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On the 5th July Vic Jackopson went to the village of Chervona Sloboda to present Alexander Vyshemirskyy, father of Misha, Hope Now's Ukrainian director, with an award. This was in special recognition of the contribution he has made to the preaching of the gospel for over 62 years. Almost 45 of those years were under the Communist regime, when such preaching had to be done in secret. Without Alexander's initiative, Hope Now might never have started the building programmes at Alexandria and Chervona Sloboda. Until recently, when poor health imposed physical limitations, he would travel all over Ukraine and even Moldova to preach the gospel.
Now that Alexander is frail, but not quite finished so far as preaching is concerned, it seems the right time to ask him to share his testimony with a wider audience.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. Psalm 8:1.
I was born in 1931. In infancy I went through the time of starvation, when Stalin took our food. (1932 - 1933). I survived because my mum and dad worked in a collective farm for a wage of thin hogwash and a slice of bread. They gave that to me and so I survived.
The family was enlarged with one more brother and a sister. Our father got ill and died, and our widowed mother raised her children alone.
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Vic makes award to Alexander Vyshemirskyi |
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When the war started everything was taken by "red broom" (Soviet Army's version of The Red Cross) out of our homes, even beans from pots on the shelf and fists full of millet. Policemen took everything that was edible.
After the war, when the Germans retreated, everything we had was burned. I can't understand how it was possible for our mum to send us to school. What did she clothe us in? What did she feed us with? Most of the time we were hungry. I used to travel 6 to 16 miles by foot to exchange a sack of white clay for a slice of bread or a small bundle of millet. In 1947 we grazed on a forest, eating grass; we even gnawed around bark of linden lime trees, which was sweet. We also ate acacia flowers. That seems to be a fairytale for those who never experienced anything like it.
Praise God, that my maternal grandmother was a Christian. She always told me about God. I was taken to places Christians met secretly from the Communist rulers. I believed in my Saviour Jesus Christ in my early years. He took me through life from my mother's womb. I started serving Him as a preacher when I was 16 and still serve Him, though I am 78. God gave me a Christian girl to become my wife and we lived in love for 52 years until she died. God's will was that we had 4 children, 3 sons and 1 daughter. I am now married to Katherina and we live peacefully in Chervona Sloboda, but I serve the Church in Makiyivka.
Alexander Vyshemirskyy
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