Christians are making a difference in Ukraine. This is the message brought back by the Ohio Conference clergy and laypersons who traveled to this Eastern Europe country in September.

"I knew this was a medical mission," wrote Sam Buehrer, pastor of First UCC, Galion, to his congregation, "but it never dawned on me that the major medical issue facing many of those we visited was illness resulting from the lack of food."

The trip was sponsored by SARA, Sharing America’s Resources Abroad, the Ohio Conference mission that provides medical supplies, equipment and expertise around the world. In the Transcarpathia region of Ukraine the supplies most needed include basic over-the-counter medicine and food.

Each SARA traveler agrees to carry one suitcase of medicine and supplies. The vitamins, aspirin and first aid supplies-easily purchased in the US-are nearly impossible to find in Ukraine.

SARA travelers don’t deliver suitcases of food, but funds donated by SARA supporters are used to purchase seed, fertilizer and farming equipment so that food can be grown.

Several members of the group were impressed with the accomplishments of the administrator of the Good Samaritan Orphanage. "It was amazing that this man was not only able to provide an abundance of food and good things for the 60 children who live at Good Samaritan," said Elaine Mikesell, Associate Pastor of St. Paul UCC, Wapakoneta, "but we delivered three truckloads of flour, food, soap and clothing that he provided to the state-run hospital and orphanage."

Joyce Schroer, pastor of First Congregational Church and Society, Berlin Heights, wrote in her church newsletter, "The girls at Good Samaritan...are well fed and cared for...He manages a large farm where enough food is grown for his children as well as the mountain orphanage, another orphanage for infants and toddlers, and the children’s hospital at Mukachevo."

Our travelers were also very impressed with the work being done by the Christian Doctors Association at St. Luke’s Clinic in Mukachevo. "These are well-educated men and women who are living their faith by helping others," wrote Rev. Schroer.

"These physicians told us about their frustration of treating patients in outdated and ill-equipped facilities," said Schroer. "They expressed time and again how grateful they were for the medicines and supplies." The group toured their finest hospitals, which were in "deplorable condition by our standards," she added.

"The doctors and nurses cannot even afford vaccinations for themselves to protect against diseases like Hepatitis C," said Ralph Quellhorst, Ohio Conference Minister. They treat people with this contagious condition every day. A series of five $35 injections is needed. "One of SARA’s goals is to find a way to pay for injections for medical caregivers," Rev. Quellhorst added.

Donna and Bob Overholt, members of Trinity UCC, Tiffin, took a personal interest in helping someone with Hepatitis C. They learned from Steve Szilagyi, SARA’s founder and executive director, about 14-year-old Melanie Rati, who has the disease. Because her family cannot afford her treatment, they volunteered to help. "We decided to provide what she needs," said Ms. Overholt.

Even with treatment, there is only a 30 percent chance that the virus will be destroyed. "Melanie can live with the disease," said Mr. Overholt, "but it eventually causes liver damage and a shortened life."

The Overholts visited the Rati family at their home. "We now have another family," said Mr. Overholt. The couple got to know Melanie, her sister Isabelle and their parents. Arrangements are being made for Melanie to receive the medication she needs.

It promises to be a long-term relationship. Mr. Overholt has sent a long letter to the Ratis and plans to send photos once they have established email communication. They are hampered at present by a computer virus at the orphanage where Mrs. Rati works.

The Overholts look forward to a return trip someday. "I told them we would be back," said Mr. Overholt, "for Melanie’s wedding."

Several of the travelers were moved by the "Christian love" and "sense of hope and good will" that they felt from the Ukranian people. This was apparent at the churches the group visited. "The children sang joyfully for us, even though their lives are grim by our standards," said Ralph Quellhorst of the congregation of a new gypsy church being built with funds furnished by the Churches of the Pioneer Larger Parish in the Eastern Ohio Association.

