Slideshow image

In September, I will return to Ukraine for the third time since Russia’s full-scale invasion — returning to people and places that have become an important part of my ministry, and to a country continuing to bear an extraordinary burden of war, loss and uncertainty.

The centrepiece of this visit will be several days in Lviv, where I have been invited to teach as part of a program supporting Ukrainian mental-health professionals, veterans and those who work with military families.

Much of my teaching will draw together experiences that have shaped different parts of my own life: ministry, pastoral care, military and policing service, and years spent working with people affected by trauma and loss.

Among the subjects I will address are grief and loss within family systems, ambiguous loss during war, the often-unspoken ways men and boys experience grief, and post-traumatic growth among soldiers and veterans.

These are not abstract subjects in Ukraine.

Families live with the absence of loved ones who are serving, missing, wounded, displaced or dead. Veterans are returning to communities and families profoundly changed by what they have experienced. Children are growing up with air-raid sirens and uncertainty as part of ordinary life. Those caring for others are themselves carrying enormous burdens.

The purpose of this work is therefore not to arrive with Canadian answers. It is to listen, share what may be useful, and learn from Ukrainian professionals and veterans whose experience of trauma, resilience and community is profound.

I also hope to reconnect with Ukrainian friends and organizations with whom I have worked on humanitarian and veterans’ projects. Over the past two years, those partnerships have included medical and rehabilitation supplies, assistance for veterans and families, support for children, and our recent “Threads of Solidarity” project sending handmade quilts from Canada to families affected by the war.

There will also be a particularly meaningful return to Kyiv.

On Sunday, September 20, I expect once again to preside at Christ Church Kyiv, the Anglican congregation that worships at St. Catherine’s Lutheran Church. I first had the privilege of presiding there during my 2024 visit and returned to the altar in January of this year. The photographs accompanying this reflection were taken during that service.

Celebrating the Eucharist in a country at war has changed the way I hear familiar words about peace, hope, suffering and resurrection. In Kyiv, they cease to be abstractions.

I do not know what this journey will bring. Ukraine has taught me not to pretend otherwise.

But I know why I am returning.

To teach where I can. To listen where I should. To stand beside people carrying grief. To worship with a community living faithfully in wartime. And, above all, simply to be present.

Sometimes presence is the beginning of ministry.