Operation Free SP

Over the course of the past 3 years, we have had the amazing privilege of traveling across the country of Ukraine once a month to visit a young man named Sasha Pevniv. He has been serving his sentence in the Sambir Juvenile Colony in western Ukraine for most of that time. He is the reason that we began our prison ministry there, and now it's hard to imagine life in Ukraine without it. Once a month we take a 20 hour trip, a train-bus-taxi combo, from Sumy to Sambir to spend about 3 or 4 hours with this kid, just to turn around and go back from Sambir to Sumy. Those 40+ hours of travel are what bring our team to our favorite time of each month - our visit with SP.




We often skip using his full name and just call him SP. He liked the initials thing and started calling us MS, the initials for "moya simya," Ukrainian for "my family." We are truly privileged to be Sasha's family and to have watched him grow in these last 3 years. No one would deny the fact that he made bad choices that lead to his time in a juvenile prison, but this now 20-year-old young man is not the same kid that we knew back then. Sasha reads his Bible and regularly asks questions about God and shares with us the things that God is teaching him. He has a passion for life that is unlike anyone else we know and it's clear that God is doing great things in his heart. In our visits with him, Sasha often talks about the things he wants to change when he's out, how he wants to be better, what he'll do differently.

In the next couple of weeks we will have our last visit with our Sasha, because in about a month he will be free. Dates are a little uncertain because of the way the Ukrainian system works, but on March 26th he will have served 3 years and pending his court hearing to officially allow his release, he will be out within the first couple weeks of April!! At some point, we started calling this whole process "Operation Free SP." A this is a day we've been waiting years for. There really aren't words to describe our excitement.

Please be in prayer with us as we count down these last days till SP is out and home with us again in Sumy. There are some legal documents that need to be filled out, and a court date somewhere around March 26th to officially approve his release. Pray that things go smoothly with the paperwork and in our dealings with the prison officials. Once he's back in Sumy, we will be working to help him transition back to "normal" life and continuing to process everything he's been learning the past 3 years. Pray that God continues to work in Sasha's heart and gives him the strength he needs to make changes and keep becoming a better man. Pray that God would give us the wisdom we need to help Sasha transition and that we'll be able to support him in the best way we can.

There will be hard days without a doubt, but we are so excited to see what God is going to continue doing in Sasha's life and in the lives of those around him! As much as we've challenged and taught him, he has equally challenged and taught us as well. We know that there will be more mistakes in the future, but we are so excited to walk along side him through whatever ups and downs the future holds. We are thankful to be family and can't wait to have our brother home.