So much was packed into my trip to Ukraine two weeks ago that just one post couldn’t cover it all. I actually arrived the day before the conference. I spent that night with friends Andrew and Jenny Kelly, north of Kiev, near the town of Ivankiv.

Ivankiv town sign

Andrew and I co-founded the Ukrainian ministry to orphans, Jeremiah’s Hope, when I lived in Donetsk and he lived in Mariupol. Jenny has also lived and worked with orphans in Ukraine for many years. They now live near Ivankiv on the camp property that they built and now use as both a camp for orphans and children at-risk, and a ministry base for Jeremiah’s Hope. In the last year they have used the camp to host many refugees from the war in the eastern part of the country. It was great to be with them and their family and see the camp and the continued ministry that happens there.

Andrew and kids out on the camp property

With Andrew, Jenny, and their children

On the way to the conference in Kiev the next day, Andrew and I stopped by the house of Tony and Shana Morrow, in the village of Pilipovichi. Andrew, Tony, and Shana were all with me on my first trip to Ukraine back in 1997. Tony and Shana now work with orphanage graduates in this village west of Kiev. Also there at the house was Rob Brown, the Executive Director of YouthReach International (formerly World Wide Youth Camps). All of us worked together in the early days of World Wide Youth Camps in the 1990s. It was a great, if all too brief, impromptu reunion with these dear hearts whom God has woven into the story of my life and who have all in their own way encouraged me in my work for the Kingdom around the world.

With Shana, Andrew, Tony, Rob, and Kostya