Ep. 287: Hungry for Life in Ukraine

*Below is an edited transcription of the audio conversation.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to In Doubt, my name’s Daniel Markin, and today I’m joined by Jason Krul who works with HFL, which is, Hungry For Life. And they’re an organization who are working with lots of different humanitarian crises that are happening around the world. And in this discussion today, we kind of go deep on the crisis happening in the Ukraine and how we are to try and begin to think about this as Christians. And then even as Christians, more specifically as young adults, how we’re to get involved in this, because it can feel so much bigger than we are and yet we have organizing who are experts in helping people. So this is a must listen, and I hope that you find this episode helpful.

Daniel Markin:

Hey, welcome to In Doubt, my name’s Daniel Markin, and I’m joined today by Jason Krul. Jason, for our listeners, for those who are following along with our show, would you give us a little bit of who you are, and then we’re going to dive into talking about Ukraine, and this is something that you’re pretty intimately involved in these days. And so if you would give us a little bit about who you are, what you’re doing and then how you came about doing what you’re doing, and then we’ll kind of go from there.

Jason Krul:

Sure. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. Hungry for Life is based in Chilliwack, British Columbia, a local ministry that’s been around since 2004. So been operating here for 16 plus, 18 years. And our main initiatives is to seek to inspire spiritual vibrancy in churches and groups here in North America and to help get them involved in something that’s overseas. So what we’ve found is that we’ve been extremely blessed in the west with a lot of material blessings, and we’re grateful for that, but we want to challenge people and churches and businesses and groups to give back where there’s poverty. And over the years we’ve been able to engage various groups, churches, and businesses in international compassion projects overseas. And not only is it impactful for those people that are the recipients of those projects, so the houses that get built, the widows that get cared for, the orphans that get care, but it’s equally as important and impactful for the people that go to serve. And so that’s been our key motto over the years is both the spiritual and the physical poverty exists in the world. And the way that we can impact that is by not only contributing financially, but getting off our seat and doing something about it, going and answering the call that God may have in our lives to do short term missions or to be a part of fundraising for a project and instilling spiritual vibrancy back into the church.

Daniel Markin:

That’s music to my ears because I think so often what we’ll do is we’ll be like, “Oh, there’s a problem.” And in the west we’re like, “Let’s throw money at it.” And then as if that’s kind of the solution, and I don’t know, maybe we feel better about ourselves because we threw some money at this particular problem. Without realizing that no, there’s like everything that we’re doing is spiritual. Whether we like to realize that or not, or maybe if we don’t focus on that enough, but we’re in a spiritual battle. And so I think that’s really important to at least emphasize, but it’s cool that you actually are enacting that. And that’s very much like bringing forth the kingdom of God, which is something that I believe that you’re doing.

Jason Krul:

Yeah, so we’ve been operating, currently operating in 14 countries around the world and Ukraine is one of them, but outside of Ukraine we have quite a few projects in Africa and central Asia and South America and other places. So super excited to be able to continue to spread the word as we go to groups here in North America and challenge them to say, “What is your church doing for missions? It doesn’t have to be through our organization, but through any ministry, what is your church doing about missions? What are your church doing about reaching the lost that are out there, again, both spiritually and physically?” And it’s been encouraging over the years to work with a number of different groups. We have a hundred percent model, which kind of sets us apart from a lot of other groups where a hundred percent of the dollars that come in for projects go to directly to the projects, so when we raise fund, when one of our groups was raising funds for a project, let’s say it’s Ukraine relief, every penny that comes in and goes directly to that project, we don’t take an administrative percentage for it.

Daniel Markin:

That’s amazing. I’ve never heard of that before. And I’m assume that you guys have other donors that want to support your ministry because of that reason, right? They’re like, “Oh, wow. We can help support the people working there because we know that all the money is actually going to be going to that particular spot.” So then here’s a question for you. How do you then determine where you’re going to send that money? Do you have relationships in these places? Do you know people in these places? Because that’s always a question I have is like, okay, we can throw money at stuff.

Jason Krul:

That’s an excellent question. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, how do you determine, do you have the contacts there and what’s the best way to do that?

