Of War & Wallpaper: Part 3

On War’s Doorstep

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the Church in Ukraine flourished in both faith and numbers. When Russia invaded in February of 2022, thousands and then millions of Ukrainian civilians fled west across the border into Central Europe. