Byron's Testimony

I have always loved the game of baseball. I've played the sport since I was very little. I remember my first Tee-ball season - our team was the Indians. I think I was five our six years old at time. I grew up in Denver, Colorado and we didn't have a Major League baseball team in the city until 1993. But the spring of '93 was the beginning of the Rockies franchise. I remember my dad taking me to my first Rockies game at the old Mile High stadium. I don't remember much of the game, except that the Rockies were playing the Cubs, and the atmosphere was the most amazing thing I had ever experienced. I think that was the year I fell in love with the game.

I lived and died baseball all through my school years. In high school I had the chance to play basketball or football - but I always chose to play fall baseball instead. I would play January thorough October - whenever the weather would allow. Towards the end of high school I began looking at college baseball programs. Let's face it, the only reason I wanted to go to college was to play ball. I was looking at schools in Arizona, Kansas, and Ohio. But something in my life was beginning to change - I had met a girl. All of the sudden, leaving for another state didn't sound so appealing to me. I wanted to stay close to this girl - so I chose to go to a small Christian university in Denver. This university had a baseball program, so I was still focused on the game, but I also knew that I really loved this girl. Even though I was only 18 at the time, I knew that I had to marry Emily someday. So I stayed in state to study and play ball.

I had grown up in a Christian home, but I never really knew the Lord. I never gave God much of a thought. I was focused on me. I was focused on baseball. Yes, I had gone on a couple mission trips to Ukraine. I thought they were good experiences. I loved the country. I loved how I felt on the trip. But in all reality - I had no desire to have a relationship with God.

My first semester at college, I began to feel my life changing dramatically. Emily and I were getting serious about each other. We even began talking about marriage. But we were both in a place where we felt like we were missing something. At this time, we began attending Calvary Chapel Aurora. This was the time when the Lord really got a hold of my heart. Getting into the Word at Calvary was so good for me. Every night I was reading the Bible. God was speaking to me. Before long, I had dedicated my life to the Lord. I was madly in love with Jesus. His Word had penetrated my heart. My only desire was to serve the Lord. I wanted to know Him deeply and be used by Him.

I don't think I would have ever denied my faith verbally, but before I went to Calvary, I was living with one foot in both worlds - doing what I wanted, when I wanted, but being a "Christian" on Sundays and when people asked me about religion. My words were different than my actions. The Bible makes it very clear that you can't have both light and darkness. You have to choose one or the other, and by thinking you can choose both - you're actually choosing darkness. I claimed to love Jesus, but in reality I loved the world. 1 John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." This totally described my life before I committed everything to Jesus. I loved the things of the world and if I continued in that lifestyle, I would have ended up facing Jesus someday, and He would have told me, "I never knew you" (Matt 7:21-23).

So, I finally gave my life over to Jesus in the middle of my freshman year of college. I was still playing baseball, and it was a huge time commitment. Four hours of practice after classes every day. Ten hours a day Fridays and Saturdays. My life was consumed by baseball and I felt the Lord telling me to walk away from the game. I was only serving myself on the field. It was all about my enjoyment of the game, my passion for the sport. I knew God was calling me to start serving Him. I also knew He was calling me to get serious about life and marry Emily. I had to get a job so I could provide for her. God had also put a desire in my heart to minister to youth. There was an opportunity for an internship program at college to work in a youth group. I also began perusing a job in the restaurant industry. I couldn't commit to both this internship and a job and play baseball. I knew God was asking me to walk away from baseball. So, I obeyed. 

As time progressed, the Lord began to give me a passion for missions. I began to remember Ukraine, and have a burden for Ukraine and a desire to share the Gospel there. I couldn't stop thinking about the country. Emily and I began planning how we could get to Ukraine. It's hard to describe, but every Bible study at church or every devotion I did, the Lord brought Ukraine to my heart. God had totally replaced my passion for baseball with Ukraine. It was amazing.

During all of this, Emily and I were growing in the Lord and growing closer to each other. Only a few weeks after I proposed to her in the summer of 2008, we were on a plane headed to Kiev, Ukraine on a short-term trip.

Every since my first short-term trip to Ukraine, the Lord has put this country on my heart. God used that first trip to place a burden and a passion in my heart to serve Ukrainians. And once I was walking with the Lord closely, I felt that tug to move to Ukraine for full-time ministry. Even before Emily and I were married, we felt like the Lord was calling us to missions. "Lord, do you want us to move to Ukraine?" quickly became our daily prayer.

