There is a man named Pastor Peter who helps out with Mission to Ukraine from time to time. He is an eccentric man who is incredibly outgoing and unreserved....the room always lights up when Pastor Peter arrives. He only speaks Russian and Ukrainian, so we spoke primarily through interpreters and gestures. One day he asked if I wanted to come to his church in "the village". I was curious to see what church was like in the rural areas of Ukraine, so of course I said yes. He made the arrangements with Ira and before I knew it I was being picked up in his van, zooming down a snowy country road with the city in our rearview mirror. Thank goodness Tanya was with me as a translator because I would not have known what was happening.
As Tanya and I sat in our seat waiting for church to begin, Paster Peter came up and asked (in Russian) what I was going to preach about today. My heart sank. As amazing as I am at speaking (ha!), I had nothing prepared. I gratefully declined his invitation to preach, but consented to introducing myself and saying a few words about my work with people with disabilities. So with Tanya's help, I spoke to a room full of Ukrainian men and women about who I am, where I come from, and why I am dedicated to changing the lives of people with disabilities. I spoke about my education, about Ben, and about my work with Mission to Ukraine. I always smile because it is in those moments where I knew that Ben's story was changing lives as well.
After sitting through a long, incomprehensible sermon in Russian, I suddenly found myself surrounded by a group of old Ukrainian babushkas (Russian word for 'grandmother'). One after another they came up to tell me their story. After several engulfing, grandmotherly hugs, one lady (who was waiting patiently in the background) came up to me with tears in her eyes. She told me of her severely disabled grandson who is trapped at home due to his condition. At that moment my heart resonated with her tears...her pain was so real. She did not speak of her grandson as a burden, but as a victim of society's shortcomings. When she finished telling me of her grandson she asked me to bless her. I was taken aback. Who was I to bless her? As I layed my hands on her and prayed aloud, it started to hit me....I, Emily Wallace from Greenwood, Indiana, was carrying this Ukrainian babushka before the cross. I had no commonality with this woman that I was praying for, but we were connected in every way through our humanity. Once I was finished praying, she took my face and kissed each cheek.
Later that day we boarded Pastor Peter's van. In my mind I prepared for the long journey home, thinking about what I would do to relax once I was back in Zhytomyr. But as we drove down the road Tanya informed me that we were going to make a house visit to a woman with a disability whom Pastor Peter's church is supporting. Right away I mentally packed away my craving for rest. I asked Tanya to find out about the woman and what sort of disability she had. Pastor Peter's only reply was, "just wait until you meet her".
A few minutes later Pastor Peter turned off of the main road onto a country path, which was covered in several feet of snow. If it weren't for the van, we would never have made it through the snow-covered road. There was nothing around us but what appeared to be old abandoned shacks. Suddenly, I was amazed to find that we were stopping in front of one of them. Could it be that this woman lives in one of these woodsheds? Pastor Peter put the van in park, turned to me and said, "follow me". As I tracked through the snow toward the shed that Pastor Peter had disappeared into, I began to realize that no amount of education could have prepared me for what I was about to experience.
The building that I entered was nothing more than a poorly constructed woodshed. There were no floors, only dirt, and the roof looked like it was barely holding on. The room was empty except for a small fire pit and a broken old couch with a single blanket. As I looked around I noticed that the holes in the walls did nothing to keep the 10 degree weather and bitter winter wind from blowing the entire structure down. Pastor Peter was listening to a woman who was feverishly speaking at him. I didn't have to understand Russian in order to know that she was psychotic and having a manic episode. Tanya leaned over and explained that she was having delusions about a doctor that she found in the paper. Having had experience with people suffering from mental illness, I was able to instruct Pastor Peter how to speak to her - that her reality is not ours. Immediately he took the paper from her and put it in the fire. He pled with her to come to church so they could minister to her and give her food. He also said that he would be coming back with some men from the church to patch up some of the holes in the wall. Before leaving, Pastor Peter, Tanya, and I laid hands on her and prayed.
Since that day I have thought a lot about suffering. I had never experienced someone with more suffering than that woman in the shed that day. Her life was in shambles. Her world was empty and she had nothing - not even her sanity. But it was through that suffering that I could identify with her. No matter how we suffer, no matter who we are or where we come from....we can all converse through suffering. It's what makes us human. It breaks down the barriers and facades that we put up to try and make everyone think we are ok. But we're not. We all suffer. What's beautiful is that we all have the chance to remember it, and learn from it. We all have the chance to use it to touch someone else through their struggle. It is those moments, when something touches you and connects you to another human being, that we experience what we're really made of.
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