Update from Ukraine, with Olesia Dmytriieva

Dannah Gresh: Ukrainian broadcaster Olesia Dmytriieva joins us today to share how God is at work in her country.

Olesia Dmytriieva: The war will be over. We have a future; we have hope in God.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of The Wonder of His Name, for March 8, 2022. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Ed Cannon is a member of our Revive Our Hearts advisory board, and he’s the president and CEO of Far East Broadcasting Company, which takes the gospel to the nations of Ukraine and Russia, among others. He contacted Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth recently to report that God is at work in a special way right now, and he said we need to hear about it firsthand.

So, we contacted one of his broadcasters who’s ministering to the women in that region. Olesia sat down with me to tell us how we can pray for the people of Ukraine, what God’s doing there, and how calling on the names of Jesus is getting them through. This is one Revive Our Hearts program that every Christian needs to hear right now, so be sure to share it with your friends and family.

We had planned to air the next episode of “The Wonder of His Name,” the series we’re in right now. You can still listen to that teaching by Nancy at ReviveOurHearts.com; we’ll be sure to include a link to it in the transcript of today’s program. In fact, let me encourage you to listen as Nancy teaches on Jesus as the Son of Man. You can even use that teaching to pray the name of Jesus over the believers in the war zone as they seek to lift up the name of Jesus to those who do not know him. Here’s my conversation with Olesia on the frontlines of the war in Ukraine.

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Well, a few months ago our dear Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth had the privilege by Zoom to meet some female broadcasters from Eurasia. That’s the area where Russia and Ukraine are in conflict right now. I believe that that meeting was ordained by the Lord, because it has had the Revive Our Hearts team interceding for what’s happening in that part of the country in a very special way.

As you can imagine, we’ve been praying for some of those women by name, and we have the privilege of talking with one of them today. I’d love to introduce you to our dear sister in Christ, Olesia.

Did I get it right? I got your name right? I didn’t even try your last name! You can tell us your last name, because it’s complicated and beautiful.

Olesia: My name is Olesia Dmytriieva.

Dannah: My sister, can you tell us what’s been happening in your part of the world these past several days?

Olesia: The last nine days we’ve had hell on earth. I speak five languages, and I was thinking, What is the best word to describe what is going on in Ukraine? I didn’t find any.

On February 24 very early in the morning, I heard two explosions. They were very far away, but I knew they were explosions. I knew the sound. I used to hear those sounds very often in 2014 when our region was occupied by Russia, when the Russian-Ukrainian war started, eight years ago, in 2014.

But back in 2022, I knew those sounds, and I was paralyzed again. It’s like a flashback, you know? You know what it means, but your brain doesn’t want to accept it. Then my husband ran into the room and said, “Wake up; we need to leave!”

At six in the morning, I took my kids—we have two daughters and a cat, Mia. The kids were crying, and they wanted us to take Mia with us. 

Dannah: Yes, of course.

Olesia: I had my documents. I had the portrait of my dear father, and I took my Harvard t-shirt. That’s what I have, and we had to leave.

Dannah: What you’re saying is you had the clothes on your back.

Olesia: Yes. We had to drive from the east tip of Ukraine to the west. It was the very first day of the second level of Russian-Ukrainian war. We didn’t know which way to go, because now there was bombing and shouting. So you just go forward with no idea if there is bombing ahead of you.

It was forty-two hours of driving in constant stress and fear. I’d like to mention—my husband, my mom, and my kids are the witnesses—as we sat in the car. I believe God talked to my heart. He said, “I will send an angel who will prepare a way for you.” We sat down, and I said to everybody, “If we will be able to be safe in western Ukrainian, that was the Lord.” I’m not a prophet a traditional way, but this is what I heard from the Lord, and this word kept me strong as we traveled, as we were driving.

Dannah: How did you see that come to be? Did the Lord provide special help for you?

Olesia: Yes, Dannah! Gas was the number one problem. There was no gas whatsoever.

Dannah: Of course.

Olesia: There are many cars, many people, lots of panic, and no gas. We had to wait for about thirty cars before us. As you wait, you understand that you might have no gas left. I had my dear friends already praying, and I said, “I need a miracle. Please pray for gas, and also water.” There was no drinking water. You could buy Cola or other beverages, but not just drinking water.

