Ukrainian Pastor - Rosen K.

What does it take for a street kid from a Bulgarian orphanage to become a lifeline for families huddled in Ukrainian bomb shelters? Meet Rosen, a pastor whose life reads like a map of hard places and a ledger of relentless grace. Born with a severe double cleft palate and abandoned at birth, he survived on glue and grit until a stranger flew him to Amsterdam for world-class surgeries. A missionary family later adopted him to the U.S., where daily devotions, not pressure, kindled a quiet, certain call: serve the ones he once stood among.

We travel with Rosen through YWAM schools and back into Eastern Europe, where he learned to forgive doctors who failed, parents who left, and a system that bruised more than it held. He turned statistics into stories—teaching graduating orphans real skills in carpentry, cooking, and media—replacing despair with paychecks and purpose. Burnout nudged him to China, where language class met underground worship, and a leprosy ministry opened behind guarded gates. There, he cut wood for winter, harvested fields for those without hands, and shared audio Bibles with those without sight.

Then came an unexpected detour to Bethel in Redding, and a tender chapter of service, mentorship, and favor. In Bulgaria, he found his biological family, led with forgiveness, and left with closure. He married Oksana, a Ukrainian YWAM leader, and rooted in Ternopil. When war erupted, everything changed. Their daughter was born during air raid sirens. Blackouts shape meals and laundry. Drones and missiles scar neighborhoods. Ministry pivoted overnight to chaplaincy in hospitals, housing refugees, veteran transport, and simple, stubborn presence in the dark.

Rosen offers hard-won clarity on why Ukraine matters—identity, language, and the black soil that feeds nations—and how hope survives under martial law and midnight alarms. He asks for three things: pray for the exhausted church and relief teams; intercede for leaders, soldiers, and families; and, if you can, give to sustain fuel, food, and practical care at give.ywamtyler.org and specify if possible for Rosen K. or you can give your gift through YWAM accounting and designate for Rosen Klepel at YWAM ACCOUNTING // PO BOX 3000 // GARDEN VALLEY TX 75771 Make sure to specify for Rosen Klepel

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Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_03 0:18

All right, everybody. Welcome back to the Speak Life A Z podcast. Testimony of Jesus and everyday people. I'm your host, Eddie, and always with me is my son Rowdy.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Jesus! What's up, bro? Oh man, oh man, buddy. Yes. Yeah. Is this really going down to it? It really is, brother. Wow. Yeah. When we say they just keep getting better, we they we mean it. They just keep getting better, man. How's your how was your Friday, buddy?

SPEAKER_03 0:44

You know how we do these things, man. Enemy don't like it, so yeah. I was tired. I'm not gonna lie. I got off work and I was tired, but I know why that is. I mean, the enemy tries to keep me because he knows what we're getting ready to do. Come on, man. The enemy don't want us doing this, so spiritual battle. We're going to war. Send me. This one here has been kind of planned for some time, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

And so this is I was I was just thinking about it, man. We always say at the very end, um, if you yourself have a great testimony or you know somebody with a great testimony, please reach out to us and let us know so we can get them on the schedule.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Somebody did.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

I think this is the first one, bro, where somebody actually did, man. Oh, this is really cool. Amen. Yeah. Um I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Oh, that's who'd you bring with you, man?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

So we got Pastor Rosen. How are you, Pastor? I'm doing good. Thank you so much for joining us today.

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Yeah, man. It's truly an honor, man. I was telling you before we started that uh when God gave us this, he made it very clear to us to honor his children. Um because we have we've asked people to come on and they said no, they didn't they're private or they don't want to share, or they feel they don't have a story. So each time we get an opportunity to sit down with God's son or God's daughter, it's it's a privilege, it's an honor. We're sitting before royalty. Come on, I mean we're all family princes in the kingdom of God, you know what I mean? So it's it's just an honor, brother. And like I told you just now, time is not something that is is sustainable, it's not resourceable. We only have so much. And so the fact that you're carving out a little bit of your time, thank you so much. You have no idea how much uh honor and and respect I have for that. So thank you. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Um for for me personally, Pastor Rosen, um, Al and Star have a very special place in my heart with me. Um I serve here with uh Starr um on the prayer team. So do you actually, buddy? Um we I just went to Turkey last year with with Al and Starr and a whole group of people. Yeah. Um and Al told me during the trip, he he said that uh he's got a friend coming from Ukraine that's a pastor that he really wants to get on the podcast. Um so we've been we've been working on this for a few months trying to get this thing dialed into today, but God knew what's gonna happen today. Amen.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Um, and so for me, just you're you're only here for a certain number of days. I'm sure there's people you want to see, friends you haven't seen for a long time. And these things, this is uh this is an this is a couple hours. This is this is a a real place where you can be open, you can be vulnerable, um, you can be honest. Yeah, we we get testimonies on here that they're they're heavy, bro. When you when you go home, you you can I don't know, do you have like Apple Podcasts or YouTube or Spark?

Vision For The Podcast And Format

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Well I watched I watched this morning some of uh uh stars, but just to get an idea where we're going for a little bit of my homework with you guys. I don't understand that, but yeah, we'll get to man.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

It's a this is gonna be totally great, man. Um let me let me pray real quick. Please do. I've got nerves. Jesus, help, God. Thank you, Lord. Holy Spirit, man. Yeah, I thank you, God. Thank you, Lord. I thank you that it's a a three-chord strand, God, that's not easily broken. Thank you, God. Um, I thank you for your son Rosen. Thank you, Lord. Um, I thank you for his life, God, that he's lived and um the way that he's been able to honor you, Jesus. Yeah. Um, I pray, God, just for uh the anointing on this podcast right now, um, and on this testimony that whoever's watching this, wherever they are, wherever they're listening from, God, that they can see you and and feel you and hear you, God, and what you've done in your son Rosen's life. Yeah. Um, I always say it that he he's been the pen in your hand, God. You've been writing this book.

SPEAKER_03 4:42

Thank you, Lord.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Um, so I thank you for the the story that he's come to share with Speak Life A Z. Thank you, Lord. Um, I just pray for him specifically, God, and just Holy Spirit, bring back everything that needs to be brought back to remembrance. Um, we thank you for clarity. We thank you for fun. Um, I know this is gonna be heavy, God, but this is also gonna be uh some fun in the Holy Spirit. I can feel it. Thank you, Lord. Um, so Jesus, I just pray you come and sit next to us and have your way in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

Amen.

Early Life In Bulgaria And Orphanage

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Um, so Pastor, when God gave this to us, um, the the kind of the vision of the podcast, it was in 2020. Yeah um it seemed like the Lord gave a lot of people podcasts in 2020. Um for the first couple of years, we we were not obedient. Um I I was in my bedroom and setting up a studio and preaching messages on uh on Facebook and over social media, and um it was about the end of 2022 when me and dad were like, what are we supposed to be doing with this? And God was like, it's the it's the Speak Life A Z podcast, the testimony of Jesus in everyday people. It doesn't matter if you're like myself and and you work here at a church and you're cleaning and doing everything that I'm doing today, like dad, over over at the muffler shop and working on cars and cutting off and having guy time. Or like you like yourself, um over in Ukraine and a minister of the gospel, yeah. Um and trying trying to share God's love with his people. Um we all have a story. Yeah, we've all we've all come from somewhere. Yeah, um, so basically what we want to get from you today, Pastor, um, is you what it was like for you growing up.

SPEAKER_04 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Um, what what how your brothers and sisters, relationship with mom and dad, uh church was God in the home? Yeah, um, what what do you guys do for fun in Ukraine? The hobbies, um, uh and and you know, so me and dad, we um we were in recovery. Do you know what recovery is? Okay, um it's helping people um that have have come out of addictions or uh hurts, habits, hangups.

SPEAKER_02 6:56

Yeah, I worked in Ukraine with a drug addict, so I know my okay, you know.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Okay, so you're working with a couple here, but now we walk in freedom. Thank you, Jesus. Um, but so we just want to know what your childhood was like growing up, man. And then I think the coolest thing we get today is your personal encounter with Jesus. Yeah. Um, because the way that God drew you to him, it was only personally just for you. And it was the way that he knew he needed to get you. Um myself, I would I was in a drug rehab in 2014 called Teen Challenge. I don't know if you've heard of Team Challenge anymore.

SPEAKER_02 7:35

My uh my roommate in Ukraine, who I lived a long time ago with, he started team challenge in Ukraine. Oh my goodness. I know very well.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Wow, we're brothers. Oh, this is great. Um, but that's where God met me. Yeah, I still remember sitting right in front of that altar on the right side and him telling me, son, I love you. Son, I forgive you. Yeah, it it changed everything. Yeah, I thought he was mad at me for all my bad choices and all the people that I hurt and everything I was doing. Dad, he he was in a prison cell in Tucson, locked down. Um, so we want to know your personal encounter with Jesus when it became real for Rosen. Yeah, and you you're like, wow, God is real and he loves me. And uh so what that looked like. Um, but and then we want to know kind of your how God's been using you over in Ukraine. Yeah, um, because I know there's a lot of stuff that just in these past few years you've gone through, you've seen, you've experienced, um, and just let the Holy Spirit lead you in whatever you want to share in that. Um, but then at the end, you're still young. You still got a lot of life left in you, Pastor. God is not, He's just getting started with you. The they they they say that in a man's life, the the best years, the most influence that a man actually has on earth is between 50 and 70. Yeah. So I'm only 41. I don't know. You're 41. Let's go. I'm coming to the Ukraine someday to visit, brother. Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 9:13

You guys are young.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Amen. Young whippersnappers. Yeah. Um, but so what you're hoping for in the future, yeah. There's there's more. God wants to do more with you. And so what's what's in your heart uh that maybe hasn't manifested yet um that you're still believing God to to come to pass?

SPEAKER_03 9:35

Yeah. Before I ask you to start, I I I I we've had conversations just briefly before we started, and you were talking about radio shows and things like that, probably talking about what's going on over there. I think the unique thing is we just want to know you, bro. Yeah, you know what I mean? Uh if you get into that, that's that's cool, man. If you get into some of that stuff, that's up to you. That's good. But I want you to realize that for you while that while that is important, yeah. We just want to know Rosenman. You know what I mean? That's what we're here to do, is to know who you are. You're our brother in Christ. We're forever family, dude. We'll be together in heaven and together. We just want to know who you are, bro. Okay. So what was it like growing up, Rosenman?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

All right. So when I was born, um I was born with a double cross palette. Okay. So I won't like I like my mother gave me in the womb. Uh she she uh like well before I actually gave birth, the doctor said some kind of handicap, but we don't know. We don't know. So that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

So you you were you were you were in the belly and they knew something.

SPEAKER_02 10:36

There was something, but nobody knew. Okay, you know Bulgaria is coming this time, the technology was not so good as America.

Surgeries In Amsterdam And Adoption Path

SPEAKER_03 10:44

So you were born in Bulgaria.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

I was born in Bulgaria, so we're gonna get uh so I when my mother gave birth, she said, Oh, he has black pellets, so I don't want like to separate him. I don't want to see him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I I gave the I released him, he he can go to the social service or to an orphanage. So from a young child I was in the orphanage.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

So I I was just gonna ask you if if mom like when she heard that news. I mean both parents did it together.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

So it was not just mom, like both my parents did it.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Is that is that is that common?

SPEAKER_02 11:22

Um probably is, maybe because I don't know, like I don't know. Like I I'll get to the story like so I at five years old, you're in the orphan and she was many other kids, and you're finding like where's my parents? Are they coming back? So I saw my friends going home every weekend and because uh in the world we have a couple types of orphans. Social orphans is when they go home during uh weekends and during the summers. There's one hundred percent orphans that they don't have either one parent is dead or injured or abusive towards the child or sexually, physically, they have to take away the child for the safety of the child. And it happens here in the foster care, become in danger, you become crazy. So at five years, five years old wonder I was where's my mom and dad? Are they coming back? And the teacher said, Forget it, like they're not coming back for you. You're under the So I started like because in my orphanage there was such a freedom to go outside of the streets. I like I didn't have to be stuck in uh beast and a fence.

SPEAKER_01 12:33

This is Bulgaria.

SPEAKER_02 12:34

Yeah, this is Bulgaria. Okay, and it was during that time it was communist, it was hard time, but we had many street kids, and we in Bulgaria we have all gypsies. Yeah. So I went to the streets, I hung out with them, but I saw them sniffing glue. So they said, Well, join the join the sniffing glue because it will help you relieve your pain. I was angry, I was uh breaking windows, I was getting my anger out. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Um were there like street gangs? No, no, no, for kids over there?

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Bulgaria, everybody was too poor to have this kind of drug. Like it was I mean Soviet Union And this is this is the Cold War, right? I mean Bulgaria never joined the Soviet Union, but we were the 16th country who was going to join. But we never joined. But Poland and Eastern Europe was part of communism, yeah. Okay, communist controlled our countries and we were under the system. So in Bulgaria was drugs was not accessible, yeah, yeah. But glue for street kids was very accessible. Like you buy store paint. You want to fix paint. Yeah, so we bought I bought uh gray bag and start sniffing it, and I feel oh wow, like it's easy. I feel glue. Yeah, my teachers don't need to. So I hit it, like and the next day I go to school, like or how long how long did you do that? I sniff blue until well, when I was at uh 11 years old, a social worker came to me finally and said, like, there's a possibility for you to get adopted. Wow. Uh so and she said Up up to this point? I was a troublemaker. Okay. Up to maybe 10, 11, I was uh Were you pretty much running the streets? Well, I know.

SPEAKER_03 14:27

Just come back to stay and they kind of go run to the streets, come back and stay, and just well, you have to come back.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

Oh, do you uh like during the evenings? Okay. Because they're eat some food, sit, okay. They have to shut the gates and lock the inside. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a couple different things.

SPEAKER_03 14:40

During the day you're free to do whatever you want.

Arriving In America And A House Fire

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah, during the day I went to school, but during the summer it was free. I can stay, run, come back. Okay. Uh started to pickpocket also. I was very good pickpocketing. I was gonna ask. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I was one of the troubles I developed. Like I started to hang out with the street kids, they're gypsies, yeah, and they were the best. I mean, they ran the streets, yeah, they knew how to pickpocket very good. Yeah, so my best friends were not my orphanage, yeah, kids. My best friends were the street kids. Street kids, so because they were smart, they would have freedom, they have money. Yeah, they had money, they had cash. I said, I need to buy the glue. But they said, Well, we have all the money, so you can go anywhere to buy the glue. So I got to 11. A social worker came to me and said, Well, it's an actual possibility that one American family, it's possible they can adopt you. We don't guarantee it, yeah, which is good. You never promise an orphan, oh, this is happening. Yeah, that'll be and he goes to another heartbreak, and then he gets more. More bad, yeah. So you never make promises. So I uh it was becoming sure that I was going to get adopted to an American family, and they said they were teachers in Thailand. Oh my like my social workers said, Well, they're kind of like teachers, but later I found they were missionaries. Missionaries, oh yeah. 27 years in Thailand, five years in Israel, seven years in Australia. Wow. So four years of their life, they were missionaries. So before that, I like they started to process the paperwork. I was getting to adopt, like uh, but my social workers said before you go to America, you need to stop this move. And I said, Wow, I'll stop right now. And it was like sudden, like I know drug addicts is very hard to stop. You come back. No, for me, I was so motivated to get out of Bulgaria because she even said to me, It's time to get out. You need to leave because Bulgaria is not gonna get any better. Yeah, it's only gonna get worse. High inflation, maybe people are poor, you're not gonna survive here unfortunate.

SPEAKER_03 16:55

And then a lot of Americans go there to adopt kids. We Eastern Europe we were harder. I know probably a dozen kids from Bulgaria that live in here in Arizona.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah, we were at another church in the world.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

It has gotten much harder now. Much harder. Okay. Not almost.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Yeah, we know one family that's got like ten of geez, they they got a lot of kids from Bulgaria. Yeah. But it was it was like in the nineties. Yeah. Yeah, I was adopted in 1997. Okay. It was very you could go over there with cash and bring home a kid. But it's still expensive. Adoption's not cheap. So I uh So okay. Up to this point, before so we're at 11. Up to this point, do you know of any brothers or sisters?

SPEAKER_02 17:41

Until that point, I did not know, but I know now that I have one older brother, okay, and they told him that I don't exist because he is four years older than me. Okay. When I was born, they never let her. He probably knew because my mom is pregnant. I but I don't know, but they did they keep him? Oh, they can they kept him. They kept him.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

Okay. So literally the reason why they gave you up was because of the cleft lip. Yeah, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Because I had a double. There's one uh cleft palate, and then there's a double where you're missing the bone and you have a hose. Oh wow. Like I had the most severe condition, so they didn't know how to do it. How to deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Is he gonna be able to eat? They were they were worried, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

Well, when you're orphaned, also the doctors practice on uh orphans. So I got ruined so bad that a businessman came to my orphan and he said from Netherlands, from Amsterdam. He said, I gotta fly you back to Amsterdam within a few days. Like I had a passport because he had a he had connections with the government of Bulgaria, like the high parliament, uh diplomats, embassy. Yeah, within five days. At nine or uh ten, I went to Amsterdam for a year and a half to have like two surgeries. So prior to that, people were like experimenting on how to really seriously they were practicing on me. I was from one surgery away from being fed for the rest of my life on tube. Really? Like where I need to shout. Oh my god. Yeah, praise God. Yeah, praise God. He came in the right time. Amen. Amen. Amsterdam Hospital is the number one hospital especialized for clapella kids in the world. In the world. Wow. Yeah. I even came to the dust, I came to surgeons in the States, and they said, we can have not done any better than what they did in Holland. God brought you the best.