Jason Krul:

Yeah, so we have strategic partnerships with ministries or with local indigenous leaders where we work. And that’s not just picking a name out of a hat, as you said, there’s a lot of skepticism out there of who is this person that we’re sending our money to? Is the money going to where it’s supposed to go? And that’s one of the services that we offer is we do our due diligence in doing an assessment process. So before we’ll partner with a ministry or with a local pastor on the ground, we actually sent one of our project managers over there to do about a one to two week assessment process, looking into who they are, what kind of projects they do, what is their ministry? What kind of opportunities is there that exist in their community? What’s their capacity to manage projects and manage finances? And what’s their track record with managing finances? And then from all of that information, we’ll put together a three to five year community development plan, where we look at this community and say, “Hey, working together with this pastor or with this local leader, what is the next three to years look like in your community? And how can we most impact various aspects in your community of the most pressing needs?” And again, that encompasses both spiritual and physical. So how are the spiritual needs in your community getting met? Maybe they have a church, but it’s not very equipped with trained pastors. Maybe they have a school, but the teachers aren’t trained very well. So there’s definitely a spiritual element there as well as, looking at the physical needs in the community, do they have water wells that provide clean drinking water and the list kind of goes on. And so through that process, if we’re very happy with who that partner is in that particular region of the world, we’ll sign a contractor agreement with them. So that makes them actually an extension of our ministry. So we’re able to receive and receipt Canadian funds to send to that project as they’re ultimately working underneath our dome, if you could say that. So we’re confident in the process and that we do our due diligence and yeah, that question comes up a lot. How do we know that the money that we’re giving goes to where it’s needed most? And so through that process, that’s one of the things. The second thing is we invite our donors, whether it’s a church or a business or a community group or a school group, we invite them to come down and see it. Come down and you’ve been giving to this project, let’s go put together a small little group and let’s go down and see and learn and see what’s happening in this community and how God’s using the funds that you’ve contributed.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. And then they can go down if they see any other additional things, they can rally their people and be like, “Hey, we need to give more to this. It’s going great. We need to help more in this area.” Right? So I think that’s huge. And you touched on something there that I absolutely love, which is connecting with local pastors or the local church. And I think one of the things that we often get wrong is we’ll just give things to organizations, but there’s something in particular about giving to a local church where they are a staple piece of the community. And then right away, they’re able to provide spiritual and often practical need. That’s something that even churches in North America do. I even think about my church, with some of the dinners we do for the homeless, right? It’s like we’re providing a spiritual and a practical need. And so I think that’s a really, really good strategy and happy to hear about that. I want to shift a little bit here to talk about Ukraine. And we were talking a little bit before the show. I want to get your perspective on what’s happening in Ukraine. And I just basically was saying, all I see is just chaos. And it’s hard to feel like you’re getting a straight answer from people, whether it’s the news or Twitter or Facebook, of the entire picture. And I understand that in any war it’s incredibly complex and incredibly nuanced, and it takes nuance to talk about it because there’s lots of different perspectives. Different people are going to focus on different things, but I have found that increasingly difficult to do. And that’s not for lack of trying, I’ve tried to follow Ukraine pretty closely. And so I’d love to get your take on some of this.

Jason Krul:

