There are some moments you never forget.
Sometimes you see the hand of God in the moment and sometimes you see it later.
I started singing with the Singing Men of North Central Texas in March of 2009.
They had a mission trip planned in the spring of 2010. It would be their first trip to Ukraine.
I had too many irons in the fire to even consider the trip.
On March 20, 2010 a volcano erupted in Iceland and disrupted air travel in the northern hemisphere. SMONCT had to postpone the trip until October.
My friend John Bell, who had invited me into SMONCT, was president of the group that year and asked if I could participate in the October trip.
I told him I would pray about it, but God would have to show up big. Both kids were in college. Our daughter was graduating in December and getting married January 1. We had just borrowed $100,000 to do a major renovation on our house for handicap accessibility.
I had no extra funds available to go on a trip to Ukraine.
John made a phone call to the pastor who was coordinator of the Executive Ministry Team of Harvest Baptist Association (where I had been serving as Executive Director for almost 2 years).
He contacted the churches in HBA about helping me with the cost and they came through with enough to pay for the trip.
As we stood on stages in cities across Ukraine and sang the good news of Jesus, the words to our songs were projected on big screens in Russian so that the people would know what we were singing.
There is a Ukrainian language, but almost all Ukrainians—particularly in the eastern side of the country—speak Russian as well (that is an important fact, considering current events).
One of the songs we sang was Chris Tomlin’s well-known song, “How Great is Our God.”
We had learned the chorus in Russian and switched from English to Russian on the second chorus.
In one standing-room only venue after another, I will never forget the looks on their faces when they realized that they were hearing the same words that were being projected on the screen.
Amazing.
Watching those faces brought tears to my eyes and a lump to my throat in every concert.
Every. Single. Time.
Having now been to Ukraine 4 times on those music mission trips, my heart breaks over the current situation.
And I grieve the loss of more opportunities to be there (we were originally scheduled to return to Ukraine and Poland less than 2 weeks from now).
But, Oh, how God moved and blessed!
And when I see images of Ukrainian Christians worshiping in the midst of war, I wonder how many of them number among the 30,000 people we saw make decisions to follow Jesus in 10 years of ministry there.
Truly, our God is amazing!
Be amazed and be amazing today, my friend.