But the Lord was good. Our cat was sleeping (I thought she was dead). Normally, she behaves very badly. She’s angry; she doesn’t like traveling. But this time she was sleeping. We had water. We were too stressed to eat. And we had gas. The Lord protected us from different people, so we are safe in western Ukraine.

Dannah: Wow. So, you’re still feeling some of the impact of the war activity there.

Olesia: We have about 12,000 refugees in this little town where we are staying. I have on my smartphone an alert, so every time we have an alert it runs and we have to flee to the bomb shelter immediately.

Dannah: How are your girls?

Olesia: How are my girls? One is fourteen, and she says, “I don’t remember the first time we were refugees, and now I understand too much.” I ask her not to read the news. She is a teenager, and she doesn’t need to see the dead bodies, the ruined villages and towns. She doesn’t need to hear all the curses. The information is too overwhelming, even for adults, not [to mention] teenagers.

The younger one, she wakes up at night, and she wants to sleep between me and my husband, because it’s pretty cold here, and she is scared. I need to put our cat on her bed, or I need to take her to us so she will feel comfortable.

Dannah: I guess the question on many of our minds is (since we’re not there with you), how can we pray for you? What can we do practically to encourage you as brothers and sisters in Christ?

Olesia: Right. The miracle of God is that we have a studio in this town where we are staying, and our team is trying to come to this town and go on the air every day. That’s what we do. We already have five members of our team, and every day we have a “marathon of hope,” hashtag Marathon of Hope. We just go and we pray for people. We try to ask questions like, “What will you do when the war is over?”

This is not the question to know their plans, this is the question of hope. The war will be over. We have a future. We have hope in God. People are responding with so many comments that my colleagues and I don’t have time to respond.

About twenty-two teenagers were listening to our broadcaster, Egert, and he was talking from a bomb shelter. He was talking about God. Where the bombing is so intense, it is called hell on earth. So Egert was preaching, and he was almost crying to the young people, saying, “Jesus is your hope.” Twenty-two teenagers accepted Christ as their Savior. This is amazing, what God is doing!

Dannah: Praise the Lord!

Olesia: Praise the Lord!

We have our helpline. Our counselors, they are scattered. They are humans as we all are. We have this free of charge helpline, and people are calling. I have some testimonies.

Paulina is an elderly, paralyzed woman. All of her neighbors left except one. This neighbor comes every day to bring her some bread. Paulina called our helpline, and she said, “I am scared. I am alone. I cannot go from my village. I don’t know what to do.”

Our counselors prayed, tried to calm her down. They said, “You have an angel who is your neighbor. God sends your angel every day who brings your food.”

We also have Svetlana. Svetlana called, and she was crying. She said, “My mom disappeared. She went to buy some bread, and this is the second hour, and she’s not back. I am just by myself.” (I think she was a teenager.) Our counselors were trying to calm her down, to talk to her, just to pray with her. She ended her call, and in ten minutes she called again and said, “You know what? Your prayers worked! My mom is back! She was waiting for bread for two hours!”

Dannah: Praise the Lord! I’m in tears!

Olesia: Yes.

Natalia is a single mother with two kids and a disabled mother. Her husband is a soldier. She stayed without any men. Her sister came to her. So they live, two women plus a disabled, elderly mother and three kids. They say, “We don’t know how we will survive. We have no money.” There’s no food in their village. “Pray for us! People are crying; children are crying.”

Our counselors cannot provide food to these distant villages. What we can do, as mothers we can talk to them; we can pray with them. We can lead them to Jesus and say that Jesus is the same in the safe area of Ukraine and in the very dangerous area of Ukraine. God is with us.

The last one is Andrei. He called and he cried, “Pray for me immediately, or I will die!”

Our counselor said, “I heard explosions, and he was begging, ‘Pray for me, pray for me! I’m afraid!’”

Our counselor said, “I was afraid, too! I just said, ‘God, protect him! God, you know!’”

He said, “I cannot pray. I have no idea how to pray, but pray for me, pray for me!” When everything is an explosion and in fire, you don’t choose words to cry for help, you just say, “Help me!” And God is answering those people.

