day. While this is no longer a typical American culture, our kids had the benefit of growing up in this sort of environment in Ukraine. Summer days were spent playing with their friends outside for hours and hours, and summer evenings meant riding bikes to the store for an ice cream sandwich. They got dirty, they got hurt, they got in trouble, and sometimes we had to settle squabbles with neighbors’ parents.
Adele invited one particular little friend and her brother to church. She was the friend that my husband’s mother made the watermelon basket with and sewed doll clothes for. They later attended one of our Vacation Bible Schools as well. Nastya was the sweetest little girl, while her brother Ioann (John) was a terror. I came close to wringing his neck several times.
Within in the past year or so (before the war broke out), Christians in Nikopol randomly met Nastya and her brother Ioann (John) and invited them to the youth group they do at church. Nastya remembered making doll clothes in the yard with my daughter and so they went. Nastya and Ioann had a very unstable home life, and the church there has been family for them providing them housing ever since.
When fighting became heated in our area in recent weeks, the church brought her to the rehab facility that is located in a village out of town. Friday (Aug 12) Nastya turned her life over to Christ. With tears in my eyes, I can say, Nastya is now my sister in Christ.
Many years ago, a seed was planted, God brought Christians back into her life so that seed could come to life, As Paul wrote:
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So, neither he who plants, nor he who waters is anything but only God, who gives the growth. – I Corinthians 3:6-7
When the Christians were persecuted after Stephen was stoned they scattered everywhere and brought the gospel with them (Ac 8:1-4). It happened again when General Titus laid seige to Jerusalem in 70 A.D. This is what we are seeing in Ukraine. The gospel has been moving in Ukraine like wildfire. Every day new souls are being added to the church. I do not like to see the needless pain suffered by so many in Ukraine, but without it, people are too comfortable to realize their need to accept Christ. God can use these challenging times to bring people to him.
Let us not grow weary of doing good for in due season we will reap if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9
Because of modern technology, I was able to call Nastia just before writing this post. I was able to talk to a more grown up girl than the one that played with my daughter in the back yard 9 years ago. Obviously life is different and her thoughts are deeper. It was nice to be able to have a different connection to her. In that conversation she said that her mother stayed at the rehab facility for a few weeks at the beginning of the war but she has left now. Nastya is now planting and praying over the seed in her mother’s heart, and that perhaps one day she will come to Jesus as well. We will never know how many souls will be clothed from a few doll outfits sewn so many years ago.
THAT IS MY NASTIA???? She is the Nastia I read about who was baptized? OHHHH! I have thought about her every year since the time I was there making the watermelon basket and the doll clothes! Oh…this makes me SOOOOO happy!
She remembered all those years later. Katya, (the preachers wife) said she is a very spiritual young lady. She has already been very active in church, even preparing lessons and teaching the little Children even though her own faith is so new