An elderly grandmother in the village Lukashivka said these words to me the other week, tears beginning to form in her eyes. She was almost 90, she told me, and wasn't sure she'd live to see justice done.
Her words haunted me.
They capture something raw about the human condition - that sometimes the weight of living can feel heavier than the prospect of not living. Here was a woman who had survived decades of hardship, witnessed injustice upon injustice, and now found herself caught in the crossfire of yet another war.
What do you say to someone like that?
I wanted to tell her about hope. About the hope I've found. But facing her tears, her decades of disappointment, it felt almost insulting to offer easy answers.
So when she shared her heart with me - about survival feeling like a burden rather than a blessing - I had no words. All I could do was meet her gaze and all I wanted to tell her was I feel her pain.
When War Comes Home
The last three weeks have brought the reality of this conflict closer than ever before. Russia has intensified its attacks, shifting from targeting infrastructure to targeting civilians. The headlines you read in the news became personal when a stray bullet that missed its target fell through the roof of our YWAM base.
It struck our friend Luda in the thigh.
She was in shock, walking around the room seeking help. By God's grace, the bullet missed her artery by inches. She's out of hospital now, but the experience shattered any illusion of safety we might have had.
The danger felt closer and closer.
Life in the Margins
We spent two weeks in Lukashivka, a small village that had been occupied for 21 days. I thought there might be some peace there, away from the major cities. But even in that forgotten corner of Ukraine, the war followed us. One night, a loud explosion reminded us that nowhere is truly safe.
The living conditions were challenging. We stayed in a house abandoned for two decades. The pit-style toilet made daily life practically impossible for me personally - though I suppose that's the least of anyone's worries when missiles are falling from the sky.
Behold: the lowest bar I'm willing to set for what technically counts as a loo (toilet).
Only the elderly and the children remained in the village.
We visited households, did practical work, tried to help where we could. But often, I felt utterly powerless. Still, what do you say to those who have seen too much, lived through too much, lost too much?
The Choice to Stay
I've been getting text messages from friends asking how I am, whether I feel safe, suggesting I should leave if I don't. I have to be honest - I do feel nervous at times. The threats are close and real.
Last night, for the first time, I slept in a bomb shelter.
But here's the thing - if safety was my primary concern, I wouldn't have come to Ukraine in the first place. There's something bigger that brought me here and keeps me here.
The Ultimate Hope
The grandmother was right about one thing: survival alone isn't enough. But what if survival isn't the point? What if there's something worth living for that transcends even our own safety?
I think about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, just hours before his crucifixion. He knew what awaited him - the torture, the abandonment, the excruciating death on the cross. He faced his own moment of questioning whether it might be better not to continue. "Let this cup pass from me," he prayed - asking if there was another way to avoid the suffering ahead.
He understood the weight of suffering, the temptation to give up.
But he also understood something else. He prayed, "Not my will, but yours be done." He chose to go forward, knowing that his suffering would serve something greater than his own preservation.
It's the hope that changed my life completely. It's why I'm here. It's why I can look into the eyes of those who have waited decades for justice and somehow believe that their pain isn't the end of the story.
I can't promise that justice will come in her lifetime. I can't guarantee that the missiles will stop falling. But I can offer something else - a hope that doesn't depend on our circumstances changing, but on the certainty that someone greater than our circumstances holds us.
That's not powerless.
That's the hope I've chosen to cling to - the unshakeable promise that love wins in the end.
Even when we're 90 and still waiting.
Even when bullets fall through roofs.
Even when survival feels harder than surrender.