Yeah, yeah. That’s a fair point. And just like you said, war is horrific. War has often multiple sides to it. So we try to stay clear of the politicalization of it. All I can say is that Ukraine, as you probably very well know, Ukraine is a breadbasket of Europe and actually one of the largest wheat producers of the world. And so is it a coincidence that Russia is wanting to invade and take over more control over this country where it’s a major, major player in providing wheat exportation actually? But just not even looking at, why is Russia doing what is doing? And just simply looking at what is a current situation that people are under? So HFL has been working through our partners in Ukraine for probably almost 16 years. And we actually have one of our staff members, Chad and Mary March that live in the western part of Ukraine currently. And they’ve decided to not leave, even when the news of war broke out, they decided that they wanted to stay and help their people. They’re extremely strategically placed in the very western part of the country, close to the Hungary and Slovakia borders. So it’s far and enough away from the current conflict zones that they’re safe, but they’re also in a strategic location where all these refugees have been fleeing to their area. And so the reason I’m bringing this up is because their personal stories that they’re able to share really bring it home, really make it real of what’s happening. It’s not just one country saying, “Hey, I want to take over some more land,” and just moving in and pushing people out. The stories that the refugees are coming to the west with are horrific. And furthermore, through our network, we’ve been able to distribute, I think over 200 tons of food to the eastern part of the country. So these truck drivers take their lives at risk every single day. And they jump in a truck full of food and go deep into the eastern part of the country where bombs are dropping, airstrikes are happening and stories of people that are stuck in their bunker underneath their house for 10, 12 days, ran out of food long before that, the grocery stores and the markets have been bombed out. There’s nowhere to go to and they’re literally starving their cellars. It’s gut wrenching to hear. And the lack of compassion is just astounding. From other wars, war is never pretty, war is never good, but a lot of times, at least a humanitarian corridor has been able to be established where Red Cross can get in and help or other organizations. And it seems like in this case, these organizations have actually been targeted. They’re really trying to starve off the people that are in the eastern places. So yeah, I know it doesn’t answer your question directly, but the Ukrainian people have been doing a huge, I don’t think anyone would’ve thought that this war would’ve dragged out as long as it did, with as big of a force that Russia has. But yeah, watching it very closely as well.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I appreciate that. And obviously we’re going to continue to pray for the people of Ukraine.

Jason Krul:

I was going to say, it’s easy too, when there’s a big, whether it’s a natural disaster or war, I think when I bring it back to us as Canadians or North Americans, it’s easy to kind of throw your hands up and go, “Wow, this is way bigger than I, as one person can do anything about.” And that’s the same for any, like I said, any natural disaster or war where there’s literally millions and millions of people fleeing for their lives, people that are stuck in the conflict zones that don’t have food. And you’re going, “What is my $50 going to make a difference? Or what can I about it? Should I jump on a plane and fly over there and see how I can help somehow? If I give money, is it going to actually go to give food to the people that need it or is it just going to get followed up by these big organizations that need to fund various programs?” And so it’s a bit of a rhetorical question, because as an organization, we challenge people to do stuff about things that they see around them. There’s this term paralysis by analysis. And I always see this in a lot of meetings that I have here in Canada with various groups. And it’s almost easier to, as a person to say, “You know what, I want to make sure that when I give, I give to the right thing and I’m not sure if this is the right thing or not, so I’m not going to give. I’m not going to do anything about it. I’m not going to serve.” Or whatever the thing is. And our challenge is always pray about it, seek God’s counsel on it, for sure. But you’re better off to give and to leave the other part over to God. Do your due diligence in seeking out an organization, absolutely that will give to the right causes. Absolutely. But have a step of faith and do give, do contribute, whether it’s locally or to other international organizations, because that’s what’s needed is the Christian community together, bonding together to impact and to help those who are suffering around them.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. And you’re speaking to something too about God’s economy and God’s sovereignty. He owns the cattle on a thousand hills. So you give your money unto the Lord, trusting him for it. He’s going to make something happen with it. And so, yeah, I think that’s huge. We say this all the time with some of the young adult ministry where we’ll hear, “Oh, I just don’t know what to do with my life. I just waiting for a plan. I’m just waiting for God to show me the answer to that.” I think is really helpful is even a book on it. But the title is just called, Just Do Something. Right, just do something and see how the Lord will actually work through that and maybe he’ll shift you to a different area. And I think that’s the important piece. And then also like, “Oh, what can I do about a situation in Ukraine? I’m just one person.” Yeah. But if you have all just these one persons, if you have a million of those just one persons getting involved, that’s a million persons now involved in that. And so whether or not it’s a hundred people from HFL, a hundred people from Compassion International, whatever, now you’re starting to see numbers increase and there’s a lot of power behind that.