Discovering Faith And Calling

SPEAKER_01 19:45

I really think it's amazing because you said at nine or ten that the Lord starts doing this with you and going through the process to get you up to Switzerland to get you to Netherlands. Netherlands, sorry, to get you the to get you the surgery. And you said at about 11, it started, hey, you might be able to get adoption. It was almost like God knew I'm gonna put this one in a family, so let's get him right and let's take care of it. I love Jesus, man. God is good. Is there is there any um church or uh religion or Bible or or anything in when you were growing up?

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Orthodox came to us. Oh you know, orthodox religion is like you say by works. Very every Sunday you light up the candle, you cross yourself, you go to talk to the priest, forgive my sins. He said, I forgive you, goodbye. It's back to sinning. It can't be and then it's like but that's real works. That's real, you say by your works, not by grace or by that any means. So it's like orthodox, that's how and everybody in Eastern Europe is religious. They will say, so you can't say you like when Americans come to Ukraine and they preach the gospel, um and they say, raise up your hands, everybody will raise up their hands, but they they don't they don't know about the relationship, like explain the relationship, what's meant. So they everybody and the Americans say, Oh, look, I save everybody 100,000 souls for the Lord. And but they said, Oh, well, if I die, who knows? Yeah, so that's they would tell you, oh, I'm a Christ, I I'm saved, but when I go if I go to heaven or hell.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

They know they know the they know the ways, but they don't know the relationship. There's no relationship.

SPEAKER_01 21:34

So it that's kind of like Turkey.

SPEAKER_02 21:36

Because when I when I went when I went to the you believe in you believe Muslims, there is a little bit different. It is quite different.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

But there the the church over there is that Orthodox, it's the Eastern Orthodox. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:50

Um and it and it's Russian Orthodox, Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian Orthodox. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Wow, okay. All right. So you go Up to the Netherlands, you have your surgery. I was there for a year and a half. Year and a half.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

You coming back to school, like not learning Dutch, but I was Did you live with a doctor? I live with a businessman that came to my orphanage.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

The one who had all the connections? Oh yeah. Was it different than what you were living in?

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Oh yeah, because I was sharing uh with uh ten kids one room. Yeah. In the orphanage? Yeah, yeah. In one room, ten kids. To what? But I went to my uh to be on my own, peace and quiet. I had my own toys where uh the kids can break up your toys. They did the businessman have any kids? Uh he did, but older? Yeah. Really? What made him I know what made him because he came every year to Bulgaria to do humanitarian aid work. Oh, really? Like to help. So he was like Dr. Obi in Dr. He was a believer then. No. No? Oh really? Oh he just wanted to help kids. All right. That was of the goodness of his heart he wanted to do and sometimes I believe non-Christians help more better than uh Christians. Come on, guys, we gotta do better. Amen. Amen. The Orthodox came to us, Jehovah's Witnesses came to my orphanage, and they gave us pens and they saw me. Yeah. Wow. But it took a non-Christian guy to come and say, Oh, some in four days we're flying to Amsterdam, so that's okay. That is within a month, I had a first surgery. Really? Yeah. Wow. And the doctor said you're all fixed up. Like it's gonna take a couple months, then we have to do one more.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

So two surgeries over in Netherlands. Major ones, major ones.

SPEAKER_02 23:44

Okay. Because they had to graft a bone from my hip and then put it up. Really? Wow. Wow. So it's all closed off now? Oh closed up. Really? I just have a cold right now, so that's why I'm kind of. You're totally fine. I love it, dude.

SPEAKER_03 23:59

So so you so you spent a year there. What was life? What was life like that? A year and a half I spent there. What was life like there? Oh had to been different. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Quiet, kids. You got toys?

SPEAKER_02 24:10

Kids are welcoming me. They said uh I went to their houses, play. They gave me. Or even when I went to the hospital for the surgery, my class came and they delivered me like CD player, Walkman. Wow. I mean, I get back to Bulgarian. They stole it for me. Yeah, wow, wow. I had a suitcase with nice clothes, but the kids were. So when you went back, you had to go back to the orphanage? Oh yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 24:37

So you're what, 12 and a half?

YWAM Training And First Ministry Steps

SPEAKER_02 24:39

No, I I went to the stage set twelve. When I was adopted, I was uh maybe I was you came back to the orphanage? Maybe eleven. Eleven. Okay. And then got adopted right away, or uh it took two years to a year and a half of the uh um the process of adoption.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

And was it f from the missionaries in Thailand? Oh wow.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

They're from uh originally they're Americans, but they lived many years in Thailand. So my mom is from Missouri, my dad's from Minnesota. So I grew up also in Minnesota and in Missouri. So okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:12

Well, how old were you when you came here?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Twelve and a half. Yeah. 13 normally, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Oh, so they f they finished, they finished their missionary journey, picked you up and came home?

SPEAKER_02 25:22

I we had come back to the States to finish my pro paperwork, like my visa to get a passport American, so I had to stay a year or two years. But the second day I came to the United States, I went my dad remodeled the room like a couple years before. And he remodeled my bedroom. And then uh we uh we went to a Lutheran church. My parents were kind of Lutherans, like non-dominational, but we went to a Lutheran church at 7:30, but we left the house at 7. There was a house that was the fire that started inside the wall at 4 a.m. And then in my bedroom it started, but we left so early that when we came back, uh, the Asher came to my parents and said, Duane, your house is on fire. And he said, What? He said, Duane, your house is on fire. Wow. And then again, and my dad said, get up and we gotta go. And we came back from church. The house was to the ground. So God spared us because we our church was started uh early.

SPEAKER_03 26:25

So what was the transition coming here like for you? I was tough because we were in Bulgaria, you probably didn't speak English, did you? No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

My mom was an English teacher. My parents were both teachers. Yeah. I mean, my dad was crazy. My dad was a so is mine. My dad built boats, my dad built airplanes. What do you guys speak in?

SPEAKER_03 26:46

My dad built uh Bulgarian. Is it similar to Russian? Or is it Slavic? Yeah. Slavic, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

What did they speak up in uh in the Netherlands? Like Dutch. Dutch. You didn't know Dutch?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

No, I had my own translator. Oh wow. Like uh he hired and she lived with us. Wow and then I went to school. I did my Bulgarian work, like uh I couldn't because I would lose all the work for Bulgaria while you were in the Netherlands. My schooling was done in Bulgarian. Like I they they sent all the materials from my school like to keep up with uh yeah yeah so that where you weren't falling behind or nothing. Yeah, but you still speak Slavic? I speak uh Ukrainian and English, Bulgarian, Chinese, Chinese.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Wow, you're just getting started. Oh, God is gonna open doors.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

I don't think I'll learn more because hard.

SPEAKER_03 27:46

But if you think about it, wow. A kid born with a double cleft lip, who probably people probably never thought would speak at all, or speak with some kind of normalcy. Yeah, speaking four languages. Come on, come on, man. Tell me God in the city. You know what I mean? I love that, dude. So you so your house burns down in Minnesota, you said?

SPEAKER_02 28:06

Yeah, then uh and I was never into God, and then but um that kind of gave me a woke up.

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Well, up until then there was no church really except for the Orthodox, you said, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:16

Well, I never went to it.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Oh really?

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I I never went to it. They didn't make you go. No, no. Okay. I why would I go? I don't have I'm not good. Like no, it's just it was no point for me to go. Like I just I see they crossed themselves, candle, and then go back to being so uh for me it was not interesting. Like so. But my teacher said, before you go to America, we you need to get baptized. So I but the priest said, Oh, come. And I said, But I I don't even believe in God. I don't believe in this. Oh, we'll just get you baptized so you you can be a d Orthodox guy, it's in your blood, and that's why I said, Okay, well, you just went through the went through the steps. But for me, through the fire, and my parents were had every morning and evening devotions. Oh, absolutely. Oh, yeah, yeah. They were very strong in it. Very strong. Uh so in the morning we sang songs, we read scripture. In the evening, my dad will share like faith stories because we lived in a boat, yeah. There was pirates, the way the pirates came, like almost cut his neck, and really he said in three times in the name of Jesus, they fled the Wow. Oh, that's like another pastor Bill. I don't have money. He said, I'm the poorest. Like even Thai people were feeding my parents, they were feeding them. Yeah. Like, and he's American and they were so poor, but the Thai people come bring 50-pound bags of rice, or the fishermen will bring my dad some squid and all the fish for free. God was providing for because my parents were living, they knew all the boat uh people and all the fishermen while they were building their camera and boat uh to live on the boat for a long time. Yeah, and they can pass out evangelism tracks to all the islands in Thailand because there's so many islands really in Thailand. Wow. So they were passing to Ireland and evangelizing the islands. So uh but like I really felt the peace of God in the devotions, yeah. And my dad was telling me every night face stories and how God was using them, and I said, This is not bad. And my dad would never push me. Yeah, I really respect it. He never pushed me. Oh, it's time to get saved, and whatever or pushing me haste. Ah, no, no, no. It was not about that, it was just my dad knew that my time will come. Yeah. But the fire really, because the fireman or the fire chief said, I started a fire and I'm trying to collect insurance for the fire. And my dad said, No, no, no, he doesn't speak English. He was in church with me. He was not in, he would not do well. They thought maybe I did something with the electrical and uh start the fire. But after a while they proved it, that it was just an inside wall fire that uh the cables were too old. Yeah, yeah. And well, my dad built this house in nineteen when he was eighteen years old. Um and then electrical didn't was in that time was not so good quality. Yeah, yeah. Good quality wiring. But that time was not so good. So he used what they had. What they had back then, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they finally proved after six months that I did not start the fire, and then I was like, Yeah, like the guy was yelling at me, I don't understand English. And I said, You can yell, but I don't I don't you can talk all you want, I don't understand a word you're saying because he's pointing finger, you put the fire. I said, No, like but they proved it's not my fault. They apologize, they said, Okay, you can join the fire explorer guys, you can learn the EMT stuff, or come in the fire truck. I said, No, it's okay. Yeah, I don't need to be. But like through the devotions, I I said to my dad, oh I think I'm ready. And I said, I want to follow the steps and become missionary myself. Oh wow.

Returning To Bulgaria For Healing Work

SPEAKER_01 32:19

And like so I So as a teenager, just from yeah 10, you're going through the process going up to the Netherlands, start getting the surgeries, getting fixed. You're coming back at 11 or so, start going through the process of getting adopted to the missionaries. The missionaries actually bring you from the orphanage in Bulgaria to Minnesota in America, and you're going through a process now of becoming a naturalized citizen.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

I uh uh actually I became right away because to adoption you have to it's just uh I was waiting for my passport. Okay, took a while. And there was some mess up in my documents, so but the process was very quick, actually. It took like two months, and I was but we had to rebuild the house. My dad said, son, you and I will have to rebuild the house. So the church people started to come every couple days to help us. My dad was starting to build, so we rebuilt the house. The insurance covered our apartment living for a year and a half. Wow. So we stayed in the states a year and a half.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

So I got you got to help build the house?

SPEAKER_02 33:26

That's all that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 33:29

That's so cool. So you said you were in the states for a year and a half.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 33:35

So we rebuilt to take care of my grandparents. Get your passport.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Oh, that was already done by the time I when you got to the point where you said uh you want to go through the steps, how old were you? 14, 15, maybe?

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Oh no, I had a vision from God that I will work from the rest of my life with orphans and street kids, trafficking for the rest of my I received that call and when I got right away saved, I had a vivid dream that I will work with my people in Eastern Europe. I'm going back to Eastern Europe. Yeah, yeah. Well, I thought I was gonna go back to Bulgaria and work with my own people, but I I am still in the same location in Ukraine now. Yeah. Um working with Eastern European Slavic people. So I received a I had a vivid dream uh like I was Moses. Actually, it's another time to go a little bit back to the story. Yeah. My dad went to a bank uh in Bangkok, Thailand, and he met this adoption agency that were kind of like they were YWM, youth with the mission that I was involved. Yeah. And they talked to my parents, they they became good friends, and then they said, Well, we have a boy in Bulgaria who's who needs to be adopted quick because at age 15, it's impossible to get adopted anymore at age 15 because they take you to the streets? No, you they give you a little small studio apartment and you are on your own. Oh wow. Chow chow and you're by yourself. We're not because government wants to take more kids. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the government gives me also like but you have to share the toilet with uh with many other people that uh it's community living, it's not the best.

SPEAKER_01 35:14

Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

So but so so they came to interview us and they because there was four kids that were 100% no parents, and I was one of them. Yeah. So I was the last one to interview, and they said, So this parent like this adoption used to my parents let's go back. The lady at the bank said, Duane, I have a Moses stick for somebody in your family. He'll be like Moses, and she was Christian, very strong Christian, yeah, and she handed him uh staff and said, One of your kids will go to be like Moses, they're gonna go back to and get the people out of uh Egypt. Uh they're gonna be out of Egypt, and they're gonna uh get their people out of uh whatever they and then my dad took it, and then uh when I was adopted, he gave it to me.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 36:05

But took care of it with this adoption agency, like they were Christian and they hold on a second, hold on a second.

SPEAKER_03 36:11

Hold on a second. Wow. This lady says you there's this kid in Bulgaria who's gonna be a mother. No, no, no.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

The bank lady said, I don't know, but this is for your son or daughter.

SPEAKER_03 36:21

Wow. The lady was the prophet.

SPEAKER_02 36:22

Yeah, but she mentioned Moses. She just said Moses. So then your parents go and and you're the last one to be interviewed? The adoption agency uh interviewed for kids. I was the last one. Right. But this is my adoption. Do you not see that? Yeah, I see. I I know everything.

SPEAKER_03 36:40

You know, Moses had a stutter.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

Yeah, I was just thinking of Clef Clinton. I'm like, oh my god. Not me, God. Not me. Well, I did not know that, but yeah, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 36:51

Wow.

Ukraine: Street Kids, Skills, And Support

SPEAKER_02 36:52

We can there's a reason why they picked you, brother. Yeah, God did. So they were interviewing the foreign kids and they said, What would you like us for you to do? I said, I would like only family to love me, accept me, and value me. That's all. Oh, which is a whoa, whoa, like other kids are asking for I want to buy it! Which pet? Wow, really? You just wanted to be we you're the number one priority to pick uh family. So that's when the missionary family came. Come on, man. So even as an orphan in Bulgaria, God was laying my uh his eyes on me and keeping me for a purpose. So I knew I like I love this.

SPEAKER_03 37:30

Okay, you know that because it's your story, but I'm just like, yeah, I'm like, holy smokes, man. I mean, you just the prophet, the what happened, knowing Moses has a stutter, and here you are with your cleft lip, you know what I mean? Just seeing the correlation of it all taking place. God, man, that's just beautiful, bro.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

So yeah, and I'm like, okay, well, I forgot one step also, but it's like it's kind of we're going to go. You're okay. Oh, you're good. So yeah, like at age ten, you know, every orphanage goes to a summer camp in Eastern Europe. Yeah. We go to summer camps and I thought there was no hope for me. Like I was continuing with my glue, and I said, Oh my goodness. And then I was going to like because our camps are held in the mountains high, so there's a cliff. And I was going to like to the cliff and I said, Okay, God, if you're there uh like uh because I say I'm gonna jump off a cliff and be there because you just roll. Yeah, don't go anywhere. You just roll and do that. But I just like before like I just said, God, if you give me parents who love me, value me, accept me, that's all I want. And then I was ready to uh roll and I felt a hand stop me like on my chest, like he pushed me back. Wow. And then I a few days later I came back to the orphanage, the camp was finished because you were there all summer long. Yeah, yeah. And then that's when the social worker came and said, There's a possibility of a family. Oh my god, yeah, but it's gonna take a while, one one year and a half to two years. Yeah, but it took a really one year and five months. Wow, I was adopted. And that's age twelve and a half. I went to the States. Wow, man. I just that's the story. Like, yeah, God stopped me. I asked God, hey, if you're there, save me, like give me a parents, and that's everything was alighting us beautiful, brother. Even I didn't have well, I had faith, but I was not believing in the world. You didn't know, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:29

You didn't know. You were an 11 or 12-year-old kid on the side of a mountain going, God, if you're real, you gotta show me I want a family that loves me.

SPEAKER_03 39:37

But that shows that shows that wow, inside of us is this it ingrained understanding that God, you know what I mean? I didn't grow up in church either, but I can remember having many conversations with a God, not knowing that who it was, but like God, if you're real, have similar conversations, you know what I mean? So that's just shows that that's ingrained in our DNA and who we are, that there's this acknowledgement of some kind of supreme creator, you know what I mean? That's beautiful, bro.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

And God doesn't care just about your wants, yeah, not your needs, he also is about what you want. Amen.