"On Sunday morning, we worshipped at the church in Debrony, and I was moved to see what seemed like the whole town walking to church to worship with us," said Rev. Quellhorst. "It was so meaningful to me," agreed Elaine Mikesell. "It looked like the whole town turned out to worship on Sunday morning."

Perhaps the most lasting image from the trip came from Elaine Mikesell. "When we drove through the gates of the state orphanage, the children ran along with the truck. We got off and a little boy, probably 10 years old, just overtook me, hugging and kissing me. He had rickets; they were so bad that he was walking on his ankles. That is an image I won’t forget. I thought, "If all I can give him is this hug, I’m going to let him hug me as long as he wants to."

Our Conference’s ecumenical partner in Germany, the Evangelical Church of Westphalia (EKvW), has initiated a process of major reform in its structure, its mission, its life.

Spurred by a financial crisis nearly two years ago, the EKvW seeks to do more than simply react to present conditions. A proposal has been drafted to take concrete steps to remain "A Church with a Future."

To help get a sympathetic yet objective view of its work to date, the EKvW invited representatives from churches all over the world to attend a 10-day consultation in Bielefeld, Germany in September.

On hand to offer their analysis of the reform process were persons from Canada, Argentina, Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Congo, the Philippines, Namibia, Colombia, Hungary, and India, as well as three UCC representatives: Charles Barnes of the Indiana-Kentucky Conference, Ohio Conference Minister Ralph Quellhorst, and Michael Penn Moore, who heads the Conference EKU-UCC working group.

The EKvW’s undertaking is an ambitious one. The church is primarily funded by the state through income taxes, and increasing numbers of people are electing to leave the church and eliminate the tax (typically eight per cent of income).

In addition, the rebuilding of the former East Germany, the increase in unemployment, and continuing social programs for which the church is responsible all make significant demands on the material and human resources of the EKvW.

The church is also determined to address the growing secularization within its life, the sense of distance between members and larger church structures, the crushing demands placed on its clergy (and the ironic need to deny ordination to many for lack of positions), the challenges of globalization, and more.

During the intensive September consultation, the international visitors were divided among five study areas, visited representative ministries, drafted proposals for change and presented them for group discussion.

The proposals offered by the visitors were challenging, but the principal host of the event, Dr. Ulrich Moeller of the Ecumenical Office, insisted that the observers must tell the truth as they saw it, not merely say what they thought the EKvW would want to hear.

In the closing worship service, EKvW President Manfred Sorg presented a Sri Lankan church leader with a book of blank pages, in which her denomination is invited to write stories of hope in the struggle to overcome violence.

The book is to be passed among all the churches represented at the consultation, then returned to the EKvW for printing and publication.

Fourth in a series of excerpts from the journal kept by John Gantt last summer while he hosted UCC volunteers organized by the Ohio Conference Disaster Response Team to help with flood recovery in West Virginia.

Gantt was the on-the-spot, daily problem solver for the volunteer workers. At the end of each day, he wrote of his and the groups’ experiences. Here is his account of day four. 

Read about Days 1 - 3  -  click here.

June 13, 2002

At 8 a.m. 74 UCCers spread out in the hollers, bottoms and camps of Wyoming County to continue their good works. When it started to rain, I thought, how are you going to find enough under cover jobs to keep these highly motivated, energetic young people and their grown up friends busy?

Well, leave it to youth. They figured it out. Most of them kept on digging post holes in rocky, thin-top soiled terrain. Some of them just went ahead and got wet because they were excited about getting to within eight inches of finishing the deck flooring they had worked on so hard.

Stories abound. We heard about the 91-year-old man known as "the gentleman farmer" who sat right there on his porch during the flood, as if to dare the water to invade his home of some 50 years or more.

In all that time, water had never even gotten into his front yard. Family urged him to move up to the road out of harm’s way, but he didn’t – couldn’t – believe the waters would get that bad.

His moniker "gentleman farmer" came from his habit as an insurance salesman in younger years to call on his clients, then grab a hoe and weed a few rows of potatoes he had planted in this one’s farm, or some corn he planted in another one’s garden–all in his white dress shirts!