Ukrainians are very strong. We’re a very strong nation. We’re strong in bad things, and I think that the Lord is cleaning our nation. We need to be cleaned from corruption. While we have many saints, our government and we as a nation . . . Our president is pale, he’s broken. In his speeches he uses the name of the Lord, not in vain. He says, “We trust in God.” He says that God will punish you. I mean, he uses God as our partner, as our protector. It had never happened in our history of Ukraine.

Dannah: I want to ask you about that, because right now we are studying the names of Jesus on the Revive Our Hearts program. As you’re saying this, I’m thinking of that. You’re calling on the name of Jesus; all you can say is, “Help, Jesus! Help!” Your President, who is Jewish, but not a Messianic Jew, not a Jesus-following Jew, is calling on the name of God. What kind of comfort is it for you to be able to just speak His name? For you, for your friends, for everyone in that war zone right now?

Olesia: Ukraine is a Christian nation. I mean, we’re not Muslims. Christmas is connected with the birth of Jesus. Our people know who Jesus is. But now it’s absolutely different usage of the name of Jesus, the name of God. As an FEBC broadcaster, I understand that these nine days are probably the most important days of my life. When God uses me and our team to preach it freely, no one will say "stop it," because every single Ukrainian uses the name of God. Probably he says, “God, I hate You because of what You’re doing,” but still we address God.

Dannah: You acknowledge Him.

Olesia: God is changing us.

This is the beginning of a great revival. When we say, “Jesus saves,” and we say, “Repeat after me the prayer of repentance,” and people are repeating. They have never prayed in their lives, but now they cry from their apartments which are ruins. People are homeless; people are jobless. It said that about twelve million Ukrainians will be homeless when the war is over. About one million are already fleeing from the conflict.

Dannah: Wow. I don’t know how to say this, but I’m not quite sure that you need us as much as we need to hear from you right now, because the Lord is strengthening you. He is reviving you; He is anointing you. The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is heavy upon you, and I can feel that. It makes me want to pray.

I want to ask you a couple of hard questions about how we can pray. First of all, out of your heart, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when I ask you, how can we here in the United States of America be interceding? What should we be praying for?

Olesia: I have a question, and I know that God has an answer. The question is, how will God work all things for the good of those who love Him and who have been called according to His purpose? I know that God will save Ukraine. I know that God will turn all minuses into pluses. As Nancy sent us a short video about those three men in the fire.

Dannah: Yes, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Olesia: Exactly! Jesus is standing by our side.

Dannah: Oh, Olesia, wow!

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (video message to Olesia and her coworkers): There’s nothing I can say that is exactly what you need in this moment. But I know, I know, I know that the Lord is there with you. His presence never leaves you. He will never forsake you and your precious family and these other sisters and brothers that we love so dearly and consider partners in the gospel.

I’ve been studying and reading, as you know, for a long time now in the book of Daniel, writing this book called Heaven Rules. That’s the message that’s on my heart and that I see all through the Scripture, but especially in Daniel, as he faced the lions’ den, as those three Hebrew young men faced the fiery furnace. 

There was no way out, except that God would intervene. God gave them courage; God gave them faith, God gave them confidence that He was with them. In fact, the Son of God walked right into that fiery furnace with those young men and delivered them. They said, “If God delivers us here, that will be great; if He doesn’t, we still will not bow before the false gods of this world.” 

That’s your heart, and that’s the heart of all those who are serving with you. So I just want to say from our hearts to yours that we love, we care for you, we’re praying for you and with you. We’re believing that in God’s way and in God’s time all nations and kingdoms and rulers of this world will bow before Christ, the King of kings and the Lord of lords. That’s your passion, that’s your heart, and so we pray that He would give you strength and courage in these very difficult days.

Olesia: So please pray for us to trust God as I used to trust my father. I loved my father so dearly. 

I hate swimming, okay? I don’t like water. One day I was eight. It was in Russia, by the way, in the Volga river. My dad was standing, and he said, “Swim to me.” I was touching the land with my feet, and then I understood that I cannot touch with my feet anymore. But Dad said, “You swim to me; I'm here.”