SPEAKER_03 40:14

How old were you when you would you say when you said when your dad was sharing devotionals, that's when you decided you wanted to follow. Yeah. How old were you?

SPEAKER_02 40:22

Well, I was 13. 13. Wow. Yeah. Fire kind of was the first step, waking me up. Yeah. And then I felt really like my dad was playing, playing an instrument that's for dummies, like omnicord, like with buttons, and then you push. He was playing, and I felt the piece of God very wow vivid. I just, oh wow. And then my dad was saying face stories, how God provides for them financially, and crazy like food appears in their boat or their house, and a businessman stops them in the streets, says, Oh, here's how hundred dollars. Like Thai businessmen, people like he's the American who's supposed to have the money. He's so poor. He's a missionary. But the Thai people are giving him money. So is your is your father still alive? No, my dad just passed away a year and a half ago. Like uh October 2024. Sorry to hear that. He's a good he's in heaven. He's in heaven.

SPEAKER_03 41:20

Yeah, we'll see him again. So let me ask you this, because you said when you first came here, you really didn't speak no English. My mom taught me English. Within six months, I was speaking perfect English.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Really?

SPEAKER_03 41:29

Yeah. Alright, so that was my question then. I was like, I was gonna ask, my question was gonna be if you didn't really understand.

SPEAKER_02 41:36

Within six months, I was buying my my own things at the store. Really? And I had a job already. Wow. I was working on a golf course within six months. I arrived. I took the golf caddy cat uh test. Yeah, I became a caddy for half a year. I became so good at a caddy that I got promoted to the bedroom right away. And favor started to follow me. Wow, favor and signs and wonders for follow you, and that's like I started and I told him I would not work on Gregory to Laura. He's a golfer. Yeah, so I said I would not work on Sundays, but I will work 12 to 14 hours for you uh Monday through Saturday. And I gave and they respected me, and my golf was good because I gave my best to them, and they said, We'll take care of you. My promotions started to be had and do you golf? I golf. Come on, I golf yesterday with Greg. Yeah, I know you did. Amen. Amen. That's awesome. I'm not so good because I don't play very often. I'm I'm serving in a war country that are there golf courses in Ukraine? Well, some of them got bombed, so what was what was church life like for you? I my parents were non-dominationals because my dad's side were Lutheran, my mom's side they were Lutheran. But my parents were non-dominational because my dad had to preach in the Age Church. Yeah, wherever. They asked. Did you guys travel a lot? In Thailand, we like in Thailand, they travel a lot. They preached. Would you go with them? Yeah. Well, in the States we preach, my dad will preach a lot of churches a lot.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Oh, he's like an evangelist.

SPEAKER_02 43:18

Yeah, oh yeah, yeah. Oh wow. He was an evangelist in the well, my dad also taught in schools. He and the public school and constantly preaching the gospel. And they said, Oh, wow. Dwayne, we're gonna terminate your stuff, teaching this Holy Spirit stuff. Because students were just coming to him and oh, Duane, wow, your stories are amazing. Because he would teach his math. He was a math teacher and uh uh chemist teacher too. And he was a pilot, so he was he did everything. But the students were coming to him and oh Dwayne, you have so many stories. So he started more sharing stories than teaching because they were so like wow. Yeah, so he was impacting students, and students were telling the Principles, hey, Dwayne is a good guy sharing a miracle story. And they said, What is she doing? She's supposed to be. No, my dad was teaching math, but along with math, there's also scientific with numbers. We cannot also science proves God is real. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_03 44:18

So did they continue to do mission work after they got you?

SPEAKER_02 44:21

We did. Like we went to Thailand and we we did some stuff, but we we had to get back to the States because of uh my grandparents were declining, so we had to take care of them and we had to so you got to travel a little bit with them to Thailand and stuff?

SPEAKER_03 44:36

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Yeah, yeah. I love Thailand. It was good. Yeah, yeah. Did you get to see some of the things like some of the stories he was talking about come true? Yeah, yeah. Wow, really? I met some of the people that helped them. Yeah, it was good. That's cool. Is that where you now my my brothers are missionaries in Thailand? One of my one of my brother and my sister married a Thai pastor, so she's been there since she was small. Really? Most of them were raised in Thailand, so beautiful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

Would you say that's where your love of like field work came from? Is that kind of upbringing?

Confronting Trafficking And Hard Truths

SPEAKER_02 45:13

No, my vision with the Lord, that God showed me the dream that that really uh put it on stone that I'll be a missionary for the rest of my life. Oh, right. It was not my parents. How old were you? When I said when I was 13, I had a vivid dream that I was like Moses. That's like the when my dad gave me the Moses stick, that proved itself that I was I'm going to be joining missions. But I didn't know who then um the mission uh the adoption agency with Yram, she said, You have a possibility to come to Romania and study. I was 16 actually. Said, do you want to do this school called Principal and Child Youth Ministry with YRAM? And then YRAM, our first school is called Discipleship Training School. But she said, You have you are a special case, you can bypass this first school and wow. And then we are selling one of our offices in Japan. Well, we whatever we sell, we will give and pay for your cover. Just you need to pay your airline ticket. And I said, Perfect, because in the golf course I made crazy money. Yeah. I was had all the cash I had. I mean, I was making more money than my parents were. Then my parents said, okay. Golf is a rich person's sport. So you must start paying uh rent at uh age 15, yeah. Which is really good because I learned responsibility. Responsibility, of course. Yeah. My dad said, like, I'm not gonna teach, I'm not gonna pay for your college, but I will teach you how to get the fish. Not not giving you not giving you the fish, but teach you how to catch the fish. That's how I did. And I bought my first I got my license when I was 14. I bought my first truck when I was 15. Ford Ranger I had. And then yeah, I I worked hard and I made my own, I had good money, and and then I paid my ticket and I went to this YWM school in Romania. Wow at 16. Almost seven, yeah. Really? Um did you graduate school already? I was homeschooled. Oh, really? So I graduated home and I finished. I studied very good. Yeah. I was very good grades. Come on up. Very even the doctor, like um, when we came to I had to do a complete medical check, and they I said, Well, you know, I sniff glue, like just maybe I shot myself out, man. And then she said, Well, let's do the test for if you have any damage. And she said, Well, you're 100%. There's not a sign that you even sniff any glue because from five to thirteen, yeah. Well, no, from five to twelve, I was quite heavy until the lady said, Do you really want to go to America? Do you really want to be adopted? And I stopped it right away. God protected. So, like this guy's like they were doing my hearing, my eyes, they were doing like my dental, what needs to be done in the future with my so like the guy said, There's no signs that you did any glue. And we can tell because your brain cells will be abnormal because when you sniff so much glue, there is abnormality, even with your drugs. Like, that's a drug, and you can tell. But she said, actually, your brain is like a young kid, normal kid, and God capped you. So I was very smart. I very learned fast. My mom said, Do you really want to graduate at age 16? I said, Sure, let's go press. I wake up at 5:30, 6 o'clock, started my typing classes, Davis Beacon classes, started doing my writing early in the morning before they were up. And by 12, I was finished, so I went to work.

SPEAKER_01 48:58

And I was like, yeah, so this you you are not normal for a 14 or 50, at least not for American kids.

SPEAKER_02 49:08

I got my license at 14 because I lived in a farm too. Yeah. So when you're learning when you're farming, you have the right to get your license at 14. So I drove tractors and nice.

SPEAKER_03 49:20

That's great.

SPEAKER_02 49:20

Okay so at 16 you decide you want to go to Romania for So I went to Romania for this um Bible training, like uh youth with a mission school, and then I finished it, and then uh the outreach was back in my own country, and they said, Well, how would you like to go back to your orchards?

SPEAKER_04 49:39

I said, Whoa.

SPEAKER_02 49:40

I don't know if I'm ready for that. I prayed about it, and God said, You're gonna do, but it's we're gonna be hitting a lot of healing bumps. Yeah, uh, we're gonna have to do some healing. So I went back. My the my social worker said, I do not recommend you staying. Your team can stay in your orphanage, but not you. So I went with my because uh the social worker and I are still best friends now who helped me get adopted. Yeah, and she said, I'm concerned for you, like for your emotional, mental health. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You stay in my house, they can stay. Wow, they'll be okay. So every day I went back and forth.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

It was good. My dad always tells people, especially when in recovery, and people that are new to God, be prepared when you come to know Jesus and you're yes to him. Be prepared to go back to the very things that were your health. The very addictions, the very places, the very things that the enemy tried to use for your demise. God, when we say yes to him, he literally redeems it and sends us back in there. So now we can because who better to know than people who have been in?

Burnout And A New Assignment In China

SPEAKER_02 50:53

So at age 16 at this school, my healing started to God said, Let's start on your like you have to uh forgive your parents, you have to forgive the doctors who really even doctors and nurses who really were practicing on me. Well tore me apart. Yeah that's pain, that's physical and emotional pain. And then the dentist in you in Girl was not so good. So like I had to choose to go to the healing. If I did not, like I'll be you would have stayed mad? Yeah, I'll be in panic attack, mess. Yeah. Then I so after the school outreach was finished, mission strip was finished, I came back home to the States.

SPEAKER_03 51:35

Hold on a second. I wanna Do we sit here for a second? Yeah, yeah. Because I think it's I think somebody's gonna get some healing from this themselves. What was what was the healing process like? Was it forgiveness? Was it what it was not that yet? Well, what what took place that allowed you to be able to go there again? What was going on that allowed you that opportunity that you set because the social worker was concerned about you? You said you still went there eventually. What was that process?

SPEAKER_02 52:03

I just didn't stay the night because it was not mentally not well there, did you have memories?

SPEAKER_03 52:09

Did you have Oh yeah, I saw a lot of my teachers were there. How did you process those things? What did you do? What did you do in those moments that allowed you to heal from those things?

SPEAKER_02 52:18

That did not start yet. I was just going to go, okay, let's get done with this trip, let's get it done. And uh because during the night when I went back to my social workers' apartment, yeah, it's like things are running. Did you have conversations with her? Did you talk about the things you were feeling? No, because I knew she was not Christian. All right. So I could not process. Well, I didn't know, I did not feel safe enough to process. So I went back. Even my parents did not understand how to press. I mean, they they don't know how to deal with course.

SPEAKER_03 52:53

So I so my We have a guy that was on our podcast who was from he was from Bulgaria, wasn't he? Isaiah?

SPEAKER_01 53:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

He was from Bulgaria. Yeah, he was adopted. And he he was adopted here in to Arizona, and the conversations we've had about the things that he was going through. Yeah. So he was separated at birth, and there's there's this spirit of uh we call it the spirit of it's an orphan spirit. I was gonna get to it. Oh, were you? All right, my bad.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

But we and him, we and him talked about that, how there's this separation, you know, it's called an orphan spirit that's I don't believe it just with orphans, it's in the body of Christ that everybody's uh because there's between the orphan and the son. Yeah, the orphaness goes always begging, begging, begging for more stuff. Come on, man. Son is already confident who he is because many orphans because he struggled with one of the things he struggled with now. Yeah. And I don't uh I'm and I say to you, to them, yeah, I'm not here to give you stuff. Yeah. I'm like Peter, like I have neither silver or gold, but here I am to give you your healing, like the ch the name of Jesus. Yeah. I'm not here to hand you down fish. Oh, then I come back and then because I used to be many Americans come to my orphanage, give me, give me, give me, give me candy, where's the lumble? Where's the presence? And that's a mentality of an orphan spirit. It's always you want more, more, and more, and you are a pathetic, you are proper, you're not like when you adopt it, not just uh physical, spiritually and spiritually, you become confident and you say, it's okay. I'm confident who I says we're adopted into the world. And I don't care what you think of me because I'm walking in confidence, yeah, yeah. And and I'm walking in as a uh my identity is comes from Christ. It doesn't come anymore from being an orphan. I'm a son, I'm a daughter, yeah, yeah. And that's uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:04

So at 16 you leave Minnesota and go over to Romania for a Bible school? Why I'm youth with a mission, okay.

SPEAKER_02 55:13

Uh principal child to youth ministry school. And the school is focused only on street kids, orphans, church like kids, how to work with youth, any youth like who are addicted, who are hurting, who are anger, but it's all about youth. Then three months lecture phase, three months you go to practice it, what you learn. And so you all our YWM schools are this way. You you go for three months school and you practice. Practice it, what you uh learn.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

So you went for three months in Romania and then your three months of practice was in Bulgaria?

SPEAKER_02 55:50

Uh no, it was split like half and half in Bulgarian and uh half and half was in Turkey. Oh, okay. Where we got to serve the NATO base kids. We got to be do children's programs in the NATO base in uh Istanbul. Yeah. Wow. No, Ismia, sorry. It was the NATO base. There was like 150 oh maybe 300 people with their kids. Families are living in the NATO base. So they won they want us to come and do a whole children's program for a month and a half while they're they're serving their duties, whatever they work. Um so we did the children's program and we arranged like clown, like we were doing clowns. Yeah, what puppetry, we were doing kids' camp, and yeah, so yeah, we did that. I went back to the States, I worked for a while. Then my leaders who were leading the school in Romania said, We want you to come on staff with us. Oh wow, but you need to do the discipleship training school of YOM. Like that's the one you skipped. Before you want to come on staff, you need to do this school, discipleship training school. So I went to how old are you? 17? Yeah, 17. I went to the school. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 57:04

And are you like one of the only kids?

Underground Church And Leprosy Ministry

SPEAKER_02 57:07

Or are there? I was uh like uh there was another 17. I was not the youngest, actually. Oh I was another girl from Brazil was 16. Okay. Uh she came from Brazil and she did the school. And then I went my leaders were living in Budapest, Hungary. So I I finished the school, I went to Hungary. Like and I did another school, actually, back-to-back school. But I did not like I did the mission the trip and I straight to Budapest. I went to Budapest and they said we work with kids, we work with youth, children at risk, street kids. So I went to Budapest, I worked with them. Then a friend of mine from Ukraine came to Budapest because he was trying to work on visas, he got kicked out and he needed to get a new visa. He didn't overstay, it's just something with his visa did not work out, so he had to come renew it. And then my friends who I was living in, we were doing ministry for one year. I did ministry in Budapest. That language is impossible to learn that. You think about Chinese? I didn't I think Hungarian is very hard to learn. Finnish Hungarian is very hard. So at that time, so he came, he said, Well, like, would you mind taking him back to Ukraine? Because he really has a heart for street kids and orphans in Ukraine, many orphans, many street kids. But I was kind of needing more discipleship, and they also couldn't give me uh the healing that I needed. And I said, Well, maybe this guy, our friend, will take you back to Ukraine. So I was preparing my so he said, sure, we'll come, he can be a part of our family. And then that's the time when I started, okay, I need to deal with my crap, mental. Yeah. Because I knew they were safe people. They were working with street kids, they were working with orphans, they understood. They understood how to work. And they did uh why man, like a biblical counseling school. Yeah. They did two, like we have inductive behavior counseling, then addictive behavior counseling school. That's great. And then I did it too also in 2007 when I was around 20 because I work with children. I want to help drug addicts or drug addicts because I was addicted myself. But I didn't really know how to help. So I need, but anyways, this family took me in. They said live close to us, calm. I helped them with their babysitting. I kind of became part of the family. Then I started getting anxiety, panic attacks. So they said, okay, we need to start. I think there's something we need to start. Yeah. Because my parents were also did not know how to deal. So I started exposing everything. I like being vulnerable. I started to share.