The summer of 2011 we went on another short-term trip to Kiev. This time, we spent 6 weeks in Ukraine instead of the normal two and a half weeks that we usually spent on our short-term trips. We were serious about moving to Ukraine. We felt like the Lord had us wait long enough to move to Ukraine, and that it was finally time to move. We were ready and so we went to Kiev for the summer thinking we'd start preparing to move there.

But the Lord's ways are better than man's ways. We don't know the ways or the thoughts of God. He didn't want us in Kiev. The door was closed. We knew God didn't want us to push that door open. I came back from that trip extremely discouraged and depressed. "Lord, I've been praying about moving to Ukraine for years and now you're closing the door to the only contact we know in Ukraine?" I didn't understand what God was doing.

Kiev, Ukraine

At that time, I was still working in the restaurant. Feeling discouraged and stuck, I kept grinding away at a job I didn't enjoy. I knew then, and know even more now, that the Lord was using me in great ways at the restaurant, but I still felt this pulling and desire in my heart to become a missionary in Ukraine. That fall, after our trip to Kiev, Emily got her dream job. Teaching science at our church's new elementary school. She was loving life, loving where she was at, loving her ministry and career - but I was extremely discouraged.

Was my desire to move to Ukraine just a selfish desire? Was it even from the Lord? Should I even pursue the idea any more?

Emily and I continued to pray about it. We continued to study Russian. But I could see my wife slowly drifting away from the desire to move to Ukraine. Emily kept saying that maybe two or three years down the road, we could start thinking about moving. Meanwhile, I wanted to move immediately. At this point I just handed it over to the Lord. If He wanted us in Ukraine He would put the desire in both of our hearts. So, after four years of praying and waiting on the Lord... He asked me to wait some more.

Back to the restaurant I went.

Our relationship with our missions pastor and his wife began to grow over this time. He kept encouraging us to pursue Ukraine. His advice was great. He began to encourage us to start seeking other options of ministry outside of Kiev, and not to give up. He also encouraged us to keep looking for answers to our prayers in the Word, and reminded us that most people don't have a burning desire to leave everything to live in a foreign place, and he believed that the desire we had was from the Lord. So, I started emailing a number of different Calvary Chapels in Ukraine to see if we could come and visit them.

Only two churches got back to me. We planned to go visit them in the summer of 2012 and I think this is when the desire to move started to come back to Emily. We were getting excited for our trip. We made a deal with each other that if the Lord closed the door again that I wouldn't push anything open and we'd give up on the idea of moving. We would stay in Colorado if the Lord closed the door once more.

Well, as you you can see now, the Lord didn't close the door and He led us to Calvary Chapel Ternopil. After our short trip visiting in the summer, we both knew that the Lord wanted us in Ternopil and He proved that by getting us out here only three months after we visited.

In the book of Joshua, the Lord gives Joshua a promise to cling onto before he crossed over the Jordan and into the Promise Land. The Lord promised Joshua that "every place that the sole of your [Joshua's] foot will tread upon I have given you, as I said to Moses." This is a promise that the Lord also gave to me and Emily. I knew that Lord had already picked out the place in Ukraine where we were to be and all we needed to do was to wait on Him and trust in Him. It's so amazing to look back five or six years ago and see a little seed that God planted in my heart, now turned into a full-time ministry in Ukraine. It is a privileged and an honor to be able to be used by God in Ukraine. 

Now of course, I could write a whole new testimony of what the Lord is doing in my life since moving out here. I never could have imagined how the Lord would move in my life until I just stepped out in faith. I had to jump in and trust that God would keep us afloat. Being a missionary is the most difficult thing I have ever done, and it's definitely not a glamorous life. Some days, being a missionary is the most discouraging thing in the world to us. But the bottom-line is that in this difficult work, I can feel and see God moving in a special way, and I have the privilege and honor of seeing people change through the Holy Spirit and get saved, and that is incredible. I am so thankful for my new life here in Ukraine, and now, I'm finally in a place where I can completely submit to God and learn how to fully rely and trust in the Lord for my every need and desire. He is the Great Provider, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and Last, and my absolute everything.


**This testimony was written in 2012, since then I could write pages upon pages about the Lord's faithfulness in my life. He continues to remain faithful, true, and unchanging as He pours out His grace on me, which I am so undeserving of. He is the only way for true, real, abundant life. If you haven't given your life over to Jesus, today is the day for your salvation. It will be the best decision you've ever made - your eternity depends on it!