“Who has sent you?”
By Koen Carlier

Recently I received some addresses from the Jewish Agency of families living in a very remote place in the Ukraine. Together with two Ebenezer-volunteers, Veronica from West Ukraine and Hélouise from Toulouse, France, we went on our way to visit them. After a long search and questioning several people we finally managed to find a few families. In the village of Ilyashivka we arrived at the home of Ludmilla Gonchar, and knocked on the door. When they looked at this unexpected group of people from Western Europe on their doorstep they were speechless, and said: “Who has sent you? How did you find me?” We introduced ourselves politely and told her that an old lady had showed us the way to her house. Soon we were having a conversation and Ludmilla told us of her great sorrow; a few months earlier her son had died, leaving behind his wife and two young children.

At first, Ludmilla was a bit uncomfortable with our presence and told us that she had nothing to do with Jewishness. “My grandmother is Polish. Maybe she had Jewish roots,” she said, “but I have no documents to confirm this.” After some time she started to trust us more, and just before we left she suddenly said: “My mother was indeed Jewish and I have all the original documents here at my home!” We encouraged her to think it over very carefully whether she should leave and go to Israel for good. We handed her a ‘Christians for Israel’ food-parcel as we do every time we visit a family, and left her with some Scripture verses. Ludmilla promised she would read them.

We regard this as ‘planting seeds’ in the hearts of people, and many of them have later on made the decision to go to Israel, packed their bags and left for Israel. It often turns out that it was as a result of this first visit by the ‘fishermen’ here in the Land of the North (see Jeremiah 16:16).

Two months ago, the Jewish Agency asked Christians for Israel to go and visit a Jewish doctor who had assisted right after the Chernobyl disaster (120km from Kiev, the capital of Ukraine). At that time, the doctor had helped and treated many people, but he himself was now suffering from the consequences of radiation-exposure. His greatest wish was to spend the last days of his life together with his wife Helena in the Promised Land. But he could not travel by ordinary transport. We would have to request for an ambulance and a doctor to accompany him all the way to the airplane in Kiev. Everything was ready, and on the 14th of February the journey was to take place. However, it was not to be. One day before the departure date, the doctor passed away and was buried on the same day.
His widow, Helena, then decided to go to Israel alone and not to postpone her Aliyah. Taking leave the next day was exceptionally difficult, and one of her two sons accompanied her to the airport. On the way many tears were shed but slowly she started to feel better. Helena told us about her difficult upbringing, being Jewish. Miraculously she survived being born prematurely (three months early) in a tent-camp in Mongolia. In 1990, she and her husband had wanted to go to Israel, but because of the Intifada and the unrest in Israel at the time they kept postponing the journey. In the meantime the rest of her family had left for Israel, all her brothers, sisters, uncles and aunts, and not one of them had ever considered going back to Ukraine. After the first difficult years they had all managed to settle down and find their place in the Israeli society.

We on our part told Helena about our motivation for doing this work and she listened carefully. Once we arrived at the airport, Helena received her flight ticket from the Jewish Agency. Before saying good-bye, Hélouise read from Deuteronomy 7:6-9, while Helena and her son listened intently to the words that had been written thousands of years ago. Then they gave us a warm hug and Helena called us ‘angels’. Grateful we started on our journey home.

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“Who has sent you?” By Koen Carlier

“Who has sent you?”
By Koen Carlier