SPEAKER_01 59:58

They said, okay, let's with the people who came from Ukraine. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

Then I moved to Ukraine. It took me. Okay. Like, uh, well, he went back right away. I maybe I had time to back up my stuff, prepare. Yeah. I moved to because it's also in Hungary was not so many ministry with kids. I was just doing coffee, coffee shop ministry. It was not much. And then I I traveled to Denmark and doing uh youth ministry there, bringing teams to Hungary and working with kids. So uh but when I went to Ukraine, I saw the street kids, my my people, and we started feeding them, like uh under the where they hide in the tubes to stay warm and the apartments. Yeah. We had a day shelter where they would do the laundry or cut their hair, and then go back to the streets during the night. Yeah. During the day they come and do their homework and like fed. And then we went to the streets too with a big pot of tea or uh and then lots of sandwiches. Then we go where they are at. See, Jesus comes to where we are.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:09

We don't come to us.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:11

So we go to the we go to them under the tubes where it's very tight, it's so hot, but they're trying to stay warm. Wow. But now we don't have any street kids in Ukraine because over time it has the regulations changed.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

So yeah, we and this this is your first time in Ukraine at this point.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:31

I was like maybe 19 already. Wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

So up to this point, you did all this as a kid.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:38

Yeah, yeah. I left home early. I had a good job in the golf course, I saved good money. Wow. Had about a good cash amount in my bank account. And uh for the first schools, I paid my own school. Like the first thing Romania was paid for, but after I did, I decided to do many YWM schools, like addictive behavior. That was my office.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:00

But you you paid for it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:02

And then um because in YWM, uh, we are required to raise our own support for our ministry as missionaries, yeah. But my money ran out, so I started to raise support from churches, individual people like you, or individual people to feel what like what they want to be part of our calling or our vision, what their God has called us. Yeah. So I worked with orphans, we started running camps, the government shut down the street kids, we started working, the family started to when you say the government shut down the street kids, what do you mean? They put them all into shelters. Really? Like uh put them in the orphan just because we had the country was changing for the better, so they said no more street kids.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:47

Ukraine is very it it looks like it looks like have you seen pictures of it? It's like so much money, bro. It's I've only seen what they show you on the news and it's all not that good, but before the war, it it looked like just palaces and it's like yeah, money. Yeah, lots of it. Yeah, mafia. Okay. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:09

Yeah, in my time in that time it was a lot of mafia, like a lot of trafficking, a lot of and you are so this is 2005?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:19

2005, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:20

Okay, yeah. So as an American who's never been over there, all all we get is the crap, brother. Yeah, all we get is all the garbage that's going on over there. We don't know how how whether it's good, whether it's bad, whether it's nice, whether it's all we get is the crap.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:36

Whatever they tell us. You know what I mean? So okay, well, I'll finish. Like I got the healing, I had to go through forgiveness, and I still had some anxiety. Did you ever meet your real parents? Um, okay, my bad. So um so in so I was working all the way to 2010, 2011 with orphans, street kids. Well, not so many anymore. In Ukraine. In Ukraine, working with graduate orphans because everybody was focusing on uh younger ones. Yeah. Oh, let's go do kids' programs. Yeah. God woke up our ministry and said, work with the older ones who are ready to graduate and ready to be um kicked out into the streets. So there's a statistics in United Nations for Eastern European orphans. 70% of boys graduate within the first year of orphanage, end up in drugs or crime.

unknown 1:04:31

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:32

With within the first year of the first year of graduation of the orphanage.

Transition To Bethel And Mentors

SPEAKER_02 1:04:36

Girls, 60% when they graduate, uh, become prostitutes or being trafficked. Wow. And then 10% commit suicide within the first year of graduating because they see no home, no future. Wow. So this is why we started. Hey, we saw the statistics. Come on, we heard these statistics, and we said, let's do something about it. Let's help these kids. Let's not focus on the young ones. There are so many organizations that we started to go into the uh like um trade schools, yeah, where they have these orphans and we started to teach them photography, uh, carpentry. Skills. Skills. Yeah. Then we had uh hairdressers coming from the States teaching them haircutting, carpenter came from Germany. He started to they make, then we did uh video editing where we had big cameras coming. Some guys brought uh cameras, then we they recorded for 10 minutes a video, then they get to show in front of the wireline base. Wow. Or we get some chefs from New York coming. Teach 'em how to cook high chefs from New York, Brooklyn coming to sh cook for and then they say, You're gonna cook for a hundred and twenty people in the base, youth with admission base. And then they cook a whole meal like a yeah forced a meal. Yeah, yeah. And then that's what we did every weekend. We had different Different skill training. Different skill training. So when they get out of there, they have something that they can make some money. They get to live with each one of us. And then we took in four also four graduate orphans. Okay. Living with us. And like we were separated in our teammates' houses. One of them lived with us for a few years. Are they all YWAM houses? Like we rent our own apartments. Oh, okay. But maybe we take 15 kids, but we can't all house them in the small studio apartment. No. I'm renting with other two roommates that are 40, 50 years old, and I have to say, can I have two orphan boys living on our couch in the living room for the weekend? Yeah. Wow. I said, sure, no problem. As long as they but like we made sure. But they were busy in the weekends. They were so busy because from early morning until eat late evening, they were busy. Working, streaming, learning. Yeah. Then on Sunday, you get to go back in the evening until they like they do their big event on Sunday, like show the movie they made. Cook the meal. Cook the meal. Okay. They build a some wooden project. Or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:16

And this is a ministry within YWAM? In Ukraine, yeah. Or something you started.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:21

No, like uh YWAM started, but I'm YWAM like individual start, but it's part of YWM. Like because in YWAM, we have three values. We train, mercy ministry, and uh like uh training mercy ministry, evangelism. Okay. That's our three main values. Yeah in what youth with a mission we do.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

So we have we have some people here who within the past few years, uh uh Renee, she was a part of YWAM. She went up to Canada for a little bit, and then they sent her to I think it was Uganda. She was posting videos in the tribes.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:57

I'm like I've been YWAM 25 years now. Wow, Pastor.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:02

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:02

I'm 41 now. I joined YWAM when I was 17. Wow. Coming to my 26. So that's beautiful. And I've been working with orphans, children risk trafficking. I've been to like Cambodia had some projects there with uh sustainability projects and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

So I think for a lot of us, like like I've been to 70 countries.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:26

70? 70? Good lord.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:28

Aren't there only like a hundred and no?

SPEAKER_02 1:08:31

There's 206, I think, around 250. I've been to two of them. I've lived in one most of my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:36

Well, I've been here in Mexico, bro. I've been to Mexico. I gotta get out.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:40

That was my discipleship training school. I went to Mexico for three months in Mexico City working with a hit man there. Yeah, there's one one mega church there. Yeah, has every ministry you can think of. So they said, you I wamers come for two months working, and we have it whatever you want to work with. Orphans, we have an orphanage. We have a drug addict, uh, rehab center, working there. We have it. We have prostitutes, go work with the we have prostitutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

Jails, prisons?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:11

Probably they have prison ministry, but we didn't work with a prison. But they said, well, we have a hit ministry where we go to the street and we know where they are. Wow. So the guys will show us the picture. Oh, this is tonight. We have to kill this person. Oh my gosh. Like, I'm I'm hoping I'm not in your list. And no, no, no. So you were actually ministering to hit men. Yeah. That was the most crazy outreach I've been in.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:36

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:39

Mexico City. I mean, that's a big city. Okay. Wow. And you go and they're waiting, and you talk to them, and the church knows the guys, they house them, they feed them.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:51

But I love how God takes what the Bible says God takes what the enemy meant for evil and he turns it for our good, right? Yeah. And hearing your story and knowing our story, our heart is for drug addicts, criminals, people who have been to prison, because that's our life, you know what I mean? And that's where our heart is. And hearing you, the things that you went through, the things that God meant for evil for you, or that the devil meant for evil for you, is now your heart.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

I'm standing on the high ground, you know. I'm you know, and I was from here to where like no orphan would have been to 17 countries or never traveled and doing his ministry, and like I like it's not just uh uh leisure or farm, but it's just I travel and I get to minister to the orphans at that time or go to court.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:39

We had a lady that was on here, she was sex trafficked. You know what she does? She goes to where the prostitutes are now and tries to get them off the street. It's just like he was just saying, whatever we've been through, that's our training ground. That's our that's what prepares us for the ministry that God has for us.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:55

I can be here more hours and tell you about trafficking stories, it's not unbelievable. I've been to auctions.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:01

I bet you can.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:02

Yeah, like yeah, but people in America. I'll be here more a couple more hours. People in America are so I've been to LA, prosecuted the top Russian trafficker in the world. Really? Yeah. I went to auctions to the youngest child, it was three years old, auction. Oh my god. To a um all Arab uh from Abu Dhabi, Dubai were buying them. Yeah, that's true.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:28

I've been that's real stuff. It's real. Americans don't want to admit it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:34

The worst crime happens in your backyard. Yeah. That's the worst crime. Yeah. And you don't know it.

Finding Biological Parents In Bulgaria

SPEAKER_03 1:11:40

Yeah. Yeah. My Bible says that the spirit of truth will lead you into all truth. But you have to be willing to allow him to lead you there. And I was talking with somebody today about just the things that God has allowed me to see and reveal to me. And it's we live in an evil world. God is good, but we live in a He's gotta go to the bathroom, he pees 20 times a day. But but as Americans, we re for some reason we won't look. We won't allow ourselves to see, understand, or really grasp how evil the world really is. You know what I mean? Because it is demonic. It really is. And you see you said you got to see some of that, and that's just people don't want to see that. Because if they see that I think in in us, our nature is if to see something wrong, we have to do something about it. That's how we're built as human beings. That's how God ingrained us. But we have to be able to admit that there's something wrong first. So as Americans, we don't want to admit that because then we have to stand up and do something and it ruins our copy comfy little life that we have. It's sad. It breaks my heart. Yeah. Yeah. That's a reality. It is. It is. So you're about so you were about 20, right? 20 ish when you went to Ukraine?

SPEAKER_02 1:12:58

Yeah, like 19, I was saying 1920. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:01

And that's where you uh yeah, you traveled around, obviously, but that's where you've been based most of the time, or yeah, until 2010.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:09

Uh I got burnt out. Oh uh, and then um I was offered to go to a leadership training school with Wyram. Yeah. That's uh people that uh been long-term staff.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:22

So how long did you spend in Ukraine that time? Five, six years? More. Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:13:26

I was maybe almost like, yeah, five, seven, maybe eight or nine. Wow. Because I left in the two ten two ten. Yeah. And then I went to this. Uh then all my colleagues, all my colleagues in the school were working in China, and I was looking for a new direction. Yeah. Where do I go? So I go to China, um China. And all my students, oh, come to China. You have experience with children. Uh we have leprosy ministry, come and stuff. And I said, You say you say leprosy?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:01

Oh my god. So, like um, so they I said, okay, I if my time in Ukraine is finished. Yeah. And I'm going to um so I finished this three months, so it was only three months school. No, I was like, not many, not all the YM schools have uh um what you practice. Yeah, okay. Uh if it's a secondary school, it's a high, it's for leaders. Okay. So I finished that.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:25

It's just something you go to, you learn what you need to learn, and then you can. If you want. If you want, that's your choice.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:30

But I said, okay, I'm gonna go to China. Just wow. I didn't really think about it. I didn't say, okay, Bob, let's do something crazy. Okay, I've always, as an orphan, you always tell go do this, do this, do this, do this, do this. And I said, okay, I need to not even my best friends can make the decision. I want to make it on my own. Yeah. Where I can say, okay, I'm really grown up, let's act on it. And so I said, okay, let's go to China. Oh my god. And this is 2010? Uh already 11. It was mid-11 in the summer. Okay. I was saying, okay, I'm 26.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:10

Probably, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:11

Uh and then I said, okay, like, let's do something crazy. And I did. And what part of China? Well, I started um like uh southwest, uh like uh close to Hong Kong first for six months. Then my friend said, Well, you're not a skateboarder. You like because I joined the skateboard ministry. I said, I'm not a skateboarder. It was not in. I just wanted to get my feet warm first to wear the culture, learning the Chinese language.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:43

Skateboard ministry in China.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:44

Yeah, that I joined. Really? Uh because my classmates were a bunch of skateboarders, they were crazy. I said I said, Wow, you guys are doing crazy youth ministry. Wow. Let me do your let me join your youth ministry, like skateboarding, my skating sink in China? Oh, huge. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

I'm an old school skateboarder from the 80s, dude.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:03

Oh, yeah. We ran a skateboard ministry for a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:07

So my friend started skateboard business because that's how they can get vis us. Yeah. And but they were doing mainly ministry.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:15

You didn't you didn't go there like I'm a Christian coming to your country, did you? No, no, no, no. I just kind of keep that on. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, communists.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:23

I know. Yeah. Oh yeah. So I I just another leader came from the. Did you go there under the guise of the skateboarders? Really? Yeah. I said, oh, I've joined them.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:33

With YWAN. Yeah, with Y Wham, yeah, of course. So you had a place to go to.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:37

Well, as far as the Chinese government was concerned, you went there for skateboards.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:41

Uh really to learn Chinese.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:43

Really?

SPEAKER_02 1:16:43

Oh, like in exchange for. Well, first for the first year, I did three months in, one week out, like that just to get because uh you get one year visa, but every three months you have to leave for a couple days, then you come back. So I did that for one year. Okay. Then I moved to another city because the skateboard was not for me. It was exciting, it was good. Yeah, you're right. I needed more, needed more stable stability where I can learn Chinese and more like working uh with why my mind. Yeah, because they were just doing outside of things, like they were just going to skateboard parks, and it was not me. So I moved to another city called uh like Kunming, Southwest, Yunnan Province. It's Kunming? Kunming. Kunming. Yeah, okay. Yunnan province. Uh Yunnan. It's spicy food. Oh yeah. Never cold, not hot, it's high altitude, not to get nosebleed. Like it's very high. It's quite it's dry. Yeah. Yeah. So I work with uh a Y Bam coffee shop there, and that's how like we kept it healing because he was registered business. But I went to school also. I said, Well, I can't just stay here forever and not learn the language. So I had to go to school in the morning, then afternoon, I would go to the coffee shop and work. Then my friend from India was getting kicked out. He said, I need somebody to take over the leprosy ministry because the government came and gave him a paper. You have to be out within 48 hours, pack up your stuff and get wow, get the heck out of here. So he but he said, Did they find out he was a Christian or something? Huh? Did they find out he was a Christian? Really? He was working with YWM, but he had a leprosy ministry. Like he went to the Because in China there's hundreds of leprosy colonies. Hundreds. Hundreds. They just don't tell you because in in Asian Seriously? In uh Asian culture is all about face. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:48

They control the they control the information that gets out of there, brother. You're only told what they want you to know.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:53

So I I would leprosy like uh like we cut uh their uh core like we harvest their rice or corn because they don't have arms, they don't have limbs, because it eats your flesh. Like you know, leprosy in the Bible. I know, but I don't have eyesight, you can't like you can hear it.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:12

Oh, these are the guys that were all bandaged up, they were had bandages all over their flesh.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:17

The leprosy is eating the flesh in in China is exactly the same. Serious? Yeah. Wow. So so um is that wait, is that contagious? Yeah, it is. How does one beat leprosy? I got shot once every few months on my butt, and I uh but I cannot be there very long. Yeah, you can be only up to three to four days. That's the longest thing you have to get out of the way.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:42

In the colony.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:43

Yeah, wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:44

Is a colony like fenced off?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:46

Like, oh, it's like a camp. Like camp for like 20 people, 60 people, can be 100 people.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:53

If if people in China or the province people if they if they get leprosy, they put them here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Wow, they take them away from their families, out of the city, and put them there.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:04

Yeah, in China they say you get leprosy to the water, malnutrition, not enough vitamins, to sickness through the water. Wow. So for me it was not possible to get it. I mean but they gave me always preventative every six months. Yeah. It's better to be safe than sorry. We cut their hair, we uh cut the wood for the winter, because in our area during the night it's quite chilly. Like Arizona the night is quite cold, so we cut lots of wood for them.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:37

So without you guys, who would take care of them?

SPEAKER_02 1:20:40

I don't know. Really? That's a good question. So my friend said, I go, you start raising support for them and bring uh our church people, like uh underground church, like the members. Yeah, they it was not alone I I just was in charge of the fundraising and raising the money for the shots, for the medicines, for the yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:03

You said the word I wanted to ask, because I we hear about it now that uh China is literally one of the places in the world where Christianity is growing at one of the fastest churches. China I ran this together because of of the underground church.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:19

The largest underground church of the world is China that I ran.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:22

So I wanted to ask you when you went in 2011 and your time there, did you experience underground churches? Oh, I went to underground church, it was in the apartment.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:34

Like uh I uh I took my bicycle to and they had like but they just had to be very quiet because if they went. Really? So we had to sing a cappella, uh slow, and then the preacher will preach and there's maybe like 50 people, but we will have to come by not so at once, we will have to come so we always time when to go. Wow. And later on I say, well, I want to go to the international church, like where all English speaking, because Chinese was just so hard to understand, and I want to be fed spiritually again. So that there is international traditional, but they don't they don't control it because it's only foreigners there. There's no Chinese. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:23

There's like so that as long as there's no Chinese nationals there, yeah, do whatever you want.