Jason Krul:

And I was going to go back to how we’re able to make impact, because the question also comes up as it relates to Ukraine and how we’re able to help there. The exciting thing is it’s not, it’s not Chad and Mary March who are Canadian staff members from Chilliwack here that are making the direct impact. I mean, they’re hugely involved in it. They’re the ones that are coordinating the efforts there, but they’re not the ones that are actually taking the food and getting it to where it needs to go. The amazing thing is that it’s through the years of working 14 years plus of working in Ukraine, we’ve be able to establish a network of churches that are on the ground that are local Ukrainian churches. So we have partnerships through a network of over 10 churches in the western part of the country and then churches in the east that are kind of scattered all through the conflict zones. That these churches are saying, “You know what? This is our community. These are our people. We need to do something about it. Just give us the resources and we will make sure that that happens.” So it’s kind of a unique situation that we’re able to work through the local church so that they can reach their own people and they can provide the spiritual care that’s needed also for their people. And that wasn’t something that we had to go seek out. We already were doing that prior to the war. So yeah, it’s amazing to see how God uses certain people and situations and uses it for his good.

Daniel Markin:

Which, I mean, that gives you a huge leg up, having already been there and knowing the people and for your team there to already have community and stuff, that’s enormous. Because then it doesn’t feel like you’re parachuting in and seeing like, okay, what can I do to help? In many ways I imagine that, not always, but people who just parachute in and say, “How can I help?” It’s actually like, “You’re kind of in the way.” But those who’ve been doing the work actually can really help. That’s kind of one thing that has been talked about in missions over the years when people consider, or short term missions trips, there’s a lot of value in them, but also the team at the end leaves. But if they can connect with someone who’s there long term and help those people long term, like the missionaries there, you send a short term mission team there. It’s sort of like, oh, now we’re building upon something, which I think is really, really interesting. How can we get involved as young adults? And what are the ways that we can be involved in this crisis?

Jason Krul:

Yeah. That’s an excellent question. Young adults, from what I’ve observed through our ministry and through the partners that we have here locally on the ground, a lot of the catalysts, a lot of the people that inspire change are young people, young adults. It’s not necessarily the young adults are the ones that are having to fund and provide the finances, but it always takes that one person or takes multiple people to say, “Hey, let’s do something about this. Let’s do fundraising for this. Let’s pray about it. Let’s start up a prayer chain and pray for the people of Ukraine, pray for the suffering Christians who are on the ground, our fellow believers who are suffering because we can’t go there and do something about it.” So it’s not always just about, like we said before, it’s not always about the finances. And some young adults have been blessed that they are in a position where they have funds to give. And so I would challenge those people to give, give where your heart is and where God is leading you.

But to those who say, “I just don’t have the finances to be able to contribute.” A lot of people have still those spheres of influence. And that’s why we love the model of taking small teams. So we’re not at a point where we’re taking teams to Ukraine, but when you take a team of people, it still takes that one person to say, “I’m going to rally up some people around me and say, ‘Hey, here’s a cause that we really, really want to support either by going or by contributing.'” And so I would challenge young people out there to see what’s happening around you and to prayerfully seek God’s face and say, “How can I as one person, how can I make an impact? How can I make a difference?” We had, this is not a young adult, this is a child, just the other day we had somebody drive in from Vancouver, came up for our front steps to our office and gave me a bag of a hundred dollars in cash that she, and it was all in small coins and bills, and this young child had done little fundraiser to raise as much money as they could for the Ukraine and drove from Vancouver to bring the hundred dollars. So on the outside it looks like wow, a hundred dollars. That’s awesome. You’re able to give a hundred dollars. It costs a lot of money and gas to come here to bring it. But the cool thing was that this young, young girl was so inspired and encouraged to be able to do something about the suffering around her, that she took it upon herself to do a fundraiser. And it’s not about the amount dollars, it was about the drive that she had to do it. So I would say the same thing to young people, whether you’re going to university or whether you’re newly married and you have a young family, to seek out ways that you can rally the people around you to be able to contribute to the needs around you. And again, we are talking specifically about Ukraine, but there’s lots of stuff here locally in our own communities, in our own churches, to get involved in your own local church, to get involved in local ministries around you. And if it’s God calling you into missions to seek that out.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah, young adults often don’t have a lot of money, but whether we actually think it or not, we do have a lot of time. And that’s something that a lot of young adults are like, “I have no time.” It’s like, “Stop watching Netflix. Do your homework. And you’ll have a lot of time.” And yeah, definitely. So there’s so many ways to get involved if you have the drive. And like you said, every little thing makes a difference and you just think like, okay, that a hundred dollars, imagine tracking that out. And that has then been sent for you guys a hundred percent to your contacts in the Ukraine. Maybe that turns into food that’s then delivered to those people in the basement. You just never know, but it literally could have been the very thing that has now kept some people alive, amidst this horror of war. So really amazing, really interesting. Want to just kind of close with this sort of thing. But as you think about the response and the crisis of the Ukraine, what breaks your heart the most about this crisis, but then what also gives you the most hope?

