"Go, as fast as you can, go."--Church members from Ukraine share how their faith helped them to safety

October, 2022

It’s the middle of the night in Chernigov, Ukraine. Just two weeks ago, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Lena and Nikolay Shaveko would’ve been sleeping peacefully, each of their two sons in their own beds, all of them preparing for another day in the only home they had ever known.

Instead, now they all lie awake in the same bed as explosions rock the house every thirty minutes, their unreinforced window the only thing shielding them from the shrapnel outside. 

Usually, to know where one’s home is, is a great blessing, but when that home is suddenly under bombardment, transformed minute-to-minute from its comforting familiarity into unfamiliar disarray, it seems much less so. 

In the morning, they are miraculously unharmed, despite the blown out window in the kitchen and the missile shell lying a mere ten steps away from the front door, which itself has fallen to the ground.

“It was very scary,” Lena recounted through tears during our Zoom interview. 25 years ago, she and her husband became the first members of the Church in Chernigov, inspiring this article about their newfound faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Now, that faith would again be called into question as they faced a life-altering decision—whether they should stay in Chernigov or flee by car.

As tumultuous as the night had been, leaving by car was hardly a safer option. According to friends, at this point, Russian forces had the whole city surrounded.

When Lena and Nikolay’s son-in-law Sasha pulled up in his car, faced with this difficult decision, he felt that they all needed to pray. That they did, and according to Lena, their answer was clear: “Go. As fast as you can, go.”

While their journey was treacherous, sometimes even requiring them to lie on the ground to avoid flying missiles, they ultimately found their way to safety a whole ten days later with only their travel documents in hand and the same clothes on their backs as when they had left. 

As it happened, they would land in the small German town of Gasseldorf, where they remain today as members of the Erlangen Ward in the Nuremburg Stake. Nikolay joked, “Now, we have a second home.”

The Shavekos expressed gratitude for having been so readily received by both members of the Erlangen Ward and the community at large. Piece by piece, thanks to others’ generosity, they received a place to live, furniture, dishes, and “everything [else] that [they] needed.” Before their first Sunday, the bishop of the Erlangen ward picked them up to help them get church clothes. Though they have found refuge in the spirituality of the ward and the beauty of the nature around them, when asked about her hopes for the future, Lena didn’t mince words—“However nice it is here, I just want to go home.”

In their time in Germany, Lena and Nikolay prayed for the safety of their neighbours in Ukraine and for the integrity of their own home, that it would be “structurally sound and complete [inasmuch] as it could be.” Tragically, the latter prayer was not answered in the way they would have hoped. What remains of their home today is virtually indistinguishable from rubble.

The path forward for the Shavekos is unclear. Though their home is no longer structurally sound, their faith in God still is. Throughout their journey, said Lena, “we always felt the presence of God, an acquaintance who is also now in Germany.”

What happened to the Shaveko family and hundreds of others was beyond unfair, but for them and members of The Church of Jesus Christ everywhere, they take hope in the promise that “all that is unfair about life can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ,” who Himself knew the most brutal kind of unfairness. Whether sooner, later, or in another life, the Shavekos know that one day they will sleep soundly in a place they can call home, again.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was introduced to Ukraine in 1990, when Elders Ivan Stratov and Brian Bradbury came to Kyiv to teach a handful of referred individuals. In 1994, the Church gained national recognition and has since welcomed over 11,000 members across 46 congregations. In 2010, Ukraine received its first and only temple.