Closure, Forgiveness, And Identity

SPEAKER_02 1:22:28

Yeah, but it has to be in a closed building. Don't uh China does not allow any street regiment bill. Yeah. Oh my god. So everything you did, yeah, like uh You had to keep it on the DL. Wow. And they and um I I I worked with a few government people, and they let me they said, you can do whatever you want in the leprosy colony, and we know what you're doing. I know who you're working with. I said, well, good. That for me, so many missionaries hide. I said, I want to fear. For me, I had the opposite spirit. I said, I want to expose myself and tell you what I'm doing. So let's make a deal. Like, you know, like let's make a good pastor. I ate a monkey brain just to gain a favor with the government. So life monkey, they they said here's uh You gave them monkey brains? No, they gave me to prove because they said no foreigner has uh done any crazy things like this. And they said, We will do we will do uh we will let you work with a leprosy if you do this. Wow. And I said, Okay, like what what is it? And he said, Okay, the thing will come in front of the table, and if you eat it, you have the deal. Wow. Oh god. No, no, no. Wow. So I said, What's the deal? And I said, Okay, like they came and I said, Okay, but that's you I said you also need to stick to your deal. And I and they said You have to eat too. But China is also based on relationship. Yeah. In uh in Ukraine, China is so if I do this, they have to. Yeah, that's also a shame. Like it's a shame very much respect for respect, honor. So they I I did it, and they said, You are crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:11

What did it look what did it so they send you, they bring you a platter?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:15

That's not in the details, but that's I just say uh live monkey brain. That's how I could say I gain the favor of the government, and I said and then and and I asked them, can I do whatever I want? And they said, Do whatever you want. I said, That that does that include me sharing the good news to the people. Oh, yeah, yeah, but you cannot do it outside of the walls. Just as long as in the walls, do whatever you want. Of the leprosy colonies. So we started, they were getting saved like crazy. Well, no, it started with my friend. I don't give credit, actually. Actually, my friend was doing a lot, but it's just they caught him and they gave him the one they made leave. Yeah, but he was doing already 90% of the I came to the colonies who were already saved, following Jesus, they had a relationship. We give them the audio bibles that they can hear because they can't see. Yeah, they're blind. Yeah, yeah. So they could hear the so we gave them these little um tapes uh that we bought from the states, but then Mandarin, and so they were sharing, and uh we were cutting their hair, we were chopping their wood, they will come and help with one leg, and then they will hear the whole Bible. They even had some hymns, I think sixty two hundred hymns, Chinese hymns. Wow. And then then they had the whole Bible trans, like whole Bible in Mandarin, and they so but to speak to them, no, they okay. No, they don't they don't see no, they can understand, but they don't see you, like a lot of them. A lot of them, no hands, no wow, really. So then um there was some sense for me. God was saying you it's time to go. Uh so I got burned.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:00

How long was this period in China? Four years. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:03

Four years? Four years. Wow, really?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:06

So the first year you were over by Hong Kong, the last three, you're over there in the Hunan province. Yeah, Yunnan province.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:13

So I then I had a battle team come to China uh from Reading, California. And then one guy said, Well, I feel you're done.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:22

And I never Do you remember who they were? Uh like uh the minister or the pastor?

SPEAKER_02 1:26:28

I don't remember, but like we're gonna uh so uh they came, they prayed for me, and they said, You are burnt out and you need to take a break. Yeah. Because I've been doing until death, 14, 15 year ministry non-stop. Yeah. So working with orphans, street kids, human trafficking, uh bringing human HIV and AIDS awareness and schools and all this stuff. I was licensed by Asset Ministry to go teach in high school and about AIDS because it was such a big growing in Ukraine. Anyways, I got I got tired. I mean, I'm young now, I'm tired, I'm busted. So I went to, he said, well, how about you do something educational just to rest, like uh go back to so I applied for Christ for the nations. I got my Christ for the nations, uh, Dallas, Texas. God said no, because I had a free paid that school was going to be paid because my all my siblings graduated from there. Oh, okay. They said and got this this is Christ for the is Reinhardt Bunkey No Christ for the Nations, uh, Dallas, Texas. Okay. Uh it's uh it's a big church and it's a big school. Like my brothers graduated, a few of my other they they all know about it. And my dad talked about you should go, and they say, Well, you have a scholarship, you can go to it, and God said, No, no, no, no. Really? And then I applied for OM to uh operate operation mobile. To go on a ship and work in a library and be in the Caribbean and go have fun. Well, you we know you need rest and you're tired.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:09

Are you still in China at this point?

Meeting Oksana And Life In Ukraine

SPEAKER_02 1:28:11

Uh like I'm getting to where I'm already leaving China. Okay. So like I am but I'm in China still, yeah, looking for my next assignment. Yeah, I can no no no, just where I can go rent. I take uh sabbatical for one year or like one year. Ywam usually gives only one year. Okay. So I was looking like what can I do for my one year? I don't want to just come to the States and do nothing. Yeah, I just want to rest by somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:38

Hey, the Caribbean sounds great. No, but God said no.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:42

Oh but this guy who came from Bethel said, why don't you apply at BSSM uh Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry? I applied. What year? Uh so I'm getting there. Just give me time. So I and he said, so I applied, and uh, but I'm looking for funds because that school is expensive, but I also have to find rent. So one of the churches that supports us in Minnesota, it's a Lutheran Missouri Senate Church. And I said, Well, guys, I'm because I need to report to the missions board, and I said, Well, I need to take one year off. You you choose to support it or not? Uh like you can quit anytime. And they said, What are you trying to do? I said, Well, I've been going 50 on 15 years non-stop. So, where are you thinking? I said, Well, I'm thinking to apply to this school in Bethel Reading, and would you it's a it's a radical school, it's uh it's not it's not in your area because you're Missouri Senate, you're singing like you're Lutheran. We know Missouri Senate is very strict, so and they said, How much you need and how much per month? And I said, Well, okay, I need$4,100 for the whole nine months school, but I need$250 rent for the nine months. So I I got like an interview within the first year, like I called Bethel and said, I applied online, I filled it in China, all this. I had my interview. The lady said, I just have one question. Are you open to our battle movement? I said, Yeah, we just had hosted uh 14 people in China here working with me with a leprosy, hosted them in here, they were praying for the sick, they were healing. We took them to the uh underground church, they were preaching, they were giving words of knowledge, and so okay, no questions, you're accepted. You can you're starting this fall. So I had three months just to transition, and I left, uh I left China, and I went straight from China straight to the school. So then I said I was having so good of time at the school. Um at first year, I started to serve uh one of the Johnsons, the elderly, like Bill's uh Bill's mom, Darlene. And because school was paid, a living was paid, so I said, Well, I have Fridays free. What can I do with Fridays? Like I can go sell uh work, like serve an elderly woman who needs her house clean, toilets clean, whatever need. And then my friend said, Well, you can come with me and visit her, and she needs help, but I don't have the time. I I work, but you can I know her very well. I go to her house weekly and spend time with her. We talk, we pray, we cry, whatever. So I went and I said Bill Johnson's mother. No, no, no, Bill Johnson's mother.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

Oh my god. Pastor Rosa.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:53

So I go and I I check her out and she said, Oh, I'm praying that somebody will come and clean. I'm old, I cannot get up very well. I drive, but I cannot go to places. I said, I'm here next Friday, I can come and clean your house early morning. And because I was also getting my homework done. A lot of students are behind. I was always ahead, beyond, I had two weeks ahead of schedule, and like I gave my homework early. So I can have free time, you know. I want to hang out with people. That's great, have fun, like enjoy the culture, do classes that I don't not able to do. I can pick extra classes that are not in the school, like maybe like rescue. Yeah, so like I so like um you are you are what people call an overachiever. For my age, I've done a lot. You are a goal, go getter. I've done a lot. Yeah, yeah. So, anyways, I started to surfer and then like uh her son Bob Johnson, who works with uh sex trafficking in San Francisco, he worked with uh all the street street people with the drug addicts. He was checking me out. Is he doing it for a favor? Is he trying then he got me around and said, hey, if you're trying to hurt my mother, I'm gonna hurt you. Like uh, what they what's your and I said, no, no, I'm just like off. I'm just here to serve. I have free time. I'm not I don't want any of your things. I'm not looking to be your one of your Johnson. I'm not like this. Is not, I'm just yeah. My friend told me she needs help. I came to serve. Okay, he checked me out. Then next year, uh uh like it was time to think about what do I do for the second year. Do I come or I go back to China? Or yeah, I don't know. So then God said you're gonna do all the three years. I said, Church, I'm gonna do three years. Are you willing to pay for the three years? Sure, okay. Do your so three year sabbatical I took from where I am, youth with a mission. Wow and then in my second year already, the John that Bob Johnson asked me, I need to I think you're the perfect intern. And you're gonna be doing crazy things. I go to nightclubs in Cambodia, and you are you up for it? I said, Are you kidding me? I said, yeah. Bill's brother pulled you in. Yeah, so I I usually you start thinking about internship towards the end of second year. Okay. He asked me from beginning of second year already, like towards the end. He said, Okay, I see who you are. You have the you're tough. Like you you can work with orphans, you can work with drug addicts, you can do this. You got uh, I can tell you are yeah. And he said, Yeah, I would you mind interning for me? I said, I'm yours. And he said, just apply, but I already accept you, like yeah, like because you have to apply for the pastors that you want to intern. You can uh you can intern for Bill if you want. And I I had even I can intern for Bill because Bill is also who do you want to inter for me or for Bob? Because I got to also get to know Bob uh Bill and because I'm sure you're yeah, you're over at mom's and coming in. Because in the first year I didn't know where to go for Thanksgiving or Christmas because I don't have any family around. You would come to our no way! Come to our Christmas to the Johnson, no way. So I started like going to their Christmases, Thanksgiving, got to know them very well personally.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:37

Pastor Rosen. Do you know how special that is? Yeah, I know. You know, right?

COVID, War, And A Ministry Shift

SPEAKER_02 1:35:42

Okay, okay, kinds of wonders and favors to follow you. If you're if you're obeying if you're following God's leading and He He told you what to do, like I know that He's will follow me. I just it's automatically I work in I walk in favor, you know. I'm not ashamed of it. See, orphan is a shame. I'm uh God. Favor follows children, and so I have a lot of favors.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:10

Up to now you've obviously been very obedient to God and the things that He's asked you to do. So why would not favor follow you? Amen, Dad. Yeah, you know what I mean? I sacrifice not out of words, though, not out of words, yeah. No, just your obedience of God telling you, hey, it's tough.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:26

A lot of it was not easy to forgive my parents. And so, okay, okay, so uh to get to my parents, real parents, all like Bethel also has a mission trip. Yeah. And I Georgian Benoff comes to, he's from Bulgaria. Yeah, he's he's a famous evangelism with a fiddle, yeah. Yeah, he's crazy, the joy fest, and people get hammered, just him playing the fiddle, just jumping. Yeah, Winnie goes, wow, and then I mean that's uh and then I meet Georgian and he said, Perfect, come join my mission strip. And I went for the last for all my three years of battle to the Bulgarian mission strip. Wow. So then I asked Georgia, hey, I went, I need a spiritual father. And Georgian is a very high uh guy, like he's uh a global global celebration, like they just go to Israel and all around the world, they party like animals, so like they just for Jesus So yeah, like Georgian is one of my spiritual fathers. Um my god, he lives in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and I've seen him a couple times in Harrisburg, and I go through some trips. And I started even joining the trips after uh I finished Bethel, like every year with the students. I become their translator for the students, and so I become like one of his staff in Bulgaria, like coming. I come maybe a couple days early before the students, and I meet with a hostess of Bulgaria, and they become my friends and now like um and then I told Georgia, uh like I'm ready to like I need to find Georgia asked me, are you gonna find your parents someday? Like, what's Weenie, Weenie, actually, his wife, Weenie, said, Have you ever thought about visiting? Like, I said, Yeah, it's been coming in my heart and mind to it's time to see. So how how old are you at this time? Oh, this was only 2014. Yeah, okay. Like the passion started stirring, we're going to Bulgaria, and I'm free with all my junk. And I'm going to Bulgaria with confidence. I'm not afraid. I'm not like, oh I'm staying whenever we go to the gypsies and we work with the gypsies. Like I don't know afraid anymore. Like, yeah. So just I so we start asking people around with within the team that they work, and so like, cousin, look. And then I find like, oh, it's my parents, like uh my social worker also gives me documents. She's uh, like, let's see, like I'll try to help you find them. Wow. But she's I can't I I can't really help you totally because I can lose my job because your files already are locked and forgotten because you are adopted and your case is closed, finished. Long, long, long time ago, your case is gone. Yeah, it's in a vault, and if I go in, I can lose, I can go to jail. But um I became good friends with the driver. I came and like, you're the only one who's helped me serve uh all the students don't because I saw the bus driver unloading the suitcases by himself. I said, Well, nobody's helping the bus driver unloading the suitcases. So we became really good friends. Yeah, really good friends. How come they don't help me like because he has big he drives 10 hours, 15 hours a day. He drives us all village to village. We're doing these joy fests and people getting healed and laughing, yeah, yeah, yeah. Spurting around and he said, Well, yeah, they're all spiritual this, this, this, but they don't really see me. My niece has a Kyoto needs some help, so I just help him and he said, And I said, Kutra, I'm trying to find my parents. And he said, Okay, let me give give me five minutes and I'll get back to you. I don't know who he knows in Bulgaria. I have no idea. He calls a calling. And we were eating lunch. He he was in the bus eating lunch there. He said, Come. I found two places, two addresses, and one number. I don't know if they will work. My friend said, At least one address is correct, but we don't know which one. So I tell Weenie, uh Georgian's wife, I said, This is what the driver gave me. Uh is it possible that I can steal one of your gypsy pastors? They can go with me. She said, Perfect. I will even give you$50 for gas. Go and take off. And I said, Well, I know I I'm one of your translators. She said, Who cares? Just go. So we go to the first address, we're very close.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:23

Maybe like you and the driver. No, no, no.

Why Ukraine Matters: History And Stakes

SPEAKER_02 1:41:25

Driver can't go with you. Oh, he stays take this pastor, he has a car, he'll drive you around and whatever you guys do with here's my$50, help me with the gas. Okay. So she so we go to an apartment, we ring the door, like, and then she lets she lets us in. She said, like, we knock, all the ladies say, Well, I'm sorry, they're not here, but I bought the place from them. So, but I have a the second address. It's the current I guess the first one's not correct. So I we know the second. So we like I said to Winnie, Well, this is three-hour drive. So she said, go for it. I I gave you the money. Yeah. So go take this pastor. Wow. And then whenever you show up in the late at night or not, good luck. Like, just bless you guys. So um we go to the this address and then I hear I see two olderly ladies talking. One is inside the fence, one is outside, and they're handing each other envelope. I don't know, like so. We just waiting in the car until they finish. So finally they finish, we get out, my friend talks to her, and I said, and then I then God told me that morning, take all your documents that your social service gave you, so you can prove. I said, Okay, I'll just take them. I don't know what I'm taking them for. Yeah, yeah. But I'm taking them. So I took them and um so she so like I said, hey, I who is this? Uh like I'm uh Rosen, this and this and this. And she looked at me and she said, wait a minute. Then she brings my grandfather and she said, We are your grandparents, your dad's parents. I'm sorry, your mom's parents are dead, they're not living, but we are alive. And my dad my grandfather is eighty something. And my and my I don't know exactly. And she said, Yes, I know. Like your facial is like your your mom or like your dad. She said, We are your grandparents. Wow. But she said, Your parents just left this morning for a health treatment like spa thing, like for like mineral water. They went, but they're three hours away. So we have to go. She said, But let me call your father, and then maybe they want to see you or maybe not. So she called and but she said, Before I called them, I told your parents never to give you up. But I'm so ashamed they gave you up, and I'm so sorry. But I but she said, From the beginning I knew I never saw you, but she said I knew you'll be doing good things. You're a good boy, and you'll be doing good things. I knew it. But she said, I I told them not to do it, but they did it. But she said, so she called my guy and she and my father said, Is this real? This is a scam. No, she said, This is he looks one of you guys. She he is the one. And she showed me the documents that I'm saying, this is your son. Wow. And and she my father said, Can he come all the way to the where we just came this morning? Yeah. And but she said, Well, three hours, three more hours to go to the mountains up to the Balkans. And we call Winnie, she said, don't call me, just go. Keep on going, keep on going. So we arrived at 6 o'clock in the evening. We started this whole process early in the morning. Yeah. And then uh, no, no, like around lunchtime because uh like I said, the driver was eating lunch and she called and we went right away, right? So we arrived at 6 around 6 30 to the hotel. I mean it's dark. Yeah, I mean, six o'clock in the winter, it's dark, it's dark. And I've not seen, I see two faces, they see two faces. So we're walking, and then I say hello, my they can't see me, so they say, Well, let's go to the restaurant, eat some good dinner, let's talk. So they finally see me, and my dad, oh, okay, this is yeah. Wow. My mom, like his mom was right. And like, and my mom, yeah, yeah, he looks like kind of like me. Uh he looks like us, he's yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow. And I said, Well, here's the documents, and they said, How did you find this? Well, I cannot tell them how I found them because I that's I I did something that was illegal and not uh not right. Because I I had people go digging and you don't want to get them in trouble. So I said through my orphanage director, which also is true because my social worker got the documents from my orphanage director. Which is already close, the orphanage, but she got she got it. She got but the farther such those documents were not um viable. They were not uh they're not relevant relevant, so maybe it could have been also it's true the dates were right or the names are right, but could be the location was not correct, yeah because it's already passed. So um they we talked and I said they said like we I said I like I said I first I said before we start any conversation, I forgive you and I love you. It doesn't matter what you say, you hate me, you get uh I say first thing I I forgive you, whatever happened. And my mom said she starts crying, and she said, Well, you probably want to know what happened. I said, Well, sure, like if because in the orphanage, they told me I was uh uh gypsy, I was Jewish. Yeah, so every orphan creates their own fantasy and reality. So I thought, okay, what I'm a gypsy myself. So and they make up different stories, so they love to make orphans living in a fantasy day. I never so I said yes, because I heard I'm a gypsy, I'm Jewish, I'm this, I'm this. So yeah, no, not none of it's true, but this is what happened. Yes, you were born with handicap, and that's true. We did not we right away put you aside, but we did not want you to find out that this, yeah, but you found us, and I we want to give tell you the truth. So I said, yeah, I because I had to also close my closure, yeah, because I live in this fantasy that I'm this, my parents are this, my parents are this, yeah. And it was very good to say, chapter is closed. Wow. Let's put end of the book. Yeah, it's end. Come on, kids. And if I don't see them again, I'm okay. Yeah, I have my family adoptive family who's better. Like I they love me, they accepted me. And but they said, Yeah, we just did not want you, we didn't care about you, and we didn't have we didn't want any part of it. And I said, Is it true that okay, also this guy, my uh the driver's friend, said that he also has an older brother who's who's older than me. And I said, Is it true that I have an older brother that is four years older than me? And they said, It's true, but we do not want you to see him. And please do not put the effort to to find it, finding we don't want you because we told him, and this we have a granddaughter, we have a granddaughter that we also want to keep it. I said, I find it, I respect it, no, no problem. And then like uh then I said, like, I would like to come keeping contact. Oh, they said, Well, if you come again to Bulgaria, call us and we always have to meet in a neutral place, like a coffee shop. Okay. And I said, Well, I already know your address, I still have your address. I like I like uh I said, I really want to go after my brother, I want to find him. And this businessman, we went in 2018 to Holland again to visit this businessman who helped me with because I have visited him over the years.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:58

I was I was gonna ask you about if you still

SPEAKER_02 1:50:01

He has very good um agents who can help you find the parents or siblings. I I had him search for my brother and he found him the address, but I felt god saying it's time that's don't persuade and you you have to become who you are if you don't find and my parents say we don't want to really and I understand there's no emotion connection between them and I like why waste my time and why do I need to make it more because my mom still lives in shame. You see her face living what did I do?