I’m forty now. I remember that feeling of choosing, “Should I trust my dad, or should I trust my fear of this horrible Volga water?” I chose to trust my father. I remember when I touched his hand, I was so happy.

This is what I want to feel. I know that Jesus is standing somewhere; I know that He won’t let us be ashamed, right? Those who trust God with all their hearts will not be ashamed. This is all that I have. If I lose my faith, I will lose everything. So please pray for us to trust the Lord, to touch His invisible hand and to know that everything that is visible will disappear, but the invisible things will be forever.

Dannah: Wow. I wish everybody could see the beauty on your face right now, the shining of the Lord on your face right now. It’s beautiful.

I’m reminded of Psalm 91, where it says that when we dwell in the shelter of the Most High, we abide in the shadow of the Almighty (see v. 1). That reminds me of the story you just told me of your dad, which I think we need to just stop and say that your father was a great preacher. He’s now with Jesus because of the pandemic. Is that correct?

Olesia: Yes, ma’am.

Dannah: Your family is still grieving that deep loss, and yet you’re staying on the frontlines of this battle, the spiritual battle that’s taking place right now.

Something that’s been on my heart—on Sunday a group of us gathered in my home. Bob and I opened up our home, and we gathered to pray for you. As we prayed, we prayed for the people of Ukraine, we prayed for our brothers and sisters in Ukraine. It was on our hearts that there were many women giving birth or fleeing to try to give birth in safe places. We prayed for those women.

As we prayed, I began to sense a prompting in my heart to pray for the people of Russia, but I have to be honest with you, I pushed it down. There’s a simplicity in our human brains that wants to take something this complicated and make it black and white—Ukraine good, Russia bad. But it wouldn’t leave me.

Then one of the younger men in the group said, “I feel like we really need to pray for Putin, and I think we need to pray for the Russian believers and the Russian people.” It just broke, and it was like the Lord was really saying, “I’m much more complicated than you’re thinking right now. Pray for your Russian brothers and sisters.”

What would you say to that?

Olesia: I would say two things. Number one, my mom is from Russia. I cannot say she’s Russian, but she was born in Russia, so there’s something Russian in me. And this is a test in me. 

Number two, I choose to use my energy not for cursing, but for blessing—for blessing our countries. I mean, I fear God. I need to have a pure heart in order to see God’s face, right? It’s a struggle sometimes. I can’t say I love, but I can say that I do not hate, if you want me to be very honest. So yes, please pray for Russian people. It’s not white and black. There are some bad Ukrainian people, unfortunately, and some good Ukrainian people. The same happens in Russia.

Pray. When you pray, you move mountains. When we believe, our faith moves mountains. Who am I to judge Russia? God is the Judge; I ask for mercy. I ask for mercy for my people.

Number three, please pray for us as broadcasters and Christians to be strong, but our deepest desire, please pray for our non-Christian Ukrainian listeners. Please pray for them in this horrible time of choice. 

• May God touch their broken hearts with His love. 
• May the Holy Spirit, who is a Comforter, who can speak not just the Ukrainian language but who can speak the very language of every wounded soul, comfort and give peace and make miracles. 
• As the FEBC team tries to minister in these horrible, difficult situations, let Him use our mouths, our hearts, everything we have to serve our listeners and to serve our nation. Please pray, “Let their hearts be soft and not hardened, but soft for Jesus.”

Dannah: Pray for a harvest, a harvest of salvation.

Olesia: Amen!

Dannah: And a harvest of revival.

Are you hearing from your listeners in Russian, Christian sisters and brothers out of that nation?

Olesia: Yes. Some of them are praying for us, some of them are trying to help with finances, with some good support. Some of them do not believe what is going on, but I don’t want to fight with pro-Russian people.

Dannah: Yes.

Olesia: Here are the facts. If you don’t believe, we’ll leave it here. I have too much work to do to talk to people who don’t listen to me.

Dannah: I love that. There’s a lot of that in the whole world right now. We can all use that advice!

There are a lot of opinions; let’s get down to the work of talking about the name of Jesus Christ and lifting that name up and letting that name be preeminent.

