Kiev, Ukraine - Day 3

In the U.S. we talk a lot about the issue of abortion and as Christians we are obviously pro-life. I think it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that this problem is a global issue. Today I became all too aware of that reality.

This morning we had a great meeting with two women who are involved in “life” ministries. Larysa is the director of Life International for all of the Ukraine and Lena is the Director of a crisis pregnancy center in Kharkov.

These women work intensely to battle the issue of abortion in the Ukraine. From them we learned that it is not unusual for them to counsel women who have had seven abortions. They said of these women, “The pain is so big they can’t get a hold of it.” The goal of Lena, Larysa, and many other life ministries here is to help women get a hold of the deep pain they have experienced and to find healing through Christ.

One of the ways that takes place is through small group meetings that they are doing. Again the statistics they shared are unimaginable. In a group meeting of nine women, they said it was not unusual to have 55 to 65 abortions among the group. These gatherings are focused on naming the pain that they have and getting in touch with the reality of what they have experienced.

Last year in Russia 8 million babies were aborted and in the Ukraine 450,000 were aborted (roughly the population of Grand Rapids, MI). The population of Ukraine is 46 million (roughly double the size of NYC).

At one point the statistics looked like this:

For every 100 babies born… 126 were aborted.

This statistic has dropped but primarily due to increased contraception education, not necessarily the change in attitude or lifestyle.

Unlike in the U.S. the option of adoption isn’t a good “selling point” in convincing young women to keep the baby. Here’s why. There are 150,000 abandoned babies in hospitals across the Ukraine and there are 175,000 street kids. The government doesn’t have a well organized system for dealing with unwanted babies. Typically babies left for adoption are caught in the “system” for at least 9 months. This means that hospitals are filled with babies from 0-9 months that are lying in cribs staring at the white ceiling. As a result these babies are behind developmentally and often show sings of emotional instability due to neglect. With that picture of the “adoption” process, few see it as a viable option.

My heart was broken by hearing these stories.

But there is good news… These women are on the front lines here in the Ukraine, talking with women everyday, saving lives, and bringing healing. It was a joy to meet them.

We spent the rest of the day running around Kiev meeting with ministry leaders from Universities and Associations. Watching God orchestrate all of these meetings has been wild. We came here with only three contact names and had only received confirmation that those three would meet with us the day before we arrived. We leave tomorrow morning at 4:00 am with 32 contacts here and met face to face with about half of those people. What a wild 2 ½ days!

We are unsure of our web access in Spain, so I may not be posing anything for a while. I don’t know. This whole trip has been an adventure. Meeting new people and allowing God to open doors and create opportunities for us.