SPEAKER_01 1:50:41

I want to share with you, Pastor, while you're sharing about this. I my I I'm the oldest of 11 brothers and sisters, not all by blood, uh some of them through the state of Arizona. We've adopted some of them. But I do have a brother uh who my mother gave up for adoption. And there was a point where I was trying to reconnect, and the family was like, and I it honestly it messed with me at the time. But sitting here now and while you're talking, I'm like, I'm at the same place. I don't I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to bring, I don't want to mess anything up that they've done. If he wants to find me or us at any point, praise God. But God knows, yeah. And that's that's a good place for us to be. Yeah, that shows that we're good.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:34

I have come to the relay. Okay, they don't want to pursue it. Yeah, I God bless I back off. Yeah, but my dad said, Oh, like, if you come to Mogar, we'll meet always in the neutral place. And I said, Okay, I'll call you up when I come. Yeah. And they have a granddaughter that with my brother, they don't want to be doing well. It's okay, but I mean, now they don't know that I have a daughter on my on our own, and yeah, but they're missing out what it's their loss, not my loss. It's their loss, brother. Yeah, it's not mine.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:05

I don't know you very well, but what I know of you just sitting here, you're you're an awesome person. Yeah, yeah. It's their loss, bro.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:12

Yeah, so and then I saw them. Uh I went so I we went with um George 2014. 15. 15. But I started the process at 2014 because I went to Bulgaria and and I kind of mentioned it to George and we did it, and they said, I think it's time. Yeah you should go for it. Like if you feel in your gut, yeah, go for it. Like, don't like and I've I was feeling it already two years before, like, but the mission's trip to Bulgaria really kicked it in and said, Let's bring the fire, let's do it. Like and I ask people around and then driver, we became good friends. Like when I go to Bulgaria, I help him always with the luggage. We're kind of like we we have like both long lost brothers. Now we have brothers, and yeah, like yeah, and and he said, Yeah, but with my parents, we're done. So I mean that's called the end of the chapters, and like you said, books closed, man. Yeah, and then I I was finishing Bethel and uh I wrote my wife, and I said, Is it possible to be able to do that? Wait a second. When did you meet her?

SPEAKER_01 1:53:18

Hold on, yeah, you haven't told us about your wife.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:20

My wife and I we met we worked in Ukraine, she's Ukrainian. Yeah, I worked in Kiev. She worked in uh Western Ukraine, town called Lutz.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:30

When you were there earlier.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:31

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:33

From 2010 to 2015.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:35

Well, we met in 2004. Yeah, first time. The first time you were there. Yeah, yeah. Because we as a YWAM basis get together, we have yearly conferences, or outreach teams come to you. She's part of YM too? Oh, yeah, yeah. She's been about 20 years now in W. I've been I started earlier because I was in missions earlier. And like in 2004, she was just starting the school. I already finished having these schools. Like Well, you started early, Pastor. So um we we were meeting like a lot. Like she brings you would see her a lot. They all fly off Turkey or Egypt on a mission ship, but they had to fly from Kiev. So they will stay one night. It's a like seven to eight hour drive on the van to the Kiev, then they fly off. Yeah, but they always stay at nights, and so we got to talk a little bit. Hi and bye. How's life? How's how's your ministry? How's your ministry?

SPEAKER_01 1:54:35

Okay, I I have to ask you, the first time that you saw your wife, did you know she was the one you were gonna marry? No. Okay.

Daily Life Under Air Raids And Blackouts

SPEAKER_02 1:54:43

And she's five years old. So no, like uh, she's five years old older than me, so she always kind of looked at me, ah, he's young. He's like a brother, you know, in this age, young, like we're both in 20s. Yeah, she's a little bit mid-20s, I'm in the beginning of 20s, I'm just like, hey, kid, I'm just like immature. And she thinks, okay, well, this he's like my younger brother, and he's like, oh, like we're just acting woofing around like brother and sister time, like, or we're getting to know each other like a brother and sister, or colleague uh relationship. It's not like a really working relationship, really, like just a real yeah. So really in 2008, uh, her YWM base was going to a conference in Germany, Herhut. And there was another YWM conference, but it was called DNA, like the foundation, how YWAN was started. But it's three weeks long. But my base in Kiev, nobody wanted to go. I said, Well, I want to go, I want to learn about YWM foundations, like all the high speakers come, Lauren and all these Lauren Cunningham, like he's a founder and our mission. Yeah. Um, well, YWM is really, we don't have a central location, we don't have a present. We everybody's like, we are empowered to do whatever we want, whatever to know God and make him known and follow God's voice. And he obeyed, like we're not really stuck to Amen. So, really, like that's why I don't need to raise a certain amount. I can raise whatever whatever I ask, hey, can you support me 50, 100, or 20? So, anyways, that's how so I went to Germany with her, uh with her base, like her base director, her and a few other staff. We rode in the bus for 36 hours from Lutsk to Germany, and we talked kinda. Yeah. Then there was a weekend's outreaches to Prague. So kind of I said, Whoa, Oxana, like she's funny, she's great. Yeah, like kind of started a little to be uh so I said, Whoa, I kind of starting to like her, and then um we come back from uh I go back to Kiev, she goes back to her base, Lusk, Western Ukraine. Uh kind of relationship doesn't go far, just still calling. Yeah. Um and then um I I move out of Ukraine, just say hi and bye. Or how's because she was staffing the school of discipleship training school. She was staffed, okay, leading, like leading it and taking the on uh missions trips like for the three months to Turkey, Egypt, and like other countries she went to. She's traveled a lot too. And then um You you went to China. Yeah, then also I went to China and we did not have a contact. I just wrote her, or like we have a few Skype calls. Hey, how's life? How's your like how's this? Yeah, like she didn't really, I didn't really care, we didn't care. Just it was kind of very shallow. How's life? But I'm thinking about you, how's life? Just general, just high, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hi and by, and it's good for you, good for me. Yeah, I I'm here, you're there. She really then um I asked my friends, I really like her. Like my friends that I live was very close to in Kiev, and I but they already moved on, they also moved out of Ukraine in 2008. And I said, Well, I really like her, and and then they said, Well, why don't you write her email that you want to get to know her? And I'm closing my time at Bethel. It's 2016, I'm ready to graduate my final three years, that's only three years there. Okay, and then I write her and I say, Oksana, Oksana is her name. I would like to get to know you. How like uh said, well, great, like and then uh she also fell from God. Just give him a chance, just no commitment. He he what like just give him a chance. What's the yeah big it's not a commitment, it's not saying she's like, okay, if you want to get to know me, you need to come to Ukraine. You uh you're gonna come on my turf.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:00

Uh how bad, how bad do you want to get to know me? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. I'll fly across the world.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:07

So I finished school and it was time for me. I need to think where's my next step? Do I does Bob offer me a job with him or I go back? I always go back to Wilma, man. Yeah, but where? I don't know because I mean just I can be floating because I can go to any base, maybe you know. Because I China was done, Ukraine was done. I thought, I would never go back to Ukraine. You don't ever say never, no God. He's like, I'm gonna bring you back. So I said, come to Ukraine, and we'll see, like you get to know me. So I school was finished, I did my uh uh I flew to Ukraine, like uh got to know her.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:54

So in the early 2000s, she was in the western part of Ukraine and you were over on the eastern part.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:00

Now in I was in the center, the center is not in the east, okay, right in the river of the Nippa River. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:08

So now in 2016, where is she at?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:12

2000, she's in uh Ternofil, Ukraine. She moved uh to Ternopil where we are now.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:19

Ternopil?

SPEAKER_02 2:00:20

Yeah, Ternopel, not Chernobyl. Okay. Yeah, many people mix it up with Chernobyl. It's Ternopil, T-E-R-N-O-P-I-L. Thernopal. Not Chernobyl. Yeah, yeah. It's big difference. Big difference, big difference. Yeah, that's a big clarification because no, you are in charge. No, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:43

Where's that located? Um Eastern, Western, Central, Western Western, Western. Western.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:48

It's about three and a half hours from Polish border. All right. Okay. We are way west. All right. Okay. So I come to Ukraine, we get to know for YWAM.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:58

You go to a YWAM in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:00

Yeah, in Ternopel. Like I go to the base, I stay in the base. Okay. But she's renting an apartment on her own.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:06

When you say base, what do you mean by because you keep saying YWAM bases? What are you talking about? What the base?

SPEAKER_02 2:01:10

Y WM, we have like uh houses or apartments. YWAM have locations everywhere in I think 1960.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:20

Forgive me when you say base, I think like military, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:01:23

Well, it can be it can be like that because it's a property where lots of staff uh many houses in this property live. Like YWAM Montana.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:32

Like kind of like a compound or something.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:34

YWAM Montana is on a military base. But that's a YWAM base, and they have many houses for couple staff or single staff or all the students.

SPEAKER_01 2:01:45

So YWAM basically, wherever they're gonna go, they're they buy a big thing of land and then build up their stuff for them. Wow. So it's a local week. That's awesome.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:56

Close to the center, we we bought the land when they built in the buildings. Or there's partially a building was built, and uh that we added and that's cool. Uh that's that's our base where staff can live. Yeah, guests come from around the world, or teams come. Yeah, yeah. So we need to house them. Amen. Come. I don't guarantee your safety because it's everywhere in attack. My God's got me.

SPEAKER_03 2:02:22

All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:24

It's getting ready to go to the Philippines, it's getting ready to go to I feel God's called me into missions. And when I was like 12, I went to India and Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 2:02:34

I help host a team that comes from Peoria, Illinois. They come for the last four years every year. Really? They committed doctors, surgeons, uh carpenters, uh, construction no the construction team and mental health team, counseling. Wow. Because I do a chaplaincy ministry where we visit wounded soldiers. Yeah. That's another, I don't know how much time we left. But I we got all the time in the world, brother. How much time you got, Down? I was in the army. I was in the army. So yeah, uh, we so we got oh we got engaged, we got married, uh, we worked with leadership development, and uh we started to help leaders, then uh war happened in 2022.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:22

You guys have been married about 10 years now?

SPEAKER_02 2:03:24

It'll be nine years this year.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:25

Come on now, on July 1st. So let me ask you this. You mentioned the war now, so we're at that point where stuff starts going crazy.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:36

And we were working with kids, youth, like training youth, more uh development.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:42

So obviously it once the war starts, ministry kind of shifted and changed a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 2:03:46

Everything changed, and we're not working with uh like leaders anymore. We're not working with we used to work with orphans, do orphan camps, or like we used to work girls at risk. Not anymore. Now we are just 24-7 is helping with what's in need, the pastors need, and like the church need, like hosting refugees and um housing refugees, feeding refugees, working with military, like uh wounded soldiers who are in the hospitals, who were in brackets for nine months, yeah. They're all in the same room, like stuffy room, like with other soldiers and smoke and all this stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:33

And without getting too political, I guess. We can. What do you think? I'll just give you the facts. What is well we uh here in America, I don't think we really understand why this war is happening. Yeah, right. You know what I mean? You get a lot of you get a lot of misinformation.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:52

I'm not uh one-sided. I'm uh with Ukraine, I'm not one-sided. I will tell you very I'm I'm not biased, actually. I I I speak to I I give you political towards historical perspective, and so whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 2:05:09

Yeah, you are the very voice to speak on this then. Because you don't have you not have a bias bias to want to bias.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:15

I'm not Ukrainian, yeah, but I'm American. Yeah, yeah, I'm a conservative, yeah. But I also give you what's lacking.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:23

Uh I'm a very strong is it about the land? What is it about?

How To Help And Ways To Give

SPEAKER_02 2:05:28

No. Well, it's not just about the land. It's about control. He wants whole Ukraine because he wants to take our identity as a country and language. Because since the war we uh nobody can speak Russian, it's Ukrainian. And I believe in that. Because once your English is gone and Spanish is taking over, you got America loses identity. Yeah, yeah. So if Ukraine loses Ukrainian language and the culture, we we don't have a country. Yeah, that's just reality and true. Yeah. So say you're all the Mexicans or South Americans come to the United States. Okay, let's shift English into Spanish, and the first language is Spanish. Yeah, what happens? You don't have your American identity, right? And you lose your political identity, and you lose your culture. You have a Spanish culture, like Mexican, Bolivia, Venezuela, whatever you are. Because Spanish is overtaking the That's good.

SPEAKER_01 2:06:31

Oh, so that's what Russia is trying to do to Ukraine.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:34

It's because of land, culture, and language.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:38

Is Ukrainian rich in in in soil?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:43

Ten feet deep down is black.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:45

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:06:46

Oil. No, uh soil. Soil. The black soil, the fertile. We have the most richest soil in the world for growing the grain. Yeah. If Africa does not get any grain from Ukraine, Africa is really is engaged in uh starvation. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:05

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:07

The capital of Russia before was Kiev.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:10

Really? Oh back when it was the USSR. No? Beyond that. Really? Oh wow. Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:07:18

Yeah. So Ukraine kind of annexed from Russia. Catherine the Great from Germany sent several thousand Germans farmers to farm the Ukrainian land. And if you know your history, the Oholomor, the starvation, oh holomor, if you look up in that was the law like the 1928, before the World War II, before World War I the she sent all the Germans to farm, but the communists came and that's what the the starvation was called, or holomor. Yeah. And it's in Ukraine. They starved all the they took all the wheat, they starved, and the people were the Russians. Yeah, like Russians and like uh even before Stalin and Lenin, like Ukraine has never lived in peace and quiet for the last hundred, two hundred years, even be beyond Russia was like the Ukraine has never lived in peace because oh it's always the Polish, the Belarusians, the Hungarians trying to take Ukraine, Russians are trying one say Hungarians and the others, Polish Empire, Hungarian Empire, Belarus is trying to take over Ukraine.

unknown 2:08:35

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:08:36

Part of the is everybody's trying to take Ukraine because of the people, the culture, the land. So that's Ukraine is just leave us alone. Let us farm the land. Like just let us live in peace and quiet. Like we have houses, we don't want to hurt anybody. We are fighting, so Ukraine is fighting for their freedom. There are sovereign and independent countries since 1991.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:04

And um I know throughout history, if you look at a lot of like you have to know your history, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:12

I'm speaking from political, historical facts.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:16

But if you look at a lot of a lot of wars in certain lands are there based upon what that land provides, whether it's oil, whether it's diamonds, whether it's whatever the soil can produce or provide is usually what people are trying to take it over for, you know what I mean? Is that would you say that's true with Ukraine as well? Wow, man. That's crazy.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:38

We don't have oil, but we have to do that. But you got rich soil, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:41

That's just I know I for what is it? I forget. And we have some minerals and stuff, but I forget what uh Russia provides like a certain amount of percentage of corn? Corn or something like that. I don't remember, but there's certain things that they provide that the world gets from them, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:10:00

They have also rich soil, but not as good as Ukraine. Yeah. Wow. Because Ukraine is really rich, and all the European countries come and rent a land to farming, and they put these chemicals and now it's like it's getting bad, but yeah. But we still have the soil. We still have it.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:22

So okay. 2016, you start working with Oksana, and I uh I want to marry you. You you come over into Ukraine, you're you guys are both at the base. We're doing both ministry. And turnopill?

SPEAKER_02 2:10:39

Turnopil.

SPEAKER_01 2:10:40

I'm sorry, I'm bad with names. Um, and so you guys are there, and you're there for a couple of years before COVID. What does COVID look like for you guys in Ukraine?