Jason Krul:

Yeah. I think two things break my heart. And again, it’s on the spiritual and physical aspect. I think what breaks my heart is no matter how much money we send, no matter how much we fundraise, how much we try to help, there’s still people desperately in need. There’s people desperately crying out for physical help with food and basic necessities of life.

And just had Chad on the phone just last week, letting him know about some more funds we were going to be sending. And Chad was excited about that, but also on the same note, almost pleading for more help. He said, “He cannot imagine the suffering that’s around us.” And so what breaks my heart is seeing people that just cannot access the basics and necessities of life. And on a spiritual level, emotional and spiritual level, the trauma that’s coming out of this. The story, the gut wrenching stories of some of the refugees that have managed to flee the conflict zones and now we’re going to be living with this emotional spiritual baggage for years to come. Not sure what kind of trauma counseling is going to be available to a lot of these people who’ve been uprooted and left pretty much everything, fled to the border, had to kiss goodbye to their husband, to their dad, to their father, who has to turn around and go fight in the war in Ukraine and may never come back. And so those are the two things that really, really make me think that we have it very blessed here.

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. I know I’ve seen some of the videos of the young men kissing their families goodbye and off they go on a train and you’re just like, how many times do we have to see this to realize this has to stop, right? How many times do we have to keep watching the separation and the breaking of that for it to stop?

Jason Krul:

And what gives me hope is the fact that we have a sovereign God who sits on a throne, who looks down and there’s not just chaos happening around the world like we see it. The world is very chaotic. The world is evil and a lot of things happening that we cannot understand, but I truly believe that we have a sovereign God who sits on the throne, who’s looking down and who’s actually actively involved in the lives of his followers. And so just knowing that, regardless of what the outcome is, regardless about the suffering, that God uses all things for good, according to his purposes. And that can be impossible to understand sometimes, but it is a comfort to people who are suffering to go, “You know what, God has this. Regardless of what my personal outcome is from my situation, God has this and I can take comfort in that.”

Daniel Markin:

Yeah. Amen. God is sovereign. He’s over this. He is not surprised by this. And he’s using even the most horrific thing for his glory. And that’s something that we might not really understand the moment, but in time we will. And even if not in this life, in the next life, we will. So that’s amazing. Jason, thank you for your time. Thank you for being part of the program today and joining in. Love the work that you’re doing, and we’ll continue to be praying for you and this ministry, because it’s so important. And I think especially as young adults, we’re looking for ways to get involved and oftentimes we just don’t know where to get involved. So how do we get in contact with you and or your ministry?

Jason Krul:

Yeah. So ministry is called Hungry For Life International. And so just by Googling hungry for life, you’ll come up with our website. On our website we have all of our updates and information on not only the conflict and situation in Ukraine and our response to it, but also for opportunities for young adults or people to get engaged, whether it’s financially or whether it’s by taking on a project that they can pray for or contribute to or go to. And so checking on our website, www.hungryforlife.org and or fire me an email, there’s a contact form on the bottom of our website that you can click on and if there’s questions or interest of continuing partnership, you can send an email that way.

Daniel Markin:

Awesome. Well, thank you Jason, for your time. Thank you for being part of the program. And we look forward to speaking with you again, and even hearing an update on how things have been going there. So, thanks again.

Jason Krul:

Thanks Daniel.

[/wpbb-if]