Staff Missionary Reports
Reports and Experiences of the Godspeed Staff
Ukraine, May 2001 - The Tiny Things
Dear friends and family,
Sunday, June 2, Kiev...first, let me thank all of you who have sent e-mails of
encouragement, letting me know that you were thinking of and praying for us. I was able to
access e-mail for the first time in a week Friday, and downloaded 104 messages, many of
them from you, each one used by God to relieve my sense of isolation and loneliness.
I want to be able to share with you all I have seen and experienced and felt while here
this trip...an impossible task. So much has happened, from my self-directed (as opposed
to Spirit-directed) customs issues on our entry into Ukraine, to Karen's having to return
home early, the overnight train rides, that unusual sensation of being in a large crowd,
everyone talking, and being unable to understand no one. It would be relatively easy to
describe how we have seen God provide in great ways during our time here: safety in travel,
good health in spite of the challenges of different foods and occasionally suspect water,
the opportunity to be part of the exciting work of promoting the gospel of Jesus Christ.
But what I cannot do, could not do if this e-mail stretched for millions of gigabytes, is
to give you a complete accounting of the little episodes, the myriad of occurrences that
remind me that God is keeping track of every sparrow. In my morning reading of "My Utmost
for His Highest", Oswald Chambers writes, "The things that make God dear to us are not so
much His great big blessings as the tiny things, because they show His amazing intimacy
with us; He knows every detail of our individual lives." I can identify.
Many of you have heard from Karen about the events that followed her return home. Going
back early due to a death in her family, circumstances developed as she was in transit that
made it clear that she could not nor needed not attend the funeral. So why did God give her
a sense that she should be back home? Some tiny and not so tiny things: the night she
arrived at home, a large leak developed in our roof; had she not been there, we would have
experienced damage to or loss of many of our belongings. A crown falls off a tooth (painful
and difficult to address in a strange country), a minor problem when the dentist can be
accessed immediately. Other "tiny events", none earth-shaking, but each one revealing that
God had Karen just where He wanted her to be, where she needed to be. The "tiny things" for
me, seven thousand miles away, have been mostly noticed in His provision of the right
questions (asked by those at the seminars), the right words (not mine, but those of my
translator, a godly and gifted young woman who can communicate the meaning of what I try
to voice better than I can express it), the right time (an exceedingly full schedule, much
travel, yet there just enough time, just the right circumstance to meet individually with
fifteen people about major concerns in their lives). So many "tiny things" that reveal a
plan, a Planner. The word "coincidence" has no value in the vocabulary of a Christian.
I leave tomorrow for home. I take with me the aches of stories I have heard of loneliness,
dysfunctional families of origin, strained relationships, inadequate and incorrect
information about health and illness, and damage to marriages and families brought on by
too much work, even good and great work such as is happening here. I also take back rich
memories of joy, of finding that laughter and humor know few cultural boundaries, of
friendships both renewed and created, and of an ever-growing awareness that God knows best,
and rewards His children.
God has made this trip possible. He did it through your prayers, your financial gifts, your
caring enough to write and encourage us. These, too, are the "tiny things" that allow us to
experience God wherever we might be, whatever our circumstances. Thank you...
Godspeed,
Barney M. Davis, Jr., M.D.
Executive Director,
Godspeed Missionary Care
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