SPEAKER_02 2:10:52

For for us, Ukraine was quite easy, COVID. Because I think uh in Ukraine, like we had some restrictions, two meters, like social distancing feet six feet from like you can go to a grocery store, but they put in a long line, and okay, this person can go.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:11

Stop here, you stop here.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:12

But mask was okay, but we didn't really have it like so um people were dying. Like they told us not to go to parks. I went to the park, but nobody like policemen did not stop me. Just okay, I was okay walking with Oksana to the park, or she went for a run. I I feel like Ukraine really handled it not so like uh not so bad. Like they handled it very good because they just they saw the Swedish way and they said, let everybody get it. Yeah. And it's okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:45

Mass what do they call it? Uh well safety by mass whatever.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:50

Like Sweden was you kind of have like uh like Sweden was one of the countries, oh less the best way to build up immunity is to get it. Yeah, get it.

SPEAKER_01 2:11:59

Get an antibiotic.

Family, Future Hopes, And Rebuilding

SPEAKER_02 2:12:00

And then I that's how I think Ukraine handled it. Like, okay, okay, we get so many cases. At first, well, oh no, you got covet, stay away. But Ukrainians were like, you know how we are relational and we are like we don't give each other personal space. We're next to you. Okay. We don't have like American or Western, or give me my personal space. Hey, my brother, hi. Yeah. Okay. And then uh Orthodox, you drink from the same communion. So sometimes it was hard, another times it was easy. So it's how they fluctuate, like how some but for most of the time, I think Ukraine handled it very well and it was easy. But you guys have it. It was crazy. Everywhere was different. Every state was it was crazy. They try to push vaccination for quite a while in Ukraine, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:02

So for me, for me, it was very easy. I didn't care. I'm not wearing your mask. Going in the store without a mask.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:10

I didn't mask create it more. I got sick more than a mask in. Now you're breathing in your bone bacteria and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:16

You know what I mean? It was crazy. I remember going into Walmart, right? And I'm like, I'm not going in with a mask. And I walk in, the lady's like, sir, you gotta get a mask. I'm like, I'm going to buy some and just walk right past her, went in, shopped, got my stuff and left. I'm like, I'm not wearing that freaking mask, man. I know what you guys are up to. I've seen it in history. I know what you guys are trying to do. You guys ain't fooling me, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:36

So you for me specifically, it was like the Russian war, just there was no war, and then the next day there was a war. And then COVID was finished. And COVID was finished. There was no COVID anymore.

SPEAKER_02 2:13:50

Exactly. So no testing, no nothing. Just Ukraine started, and COVID was all of a sudden, oh no more testing. No, it's all gone.

SPEAKER_01 2:14:01

For you guys living in Ukraine, did you know that war was coming? Were you guys preparing for war?

SPEAKER_02 2:14:09

I was watching the news and I was hearing from the embassies, it's time to get out. Ahead of before, but I didn't really listen to it. I thought that guy's bluffing. I mean, oh wow. But I was getting the signs from a group of the embassy chat. I was part of the embassy chat, and they were warning us, yeah, time. But nobody knew how bad it would get. So we didn't leave right the first day. Yeah. But we did leave, I think the third day. We did not know. So I said, Well, Santa, I don't know. My brother offered in Canada, hey guys, come. Like I called my brother. I said, Well, I think we're gonna come to you guys. Your your real brother? My brother, my adoptive brother, he lives in Canada. He has eight kids, but there was three kids still at home. Okay. Other ones moved out. So I said, uh so he said, Yeah, I'll buy you a ticket whenever you're ready. Like come, like from Krakow, like uh because already airspace was shot. Yeah, no flights, nothing.

SPEAKER_01 2:15:18

So like we Are you in Kiev and there's actually I don't I didn't live in Kiev. I lived in Kiev back in the day. Back in the day. Is where you're living now, is that part of the war? Where you were at?

SPEAKER_02 2:15:33

Every city in Ukraine and every parts of Ukraine is in war because they have attacked every city in Ukraine. Even our city they hit I would say nine to eleven, maybe nine times. Yeah. Rockets, drones. Well we were a drone that was hit sixty six hundred and fifty feet from my apartment. I had drone. I heard a whizzing sound at 1 40 a.m. on December 2nd, 2024. I can give you dates and time. I heard a whizzing sound. And we heard boom, and then our windows rattled. Didn't break, but we heard rattle. My daughter was born. Even well, Emma was born in 2022. She was born in the war. Well, okay, we left the state. We left Ukraine. We came back after three months. My wife said, I can't do it anymore. I I want to go back. I want I can't live on the people's roof. Was she from there? Oh yeah. My wife is Ukrainian, bro. Oh God. Wow. Like you, my wife worked in Ukraine, lived in Ukraine as a YWM too. Like she served the home country. Wow. And she's Ukrainian. And that's why we're living in Ukraine. She's like, I want to go home. Yeah, like when we came to the States, we stayed only three months. We went to even Corpus Christi, one of our supporters, said, I have a ranch, 300 some acre ranch. I have an extra house. You guys can stay. We did, we did, we did, but we said, we there's things to do at home. Yeah. My wife, uh her brother, who was 50 years old that died, was drafted the second week when the war started. Now he's 54. He's still fighting in the front lines. What the heck? Yeah, yeah. He's he was drafted 50. Wow. Now he's 54. Wow. We're coming to year four. And he's still fighting in the front line.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:25

Were they really like snatching people up off the streets to go to war?

unknown 2:17:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:17:29

You see videos where they were like coming through the towns and you're young, get in. You're young, get in.

SPEAKER_02 2:17:35

Really? Yeah. Wow, man. Checkpoints, they stop you. If you don't renew your documents, then they okay. Well, you're one day over or one day. You're coming to war. They're coming to fight. Still mobilization happens like crazy. Like my the guys who was working at my house. Oh, Tuesday, Monday, Tuesday, I cannot come and work on your house. Uh we're staying home. We'll we're watching where the checkpoints are. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll come and work when the checkpoints move on. Wow. Yeah, yeah. Still to this thing, right now. Like there's checkpoints and they're snatching guys.

SPEAKER_01 2:18:11

Wow. So President Zelinski, yesterday I was just telling you they had a meeting for peace in Abu Dhabi. I know. Yes. I watched it very much. And now they're plan the next peace talks, they're planned to be here in America with you don't know, you don't you don't believe it? I I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:18:32

Ah man. What are you what are your thoughts on Zelensky?

SPEAKER_02 2:18:38

My personal opinion? Because from what I know. I think he's doing the best as he can as a war guy, who's a comedian who but but he vote he he had the most historical votes in the whole country ever. Yeah. He got voted by 79 or 75% of the people elected him as uh because people wanted not a politician guy, because all the politicians are crooks, corrupts, yeah. So people said let's give him let's give him a chance. Yeah. And he did really well. Yeah. And then the war happened, and then his term expired now like two years ago already. But you have to follow the constitution. Yeah and we are under martial law at war. When we are martial law and we are under curfew every day, I have to be inside my door, kind of kind of lights out by 12. Yeah. Because like war going on more. And then I'm under martial law that uh that men cannot leave the country. That's uh that's that's the const that's the Ukrainian constitution. Like if and then the president cannot have any elections until the war is over. He says martial law is over.

SPEAKER_03 2:19:59

Okay. So from the information you're getting from over there, well, I get very high information.

SPEAKER_02 2:20:04

Like even military. I talk to the guys who are injured, they tell me a lot of stuff. Like even beyond that they should not tell, but they tell me a few things.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:14

Is there any foreseeable peace? Peace. Really? Wow.

Prayer, Blessing, And Closing CTA

SPEAKER_02 2:20:21

I mean, in gods, I choose to believe in faith and say the war will be over. Yeah. But uh in reality, Putin likes the war. He loves it. And he just just couple days, like uh there was a new peace plan. It was rechanged because one peace plan was totally one-sided. It was like 28, just Putin's side. Yeah. And guess what, Putin? He read the 28 piece. No, let's uh let's finish this um operate like operation that he started. Like my military operation, he says always, oh, we um or military.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:06

What is he hoping to gain by this?

SPEAKER_02 2:21:08

Oh, he wants to take the whole country.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:10

Then he'll say, he wants to annex it back into Russia or really.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:14

Well, right now they're talking about Donbass and Eastern Ukraine, but you just give him Donbass and he's gonna go even farther. So Ukrainians are you give him an answer once a mile. Nothing. Ukrainians are like, no, no, no, no. And another thing you need to know about Ukrainian constitution that Zelensky cannot make that he can give up Donbass. Like, as your lovely president or your people want us to give Donbass just freely part of this. Yeah. Now it's a new deal, it's a 20 uh plan piece uh document, still you Zelensky cannot decide uh for uh giving Donbass to Russia because it has to be voted by a parliament first, yeah, then new memorandum by the people. Yeah, so already 95% of people they said even if it comes to us for the memorandum, no, yeah. That's even Zelensky says I can make a deal, but I cannot make any as much as powerful guy as he is, he has to approve it by the parliament. And yeah, second, it has to be approved by the people. And for you guys to push them all, have elections ever elections in the constitution of Ukrainian law, you cannot have any elections until martial law is over. Or until every 90 days in Ukraine is martial law. Yeah, that has to be it's renewed every 90 days, it's not just one time. Oh wow. He has to say, Parliament, 90 days are done. Do you another 90 days martial law? So it's every 90 days they have to sign this new document. It's uh another 90 days, so we how many martial laws? But now by four years, like he has to sign, okay, no elections. The guy wants elections, right? Yeah, whatever you guys hear, believe me, he wants, he's tired. He's exhausted. I mean, I'm exhausted, church is tired, pastors are tired. You're a town pastors are collapsing on the ground, having diabetes, heart attacks, and collapsing. Because it's Zelensky tired. I mean, you look at how he entered into office, young, short, yeah, very good looking now. He's swollen, worn, like tired, and like and Russia keeps hitting our infrastructure, so that's wearing on us emotionally because I cannot have a Thanksgiving dinner like you have. I cannot cook my turkey in even one hour or two hours. It has up to three hours, but my power just not lasting two hours. Like my power goes ten hours off or eight hours off, two hours on, three hours on. I have a schedule. So when I have a schedule three hours on, I do my laundry, I'm home doing laundry. Yeah, yeah. Uh my wife is cooking for the dinner or for a future, like ahead. So, you guys, you think you live in a certainty? I don't live on I I don't even know what's this minute. This idiot's gonna send a bomb to my wow. In the November 19th, last year, 2025, at around 7 or 6.4 a.m. Putin sends decides to send eight rockets uh a mile point 1.7 miles from my house where I live. He chooses to send eight rockets and one uh one kilometer radius. What's one kilometer it's a couple miles, a mile? Maybe less than a mile. He just chooses to hit one area with eight rockets, two of them land, two hundred and sixty people lose homes forever. Wow. Forty-four women, children, and men die. Wow. And there's another building. He sends another rocket, people are hiding under the shelter, but the shelter is under the big heating pipes so the uh to heat all the apartments. Oh my god. And that pipe is very hot. So that pipe bursts, people are burned and like skin is burned, like so I see ambulances going back and forth, like hey, we go into the hospital because people are injured, people are burning, like skin, and um and now it's nothing. Well, I've seen the ambulances go, but like I in my news on my phone tells me 260 people. Yes, and then our base starts preparing beds in case families will come to our base. Like all the people no, no, no, in our city where it's close, be they need homes because 260 families lost everything forever. And then this apartment they just recently took it down, and another apartment is in the process of taking down. So, like we are resilient, but he's wearing us mentally, emotionally. We're tired. I mean, we are giving left and right to people who are in need, like we're helping the needy, the unfortunate, uh, the refugees that are coming from the east.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:49

Uh so you went from being a minister of the gospel to just ministering to people's needs?

SPEAKER_02 2:26:55

Medical, physical. I go to hospitals, minister to soldiers who are in brackets for nine months. And um yeah, I take teams always to the hospital and to the do the chaplain. When you go around, do you see like rubble? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:12

Really?

SPEAKER_02 2:27:12

Yeah. I can take you even to my town where I live. Really? Some rubble, yeah. Because like across the street from my apartment, the fifth floor still on the where the Shahead. I even went the next day, right? The next day, I saw the Shahead like uh rocket went to the killed a woman and the child, and the guy survived, but he was severely injured. He he was a couple months in the hospital for sure. I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:42

I think for me, being over here, there's a sense of disassociation. Yeah. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:27:49

Well, for you guys, it's not in your air, so you don't feel it. And it doesn't affect you. And I'm sorry to say yes, you don't care about it. And then it like for me, Syria. I don't care about it. Yeah, it doesn't associate me. But when it happens to me in my country, it really hits hard. And like your and Trump likes to say, oh, it separates ocean. That is true. It's your far. You you like here, life is very fast in Europe. Life is very slow.

SPEAKER_03 2:28:20

Like, but as I'm sitting here getting to know you, you guys are busy, busy, busy.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:26

I have this thing, I have this thing. But in Europe, like we're more relational. We care more.

SPEAKER_03 2:28:32

We're very fast-paced here.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:33

Yeah, I cannot handle this. I'm I'm American, but I hate like it's so fast. Like, I have these things to do, I have these things to do, I'm busy with this, I'm busy with this. Uh I used good to be busy. Yeah. But yeah, it's not a are you effective in it?

SPEAKER_03 2:28:48

Like, are you make but for me sitting here getting to know you and talk to you, I can tell you're a lover of God, lover of people. You've got great humanity in you. And as we're having conversations, I I'm starting to feel compassion.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:05

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:06

Where prior to this conversation with you, there was this disassociation. Because it doesn't affect me at all.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:13

It's normal. And I I tell I can explain to you 1,000 times what I'm going through. You're not going to get it because you'll you you see in the news, but really say, well, it's there. It's so far away.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:27

But see, now when I hear it, I'm gonna think of you. Yeah, my brother in Christ, someone who I got to spend some time with and get to know. And now when I see something, I'm gonna be like, like, come on.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:39

What is what is the best thing that a ma somebody who's listening to this or watching this, what can we do?

SPEAKER_02 2:29:47

Pray uh three things. Pray for our brothers and sisters, the church, the church really needs the prayer because they're worn out, they're tired. Yeah, pastors are collapsing, many mission organizations are tired. They're worn out. I'm tired. I'm worn out. My wife said, we're coming to the states. Yeah. My my every child in Ukraine it has to live through drones. We live sirens. I hear everyday sirens. My child when uh just a week ago, before that week, you hear airplanes, she runs to her mommy and daddy, to me and her because she's scared. Scared of helicopters, like and they're quite in corpus Christi. We live by an airport. So the small propeller, and we hear, oh, maybe it's a shahad Iranian drone coming above us again, like like two years ago almost. And then then you child is she knows. She's two years old, she understands. But and then who is her safe space? It's like but many children in school in Ukraine.

SPEAKER_03 2:30:59

So your daughters know nothing but war.

SPEAKER_02 2:31:01

Of course. She's born in the war. She is born in December 16th, 2022. She is a war child, like she's born in war. Like she was born in my wife's hometown, Lutsk. How her birth, you know how? My wife was scheduled to have a C-section in 8:30 in the morning while the sirens went off. So we are staying in the hospital the night before. So I'm and then the doctor says, time to go to the shelter down. And uh it's like um like so from 8 30 till 1240, there was everybody had to be in the bomb shelter in the hospital. Wow. And plus, no electricity, generators running in the hospital. Wow. So my wife is supposed to have a surgery, you know, C-section. And then uh 12:40, uh the alarm stops, and the doctor says, Okay, come for your C-section. I wait in my our room where we stayed in the hospital. She goes for her C-section. Wow. My wife is no, my child is born nice and healthy, but my butt my wife was postponed for C section because of siren. Wow. They don't do any procedures, they don't do anything when they're siren. Because Putin, you know what he has hit? Cancer hospital, maternity hospitals. I think more people, more civilians died in Ukraine than soldiers. Really, in my opinion. Wow. Because it's more children died, more women and men, because he hits uh hospitals, yeah. Cancer hospitals who are doing chemo. Why is he hitting hospitals? He's hitting maternity leaves. Thankfully, he didn't hit our one, like, but many maternity hospitals have been hit. Because he's trying to kill the generation.

SPEAKER_03 2:32:54

That's how you that's how you change the country, man, is you kill the next generation, bud.

SPEAKER_02 2:32:57

Yeah, Jesus. And then she was born healthy, but praise God. You I hear sirens, she hears sirens, my wife hears sirens, and that's we cannot avoid. That's we live in a country that uh You said three things that we need to pray for. Yeah, uh second one, yeah, like uh I said pray for the church, the church and organizations who are in Ukraine, Christian organizations out who are helping, who are serving, who are trying to raise money for humanitarian aid. Yeah, uh like three, you can help us financially monthly. We trying to raise monthly support. But I need to send you the link.

SPEAKER_01 2:33:36

If somebody's listening or they're watching and they actually want to go right now and make a donation, how can they do it?

SPEAKER_02 2:33:42

I'd like them to watch. Like uh I have to send you a link. Is there a website? I can give you a website, yeah. Yeah, you can go to rosen and oksana.com. Can you spell it? Rosen R O S E N A N D O K. K-S-A-N-A-K-L-E-P-E-L dot com.

