The 48-Hour Miracle

Most people spend weeks planning a vacation…but Bill Farrar and I? We spent about 48 hours planning a trip into a war zone.

Several weeks ago, Bill, (CEO of Fountains of Hope, International) missed a guest speaker (Reverend Ivan Rusyn from an Evangelical Theological Seminary) speak at his home church service because he was flying home from a mission trip he had undertaken in Zimbabwe. His pastor set up a breakfast meeting between Bill and Reverend Rusyn for the next morning and they discussed current events in the Eastern Europe region. Tuesday morning, Bill called and said, "Nick, want to go?" By Thursday afternoon…we were on a plane headed into the region.

It should be noted that during the first week of February, the temperature in the capital city was, at one point, 25 degrees below zero Celsius (that’s -13 degrees Fahrenheit for those of us who don't speak Metric). It got down to -5 degrees Fahrenheit while we were there. It was COLD.

Because drones are currently being used to target power plants, much of the city is on a rolling electricity power-outage schedule. Steam power plants that provide radiator heat to over 1,000 high-rise apartments (approximately 800,000 people) have been destroyed so the tenants do not have heat. Civilians that have not left the city generally get about two hours of electricity a day. Imagine trying to live your life in a two-hour window of electricity!

We met our friend and driver, Alex, in a neighboring country, and he had already loaded his Ford van with 180 water-filtration buckets for soldiers and civilians and 60 combination electric/gas portable heaters to hand out to civilians.

The country is approximately the size of Texas and their capital city (which is generally centrally located) is about the size of Chicago. The capital city, unlike Chicago, has a lot more air-raid sirens and a lot less deep-dish pizza.

It took us two and a half days to get from the neighboring country to the capital city…most of which time I spent cramped in the back seat of a Ford van loaded with water buckets and packaged space heaters. The trip generally led me to questioning several life choices and my legroom. We got to the capital city late Sunday evening – to the sounds of bombing concussion and air-raid sirens in the distance.

We didn't go empty-handed. We delivered:

180 water-filtration buckets for soldiers and civilians.

60 portable heaters that run on propane and electricity.

Over the next several days we met a pastor and his young family, an elderly woman on the 6th floor of a concrete apartment building with no heat, the staff of the theological seminary and a group of church people to whom we disseminated our wares and taught each group how to assemble the portable heaters. All became part of our distribution system.

While there, we met a young soldier who a year earlier had survived 18 hours on a battlefield after a drone attack. He had been saved only because the shrapnel that hit him in the leg, chest and shoulder was so hot it cauterized his own wounds. We met him at the rehab hospital where he was being interviewed for the possibility of getting a “bionic” leg. The injury cost him a leg, but not his spirit.

On our last night, a group of local pastors who had previously bought a massive portable BBQ grill spent the night making free pork sandwiches and coleslaw for anyone in the neighborhood. For people coming home to a dark, freezing apartment, that hot sandwich was more than a meal, it was a reminder that they aren't forgotten. We got to give free hugs to let people know that Jesus loves them and that they were in our prayers.

We were gone for eight days – 2½ days there and 2½ days back. Bill and I were only on the ground for three days, but we realized that our presence was just as important as the presents. They kept telling us: 'Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing us the face of the Global Church.'

We’re back now, and we’ve finally caught up on our sleep and have thawed out, but the work isn't done. We want to send more heaters, more filters, and more 'BBQ grace'. If you feel led to support this region, you can give today at www.FountainsofHope.org/Donate.

-Nick Tillema

(Pictured far right, with Fountains of Hope Executive Director Bill Farrar, and FoH Country Director Vlad Alexander.)