I know that you’ve been translating some of the content of Revive Our Hearts to disciple the women in that area of the world. How has that been helpful for you? What kind of fruit are you seeing from the women who are hearing that content?

Olesia: I think I managed to make four programs based on the book by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, Lies Women Believe. I took a chapter, and it was in Russian, so I had to translate it. Then we discussed it with my guest, and the listeners called. 

Of course, our target audience are non-Christians, and for them it’s very difficult to accept that a woman should be praying and the woman should be humble enough to serve. So yes, we had some discussions. 

But I think for me personally . . . I’ve read the whole book. I didn’t have time to make all the chapters into a program. But it was very good for me personally. I wish I had produced more programs based on this book.

Dannah: In the future.

I think there’s nothing left to do but for me to pray for you.

Olesia: Please. And pray for our listeners! Pray for people who do not know Him. He comforts me; He comforts Christians. Can you imagine how terrible for those who have no comfort, who have no hand of God on their shoulders? Pray for them, please.

Dannah: Mighty God, Emmanuel, Wonderful Counselor, my heart is sobered. I’m looking at a woman, Olesia, who sees the kingdom, in whose eyes the veil has been lifted. She doesn’t see the kingdom of this world, she sees the kingdom of God. She sees the army of God. She sees the goodness of God even in this terrible place, in this terrible time. I want to have eyes like that, Jesus; I want to have eyes like that.

Father, I lift her up. I lift her family up. I lift her two daughters up. I lift her husband up, as he covers this family and loves this family and leads this family. Lord, even the little things she shared, like even their cat being a comfort to the children and sleeping in the car. Father, this is a sister just like me, and yet You’re asking her to be a general in the Christian army, in the army of Christ, for the kingdom of God right now. Equip her, strengthen her. Be with her. Keep Your hand on her shoulder, Lord Jesus.

As we pray for her, Father, we are praying for hundreds of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of others like her—in Russia and Ukraine—brothers and sisters in Christ who are in the kingdom army of God. I know, Father, that as they dwell in the shelter of You, Most High God, that they will abide in the sweet shadow of the Almighty. 

I pray, Father, and I hear it on her lips, that she’s able to look at You and say, “You are my refuge; You are my fortress; You are my God, in whom I trust.” Father, that psalm, Psalm 91, goes on to promise that You will deliver them from the snare of the fowler, from the deadly pestilence. You will cover them with Your wings. They will find refuge under Your wings.

Lord, I pray that those listening to the broadcast, the hope-filled broadcasts with the name of Jesus being lifted up, that they would crawl under the refuge and the wings of Jesus Christ, and they would know His faithfulness is their shield and their buckler. 

Father, for those children, for those women giving birth in the middle of a war zone, for those teenagers, I pray, Father, that as they get under Your wing, they wouldn’t fear the terror of the night, they wouldn’t fear the bombs that fly by day. May their ability to see the kingdom of God be so clear, that their vision is so clear, Father, that the facts of this war are overridden by the truth of the One who sits on His throne. May they say with certainty that Heaven rules, even now, even in this. God, be with them. Be with them, hold them.

Father, as I leave this time with my sister, I want to be like her. I want to have the faith and the courage and the resilience and the faithfulness that she has. So Father, would You take these words that we’ve just shared through a Zoom room, and would You just broadcast them over the United States of America? 

Father, we need revival. We need to call on the name of the Lord the way that she is. We need to speak the name of Jesus in this land the way that she is. Father, use these words that we’ve shared to awaken the sleeping Church. May we declare as one Body, as one Church, that Heaven rules and that You do in fact work all things for good to those who love You and are called according to Your purpose. In the might, matchless name of Jesus Christ we say, amen.

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Dannah: I don’t know about you, but I’ve been so challenged to pray for my brothers and sisters in both Ukraine and Russia today. If you have been too, please do two things. Pray. Don’t just think about it, don’t just talk about it, don’t just say you’re doing it. Pray. Do it. It matters.

And I’d like to ask you share this program with other believers so they can be encouraged to pray, too.

Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts we’ll pick back up in the series where Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is teaching on “The Wonder of His Name.” She’ll be helping us understand the name Emmanuel, which means God with us.

Revive Our Hearts is calling you to pray for women in Eurasia to find freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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