SPEAKER_01 2:34:06

So I will I will make sure when I upload the video and the podcast, please AI work. I'll put that website and you make sure to send after this is over, I'll connect with you and get that link. Because we have a lot of people that want to help.

SPEAKER_02 2:34:23

Yeah, we need donations to help us uh carry on the work there. Yeah. Okay. We use it for gas for our veteran taxis, and we use it for a lot of things. We have Wyvern also has a ministry. We drive veterans who've been injured in this war to medical checkups, to appointments, to concerts, to coffee shops, maybe golf, or we have revocation thing. Um yeah, so we do a lot.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:56

Dang.

SPEAKER_01 2:34:56

I know.

SPEAKER_03 2:34:57

I wish, yeah. You're my son's age, brother, and you've lived way more life than either one of us have together, bro. That's pretty I've experienced a lot for my man, and that's not that's pretty impressive, bro.

SPEAKER_02 2:35:12

Bill told me one time I would pay for you if you write a book.

SPEAKER_03 2:35:15

I said, Well, I haven't had time yet. Praise God. Wow, so what do you so you you said that you've been here for a little bit now? What like three weeks you said in Corpus Christi or something?

SPEAKER_02 2:35:29

Yeah, uh three weeks in Corpus Christi. Yeah, ten days.

SPEAKER_03 2:35:32

When'd you leave over there?

SPEAKER_02 2:35:33

January 8th. January 8th. But it took us two days to travel to where uh Krakow where you can fly out of. Yeah, because uh we take two trains and we have a child, so we have to take it even extra slow. So we from Thernopil we slept at the border town of in Poland, like as soon as you get across the border from Ukraine, like by foot, then you go to the both borders. We slept one night in um in that town. Then we took another train to Krakow in the finally the next earning and that we're doing it back in the same way, two days.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:12

How long do you guys plan on being gone?

SPEAKER_02 2:36:14

Oh, we're we're going back home to Ukraine February 26th. So a couple of months. Yeah. All right, 40 days.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:20

I'll said he's gonna make sure that you get some rest.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:23

Uh six, yeah, like six weeks altogether.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:26

I'll say he's gonna make sure you get some rest.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:27

I mean Alicia, you want to speak in churches? I said, Well, I'm kind of like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:33

Yeah, enjoy your time, man.

SPEAKER_02 2:36:34

I really thank you. But the podcast was good. I I I I was looking forward to it. Thank you for coming and saying yes.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:40

Yeah, I'm so glad you did, brother. I I don't know, man. You hear a lot about what's going on over there, and like I said, there's so much disassociation because it's over there and it's Putin and all that crap, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:36:52

And it's well, you hear the news, and it's not accurate because I get my sources on special channels that even uh it's not Ukrainian news, like you get to the military, you get to my colleagues that who are even yeah, it's like you said, Pastor, it's all about relationships over there.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:11

You have built a lot of relationship equity with people and what you've been doing for 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:18

And pastors in the east, we have very good relationships. We have gone to them, but now we cannot go because Russians have figured out oh, humanitarian they events are coming, let's hit them first. Oh God. Yeah, yeah. Oh, several pastors have died. Really? Delivering humanitarian to a lot of pastors in the east, and they shot their van.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:36

And yeah. Pray! Pray! So outside of peace, what things are you believing God for in the in the future for yourself and your family, man? Well, I mean I mean, peace is obvious. That's something we're all praying for and expect wanting.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:57

But well, we are praying that Oksara's brother will make it alive and the war will finish. I mean, he's 54. Like, also the king also pray for him because oh my gosh. Like I'm 53. I couldn't imagine being arthritis, he's brother.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:13

I'm 53. I could not imagine going to war right now. I'm I'm the same way, I'm hurting. He was mobilized, but yeah, does he have a choice? He doesn't have a Sergei. Sergei Sergei. We're gonna be praying for Sergei Sergei. Ministry-wise, what do you believe in God for, man?

SPEAKER_02 2:38:31

Well, like we uh I don't know how far this war will go. Yeah, so uh, but we have to rebuild. So we have to help the people. That's gonna be beyond my lifetime because Ukraine is so much, yeah. Um it's been broken and destroyed. Yeah. Building like it's not just oh, let's rebuild this. It's kind of like I didn't I didn't know it was every city. Oh, yeah. Even villages, not cities, like villages. He's just he's wiped out cities. He's destroyed villages, he's destroyed cities. Wow. Yeah, there's cities that are just empty buildings now. And so we hope this war will finish, and then we can go back to the east and help the local people who are needing it to rebuild. And yeah, um, because a lot of all the people that left Ukraine want to come back. They don't want to live in Europe. They they don't know the language, the life is too fast for them. They want to go back to their home little village, yeah, plant a little garden, live from it, have chickens, yeah, have some pigs, raise for for pork meat, and just to live. They they don't want anybody. They so I think we're gonna be there in the long run to rebuild. So I mean, we have a house, we're there, so we are you uh is your house on the YWAN base?

SPEAKER_01 2:40:05

No, no, it's in the city? No, it's okay it's 1.4 miles from the city.

SPEAKER_00 2:40:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:12

You guys make sure to be praying for Pastor Rosen and his wife Oxana. Yeah and Emma, please.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:17

Well, we know the favorite God's with you, brother.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:19

So amen. His hand's been on you for 30 years.

SPEAKER_02 2:40:23

But I thought from that drone, 650 feet. Yeah, I thought maybe not so close. But we're okay, but just that that left a mark forever for us, I think. So it was so close. Scary, yeah. And you have a small child, and what do you think? Like, Jesus, God, do we move? Do we get out of here? Like, are we mentally and but we we feel peace? Actually, you know what? There's something crazy about it. Like, actually, I feel more safe in Ukraine, even in the war, than here in the States. I'm sorry to say, but here you don't know who's gonna grab a gun or shoot, move in a Walmart, maybe crazy trader jobs. I don't know, some nutcrack guy, like I don't know, like, but I sometimes I walk in Ukraine, oh wow, so yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:10

I don't have to be afraid because it's very hard to own a what was a Ukrainian lady that was in uh oh god, the one who stabbed in the net stabbed on the on the bus, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02 2:41:22

And she just she she came after the war, like uh during the war to get away from the war, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:28

Somebody somebody said somebody put it this way. Could you imagine coming here thinking you're gonna find peace and get away from war? And get stabbed. One thing you find is the one thing you tried to leave, and you you got it where you thought you were safe. You know what I mean? Jesus. And it's I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:43

But I love Ukraine, I love the people there. Yeah, my wife is Ukrainian, so is it just a beautiful culture? The people, everything is beautiful about it. I mean, I thought I would never go back. I despised that one moment, but I remember my wife, it changed everything. And then my wife always says Jeremiah 29, 11. I know. And I believe that Ukraine will be a blessing to all the nations come in the future. Amen. After the war, I believe there's great. I think we're gonna be bringing revival to people in the United States. Come on. But I choose to believe with my wife that God has great plans that we're gonna be even a blessing to the nations of not just to us. Yeah. And God is doing a lot in Ukraine because corruption is being really loud. And God's moving in, people are in pain, they're suffering. Yeah. Our moral is like He's trying to kill everything, like just to suppress us everything, like to lose our Sometimes to purify a land it takes fire.

SPEAKER_03 2:42:54

Yeah. So maybe God is just purifying what's there and what comes out of it is just gonna be pure and holy, man.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:03

I hope so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:05

Maybe we'll see you on the news someday as some big pastor in Ukraine leading the march, but oh no, not me.

SPEAKER_02 2:43:10

Come on, man. I'm a guy. I don't like to preach. I just I do the work. I mean, I served, that's all. Like, I don't need to be in the spotlight. That's why I help put you there, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:21

That's why I'll put you there. God, Pastor Rosen, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:25

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:26

Thank you so much. Yeah, man.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:29

Yeah. I'm I'm blown away, brother. I I knew I was in for something, man, but I don't know, dude. Your life is just special, man. It really is. I think the cool thing You make me feel like I need to do more. I know that much.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:44

I think the cool thing for me listening to your testimony, Pastor, is how God's favor in these little these little God shots just for you to let you know. Yeah, even though it's rough and it's it's not the easiest. Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, God, and it just happened over and over and BSSM. And I was just like, the Johnsons really at Thanksgiving dinner. God is good. Yeah, yeah. He's not done with you.

SPEAKER_03 2:44:15

You got you got like a Joseph blessing on you. That wherever you go, you just find favor with people because of God's anointing on you, brother. And I pray that continues in your life. Amen. Even in Ukraine, I pray that just people are gonna see and be like and just want to put you in high places because of the anointing of God on your life, dude. You got like this Joseph spirit on you, dude.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:40

Oh, they said it's the Moses, bro. It's the Moses. Do you still have the staff?

SPEAKER_02 2:44:47

Uh I had it by broke. Okay. No, I don't know. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 2:44:53

We'll have to get you a new one. I think I got one at my house. I'll bring it. I'll bring it to you on Sunday. I don't think you'll be able to leave.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:01

I'm on I'm on the wait the luggage space.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:05

I think I do. I got like a six-foot walking stick, man. It's pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:10

Are you gonna be at the Super Bowl party on Sunday? Over at Allen's Days? You better come, bud. I got the invite. I told him I'd pop in for a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 2:45:18

So Amen, Pastor. Yeah. Can I pray for you, brother? Yeah, pray. All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:25

Jesus. Thank you, God.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:26

Thank you, Lord. Father God, Lord. Man, you never cease to amaze me, God. Lord, every time we sit down with one of your sons or daughters, I have a certain expectation, and you always just blow it out of the water, God. So I just I thank you for what you're doing, God. Lord, I thank you for uh your son Rosen, God, Lord, I thank you for um for what one person saw as a throwaway, God, you saw as something special.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:58

Thank you, God.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:59

And so, Lord, I thank you that though the beginning was rough, God, I see just uh this anointing upon your son, God, that he was marked at birth. And I thank you, God, that you put everything into place, God, to allow him to get to where he needed to be so you could have your way with him, God. That you could just pour your spirit upon him, and he could catch this fire, God, that would lead him on this journey that's just uh man, it's one of a kind, God. I've never heard a story quite like this one, Lord. Uh just being in China and all the different places that he's been, God, that Taiwan uh Taiwan and just all the things that he's done, Lord, it's just your blessing and favor upon his life, God. And I thank you for a heart that is uh in tune to you, God, for a spirit in your son that is in tune to you, God, and just an obedient heart that says, Send me and I will go. So, Father God, Lord, I pray that as he's here, uh, that he finds rest, God. He said he was tired. And I and I pray, God, that while he's in Arizona, that he can just rest. Thank you, Lord. Because your Bible commands us to rest, God. So I thank you, Lord, just for a supernatural rest, God, a rejuvenation in his mind, his heart, and his spirit, God. Yeah. So he can go back and finish the things that you called him for in Ukraine, God. Lord, right now in Jesus' name, I speak to the people in power. Be peace, be peace. Peace, come. Uh, just dreaming in their hearts, God. Jesus. I pray for pride and eagles to be put to the side, God. Lord, I pray that people begin to see and hear uh from your spirit, God. Lord, I thank you that we are all human. We are all sons and daughters, God. One is not better than the other, Lord. We are all equal in the eyes of God. And I pray, Lord, God, that you begin to pour out your spirit on this earth, God. We hear we talk about how in our heal our land, God, and it's not just our land, it's the world that needs to be healed, God. So, Lord, I pray that you begin to purge out all evil, all corruption, uh, all demonic spirits in Russia, God, in Jesus' name. Or that you begin to rise people up in that country, God, that are God-fearing people, that they begin to take power back, God, and they push evil to the side. Lord, I just thank you for many. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, God. Lord, I thank you, God, that your hand be upon Ukraine, God. Lord, I thank you, I forget, I forget where. I think it was in Sodom and Gamor, God, and he said, if you could find five good people there, that you would spare that land, God. I know there are good people there, God. Spare that land, God. Hallelujah. Put your hand upon Ukraine. Let that be a new lighthouse for your spirit to raise up and let that light just emit from there, God, out into everything else, Lord, God. Thank you. You heard your son say that he wanted that he was hoping that there would be a beacon of light that would come out of Ukraine, God. That there would just be a revival that would take place, God. And so we're just thanking you that right now, God. Thank you, Lord. That there's gonna be a revival in that area, God, that people are gonna be drawn back to you, God. Thank you, God. That you're gonna begin to raise up believers to put positions of power, God. And I thank you for, Lord, in Jesus' name. Lord, I pray for Sergei, God. I pray that he comes back that he survives what is going on, God, that you bring him back to his family, God, that you provide strength in his body. Lord, he said there was uh uh arthritis in his bones. I think God, right? And I say, be gone in Jesus' name, God. Lord, I thank you for your hand upon him, Lord. Thank you for Sergei. And Lord, I just thank you for thank you for Rosen and Oxana, God. Thank you for their hearts. Thank you for their ministry, God. Thank you for the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:50:08

Thank you for them, God.

SPEAKER_03 2:50:09

They will lack nothing in their ministry, God. Lord, I pray that provision will be provided, Lord. Resources will be provided, Lord. And when peace does come, God, I pray for provision to rebuild, Lord. And I pray that it's done in a supernatural speed, God, that it's not gonna take generations to rebuild, God, that that countries are gonna come around and want to rebuild and just pour funds into this place, God, that they'll we rebuild, God, and it'll happen in a supernatural way, Lord. So we praise you for that in Jesus' name. Lord, I thank you for Emma, God. Lord, I pray that you protect her heart, you protect her mind from all that she's seen, God. Lord, I pray that uh war is not all she's gonna know. Amen. Lord, I pray that she will know peace, that she will know love, that she will know just an abounding of your spirit on her life, God. Protect her, Lord. Yeah, keep her safe. Guard her heart, I pray. I thank you for it, Lord. Yeah, thank you for the little one, God. Lord, I thank you for just the way that you're gonna raise frozen up, God. Lord, I thank you that he doesn't want the spotlight, God. Do it, but his heart, his humility is there, God, to be a powerful leader, just like Moses, God. Serve your people. So I thank you, Lord, for her. I thank you for an error that's gonna come around him, God. Hallelujah. People that are gonna help hold his hands up, God, as he does the things that you ask him to do, Lord. Thank you for the theme, God. Do what we pray. Pour your spirit out upon Ukraine, God, in Jesus' name. Amen.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:48

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 2:51:48

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:49

Uh, Pastor Rosen, can you please pray for me and dad and speak life?

SPEAKER_02 2:51:54

All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:54

Thank you, sir. Thank you, God. Wait, you have to do it in Chinese. Oh. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:05

Actually, we do have 200 listeners in the brother.

SPEAKER_01 2:52:09

Yeah, we got people in the Netherlands. Yeah, crazy.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:13

Whoa.

SPEAKER_01 2:52:13

Yeah, it just recently started and they're gonna hear.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:16

Wow! Rowley and what? Rowdy and Eddie. Rowdy and Eddie. Rowdy. Okay. Thank you, God. God, just thank you for this time, God. I just thank you for this. Uh we learn from each other. It's not just a podcast, but learning from one another and fellowshipping with you. And just God, just ask me that you will bless our time. Bless our time and just God just bless these two wonderful men of uh you, God, and just bless them in their ministry here and uh speak life podcast, Lord. Just I pray that people will listen and hear and uh not be just listeners, but but be do but be doers of the word and all that has said has been said here in this room, in this place. Pray that you will use it for your kingdom this to grow. Thank you, Lord. I pray they will um their algorithms will even break. They will they get so much traction in their YouTube algorithms that God they just it will grow their ministry and they they will grow in the algorithms even higher in the higher God and I pray um for their ministry here and uh and then it will speak to thousands and millions of souls and around the world, not just in USA, but around the world. Thank you, God pray that you are anointed and use it for your kingdom and just whatever has been said here that it will reach the people's ears through uh through you, God, and you're the one who makes it happen, Lord, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you so much, Pastor.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:54

I really appreciate you coming on and saying yes. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:57

No problem. Glad to do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:59

I don't know where you are watching from or where you're listening from. China or the let's go, Hong Kong, India. Come on, Jesus. Um, but we just want to say uh if you could please subscribe to the channel, uh, hit the little bell on YouTube, man, you'll get uh notifications for all the future upcoming episodes. Uh maybe you have a great testimony or you know somebody that does, please reach out to me, man. Uh Facebook, Speak Life A Z, all one word. Um I'll get back to you. If you're able to, and God's blessed your life and you're able to support the show, you have resources. My first ask is that you go and make a donation to Pastor Rosen in the ministry. Um, there will be a link on the bottom. Um if you're able to support Speak Life, God bless you. Uh, we can use all the support we can get. Amen. Um, if you can, like he was talking about the algorithms, go and leave us a review if this has blessed your life. Type one word in the comment section. Jesus. It helps with all the algorithms and that stuff. Um, but until next time, we're gonna continue to speak life, AZ. God bless you.

SPEAKER_00 2:55:08

Jesus. Yeah, he did it.