Viola has developed a radically different worldview through these experiences. Her understanding has completely changed; she sees people, God, and all circumstances in a new light. Viola rests in God’s sovereignty. She still has nightmares and flashbacks to the traumatic experiences she lived through. Often images of Pervomaisk go through her troubled dreams; the destruction of her home church by separatist arsonists is still painful in her mind. These nightmares are accompanied by sweating and a racing heartbeat. But she turns to God for comfort and gives Him her cares because she knows now that He is faithful.
CHAPTER FIVE
Olya
Olya was born October 14, 1986. She grew up in Pervomaisk, in the Lugansk region of Ukraine. Her parents, Galina and Sasha, have been the most influential people in her life. She had two grandmothers who she was close to, and she spent lots of time visiting the grandma who lived in Pervomaisk. Olya had a cat for a while, but it was stolen. Her summers were spent at different summer camps.
Olya did not like to go to school, mainly because the staff and students would make fun of her because she came from a Baptist family. The town was small, and everyone knew everyone’s business. After graduation, she studied law, because her dad had some legal problems in his work and decided, “We need a lawyer in the family.” Her university was in Lugansk, about an hour’s drive from Pervomaisk.
Olya’s studies were organized in modules, so she would attend lectures at the university four times a year. In between these lectures, Olya would work and gain experience in the corporate world. Her first job was working in a hospital as a secretary. She liked it a lot, but when she graduated from the university, God gave her a new job, a real dream job, as an assistant notary. She gained a lot of life and work experience there. She worked about five years in this job, till the summer of 2014 when everything in her life changed.
Olya’s mom, Galina, had repented when Olya was ten years old. Since then, mom and grandma took Olya to the church in Pervomaisk at every opportunity. It was a traditional Baptist Church. Olya, a young teenager, did not like it very much. Three preachers every Sunday shared sermons that young people could not understand. Olya didn’t have friends at church, either, so she really didn’t want to go to the worship services. But her mom insisted that she go every Sunday.
Galina also attended all other services during the week and dragged Olya with her. The church had services on Wednesday, Saturday evening, Sunday morning, and Sunday evening. Olya decided one day not to go to all the services. She informed her mom that she would only attend Sunday evening. Her mom looked at her and informed her that as long as she lived at home, she would do as she was told, and she would go every time there was a worship service. Olya was very upset, crying about this apparent injustice and the demands of her mom.
But eventually, she began to like church more. She made a lot of friends at church and started to visit Sunday school on Sunday morning. Oksana Pronin was her first Sunday school teacher, and Olya liked her very much right away.
The church did not have an official youth group at this time; there was only Sunday school for all ages with a youth leader for the older teenagers. Youth group participants had to be eighteen years old or older. But Olya and some of her girlfriends from church wanted to be part of some youth group events. They asked the youth leader if he would make an exception and allow them to attend the youth meetings in a neighboring town with the youth group from church. They were allowed to participate and travel with the youth group to a nearby city.
A speaker from America addressed the youth rally and shared the gospel simply and plainly. That day Olya and several other teens from the church repented. Olya became a believer at the age of thirteen, and publicly confessed her faith in Jesus Christ. Her church’s policy was that a person must be sixteen years old to be baptized. The annual baptismal service was held in the summer. Olya’s birthday wasn’t till October, though, so she had to wait till the following summer to be baptized, which really distressed her.
Olya began serving in the church, and the church became her life. She was involved in many ministries over the years in Pervomaisk Baptist Church. She helped in the kids’ ministry, taught Sunday school, and eventually became the director of the Sunday school. She also helped at the numerous summer camps. She served in the music ministry, playing the piano for the choir and playing in the praise band, as well.
As this praise group was formed, other girls joined in, and they all became very good friends. They played six or seven years together, wrote their own songs, performed in some weddings and events in the region, and gained a reputation for being an excellent band in eastern Ukraine.
Olya had followed the news out of Kyiv in 2013 about the protests and the unrest. She knew that Crimea had been annexed by Russia by early 2014. Olya recalled that very strange things were beginning to happen in her city. Her pastor, Elisey Pronin, described the unfolding threat in his book:
After the congress, we all felt the wave of separatism sweep through our eastern cities: Donetsk, Lugansk, Odessa, Kharkov, and Slavyansk. Agitators showed up everywhere, held meetings; Ukrainian flags were lowered and removed, Russian flags were raised instead. Heavily armed people showed up from seemingly nowhere, started taking over local administrations and offices.[7]
Olya remembered that powerful people called Elisey and asked him to support the separatist movement, but he refused to align himself with these self-appointed “authorities”. As a result, Elisey received threats against his life and ministry. He was told that he would face dire consequences if he would not support the Lugansk People’s Republic. The separatists threatened to harm Elisey’s family and burn the church. Elisey shared these terrifying messages with his church family. Everyone was very frightened to hear the threats, Olya said. All the brothers and deacons gathered and started to pray hard. They called the police to ask for protection, but the police didn’t want to help the church in any way. The brothers decided to keep watch over the church building themselves.
Soldiers appeared in another city, about 100 km from Pervomaisk. One former church member, who had moved to this city, called the brethren and described the terrible events going on. The whole church family felt bad and worried about the events far away, but no one expected in the least that this unrest would reach Pervomaisk. Olya and her mom went to church, prayed for protection, and joined in night prayer watches. God protected this group of believers for a long time, Olya said.
The so call ‘democratic referendums’ were held in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions on May 11, 2014, to legitimize the establishment of the self-declared republics. The results of these separatist referendums were not recognized by any government. The referendums were considered illegal, unconstitutional, and lacking legitimacy. Olya and her folks in Pervomaisk were told that the referendum would be officially binding for the region and the city. In May 2014, the Lugansk referendum passed.
Olya reflected that after the declaration of the Lugansk People Republic, LPR, they continued for a while to live a somewhat stable life in Pervomaisk. The church family prayed a lot together. Crimea had been annexed, Lugansk and Donetsk were now independent republics. At this point, very few men in uniform could be seen on the streets of Pervomaisk. The people did not yet realize that the soldiers and mercenaries were in hiding, waiting for the appointed time to take over the city. Olya described it as the silence before the storm.
Olya and her mom had made vacation plans for the summer of 2014, to spend some relaxing time at the beach. The church still had plans for some summer camps. The church also sent the youth group to Kyiv, to Word of Life, as planned. The current situation was tense, but Olya and Galina decided to get away for two weeks from all the tension of the area. Their original vacation spot had been in Crimea, which was now not accessible due to the annexation. They were planning to travel by train to another place on the Black Sea that was still part of Ukraine. They had an invitation from friends, so it was a cheap getaway. They packed lightly, summer clothes for two weeks, most certainly expecting to return home after some rest and sunshine.