The Pastor and the Missionary Calling of the Church

[This is a lengthy prose essay rather than a poem, so I'll provide a translation of key passages]

We understood that we couldn't stay long in Russia: my elder son, who had served in the army a couple years before the war, would be sent to the front. I have medical training, and I understood that sooner or later they would come for me too. And that's what happened. A few days after the general mobilization was announced, three convoy officers came to our place—they didn't bother with a summons from the military registration office, they came to take both me and my son. Our lodgers told us about it afterward...

The move to the USA was difficult. In Mexico we met many Russians who were fleeing just like us. Mostly (about 99%)—not a religious group of people. We began getting to know them already in Mexico. Together we later crossed the border, communicated. And after arriving in Sacramento we continued our ministry with these people, saw the need, and most importantly—their openness, their readiness to hear the Gospel.

I believed in 1993. The Soviet Union had collapsed, a wave of awakening began. Six months after believing I was baptized, another six months later (I had just turned nineteen) the congregation sent me on a mission—to open a new church. It was an amazing time—people were very inclined to listen to the Gospel...

[The essay continues with profound reflections on church mission strategy, historical perspective from the Moravian Brethren through modern times, and urgent calls for churches to balance internal sanctification with active evangelism to refugee populations now in America.]