In more recent days, his wife was in the hospital being treated for cancer when the floods came. Ten days after the flooding, she died. Fortunately she didn’t have to see how much of their life-treasures were carried away. He says, "She died from the stress of it all."

He lost a prized collection of records, as well as a collection of old record players – victrolas in working order and stereos. All gone.

There was a museum-like collection of typewriters. Business and personal files, a prized print of Robert E. Lee, and …. and his collection of wasp’s nests! All gone.

His daughter says he, now a widower, was really angry at the flood all winter. It wasn’t until this spring that anyone but family were allowed to help him. Now he greets the volunteers in his business suit and white shirt, then puts on his hat and goes off to do some business while they work.

His daughter resigned her teaching job to care for her mother. When she died, the daughter believes that had something to do with God’s plan. For she believes she herself was "supposed" to retire from teaching and then at her mother’s passing to be available to work in a flood recovery office to help people get their lives back in order.

That’s why we’ve come here this week, too.

Somehow we were meant to be here to have a chat with a 78-year-old grandfather whose grand-daughter’s house is being worked on by volunteers.

The long steep hill up to his granddaughter’s house makes him wheeze. It’s a tough climb with one lung (the other one lost to disease brought about by 32 years in the mines).

This evening’s devotions were held outdoors, with an incredible backdrop of a sheer rock cliff topped by a tree-covered mountain – to give our singing of "El Shaddai, El Shaddai" just the right ambiance: God the Almighty!

Tomorrow we’ll do it one more time: stumble down the stairs to the cafeteria for breakfast, then stagger over to the make-your-own-sandwich-for-lunch table, pack up food for the day (oh no – fifth consecutive day for ham, turkey or beef slices, cheese and chips), find some cold water and ice for the coolers, gather up hats, gloves, tool belts, and then sit down to wait for the job site coordinators to arrive.

We all know pretty much what we have to do tomorrow to finish up. A large percentage of our projects will be completed – a couple will be labeled "works in progress" and bequeathed to next week’s volunteers. All in all, it has been a mighty impressive productive week.

Yesterday was a drag, but today a teenager said to me, "It’s Thursday already and we’ll be going home too soon. I don’t want to leave yet!" What a difference 24 hours makes!

Today we discovered what it really means to be "touched by an angel." Jim Ditzler, the Ohio Conference Disaster Response Angel, called to say he’ll be coming with an 18-wheeler full of furniture, clothing, food, washers and dryers, and mattresses.

One more thing: don’t even think about washing your clothes at the local laundromats on Thursdays. That’s coal miners’ day ONLY. I guess it gives the proprietors an overnight to clean out the grit and abrasives for us common folk, although you’d have to say the coal miners being the majority are the common folks and we are the abnormal ones.

Ralph and Sue Quellhorst were honored on October 24 as the United Church Homes 2002 Ben M. Herbster Award Recipients. The award is given to recognize outstanding service, support and leadership contributions to the ministry of United Church Homes (UCH).

At a luncheon held at the Scioto Country Club, guests heard tributes by the Quellhorsts’ longtime associates and friends Stephen Szilagyi, Edith Guffey, David Schwab and Earl and Pat Miller and by the couple’s three daughters, Mindy Lacefield, Cindy Bowser and Pamela Houston. Brian Allen, UCH President, followed with presentation of the award and gifts for the Quellhorsts.

Ralph, who will retire in 2003 as the Ohio Conference Minister, was recognized for his service as a member of the UCH Board of Directors. He is a well-known and respected United Church of Christ leader and has been a strong advocate for UCC support of the retirement and health care ministry carried out by United Church Homes.

Sue was recognized as a lifetime friend of UCH’s Fairhaven Community, from volunteering as a child to financial support as an adult. Beyond her service to United Church Homes, she is the founder of SARA’s Children, an organization that provides humanitarian and medical aid to children in developing countries.