Ukrainian Baptist leader sees God-ordained role during Russian invasion

 By Diana Chandler - Posted at Baptist Press:

“I never thought, in all my dreams, that I live through war. I never thought that God is preparing me for what I’m going through right now”

NASHVILLE (BP) – Ukrainian Baptist Theological Seminary (UBTS) President Yaroslav “Slavik” Pyzh and his wife Nadia don’t stay in airport hotels when traveling outside the war-torn country. Jets signal danger.

“The first four days, as soon as we hear the sound of a jet, we will be looking for cover, instinctively. I mean it’s not like a logical thing,’’ he told Baptist Press Nov. 5 during their latest trip to the United States. “Because in Ukraine if you hear the sound of jet, you’re looking for cover. And here you have jets all the time, planes flying back and forth.

“In Ukraine, the only plane that we have is military jets.”

Pyzh, a Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary alumnus, is in the U.S. thanking Southern Baptists and others for support that has allowed UBTS to provide humanitarian aid alongside tuition-free education during Russia’s war on Ukraine. Tuition has been waived for the 2,000 students currently enrolled in the seminary in Lviv on Ukraine’s western border.

Preaching the Nov. 6 sermon at First Baptist Church in Nashville alongside interim pastor Darrell Gwaltney, Pyzh expressed confidence that God positioned him to serve as UBTS president during Russia’s attack on Ukraine.

“I never thought, in all my dreams, that I live through war. I never thought that God is preparing me for what I’m going through right now,” Pyzh said at Nashville First in the sermon taken from I Kings 18:20-39, which tells of Elijah’s battle with the prophets of Baal. “If you had told me, I wouldn’t have totally believed you. But the biggest thing I have done for my people in the last eight months was to actually show up on Feb. 24 when the war started.

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