Viktor
Hamm, Vice President for Crusades with BGEA, recently had an
exclusive interview with the acting President of Ukraine that sheds
additional light on this crisis. This is a report sent to us by
Charles Chandler, Assistant Editor of Decision
Magazine, who
accompanied Mr. Hamm on this trip.
Viktor
Hamm (right), the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association’s Vice
President of Crusades, meets with Ukraine's acting president,
Oleksandr Turchynov on Wednesday.
Kiev,
Ukraine — In
the midst of ongoing turmoil that has enormous global significance,
God is mightily at work in Ukraine, the nation’s acting president
said Wednesday in an exclusive interview for Decision Magazine.
“Stories
of God’s hand abound,” Oleksandr Turchynov, a devout evangelical,
said during a private meeting with BGEA Vice President of Crusades
Viktor Hamm.
BGEA
President Franklin Graham, who preached in Kiev in 2007, requested
Hamm travel
to Ukraine and
meet with Turchynov because of Hamm’s deep ties to the country.
Born in a Soviet labor camp, Hamm has led fifteen crusades in Ukraine
between 1994 and 2006 as a BGEA associate evangelist.
Turchynov
has declined requests from internationally prominent news
organizations, but granted Decision Magazine the
interview that will appear in more detail in a special report on the
Ukranian crisis in April’s edition.
Hamm
also has met with some of the nation’s top evangelical leaders this
week while in Kiev to show BGEA’s support.Decision traveled
with him to cover the story that has gripped the world.
“Truth
was on the side of those who stood for their rights, and (chose not
to) be slaves, without rights and without voice,” acting president
Turchynov said of the near-miraculous victory of thousands of unarmed
protesters over the regime of now-deposed former president Viktor
Yanukovych.
“All
events demonstrated the greatness of God,” Turchynov said.
A
view of Maidan on Wednesday
Turchynov
was named to his position on February 23, two days after Yanukovych
was found to have fled the country amid a massive uprising against
his regime.
During
three months of protests in which Yanukoych’s Berkut riot police
beat and shot protesters, it appeared the many freedom fighters had
little chance in a David vs. Goliath kind of confrontation. A fiery
showdown ensued and hit its violent peak from February 18-20, when
Berkut snipers shot down and killed protesters. Nearly ninety have
died in all.
Yanukovych,
who fled on or around February 21, is now charged with mass murder by
authorities in his country.
Turchynov
said only God could have delivered those who refused to be oppressed
any longer. The acting president noted how, during the war-like
events that took place during the confrontations at Maidan (the city
square), huge clouds of smoke would drift toward the Berkut riot
police and away from protestors, obstructing the view of the
perpetrators. Turchynov said there was also a time when a grenade was
thrown near him, but that only one fragment hit him on the cheek,
causing no lasting injury.
“I
see God’s hand in every little detail that took place as unarmed
people went out to defend their freedom and the independence of their
country against a fully armed professional army, many times bigger in
size,” Turchynov said. “Their faith was victorious. God granted
them victory.”
God’s
grip on Ukraine has been strong for more than two decades. Hamm says
it’s the most evangelical nation in Europe.
Ukraine
and Turchynov now face another massive challenge—overt Russian
interference. Leaders around the world accuse Russia of
invading and taking over the Ukranian territory of Crimea.
Turchynov
asked BGEA’s supporters and believers worldwide to “pray for us
so that peace would return and people would be able to live
peacefully.”
His
hope for another victory, preferably without armed conflict with
Russia, is based on a Biblical promise.
“If
God is with us,” Turchynov said, “no one can be against us.”
More
of the thousands upon thousands of flowers placed in recent days at
Maidan, where the confrontations happened most ferociously from
February 18-20.
My comments: We pray for the well being of the Ukraine people.
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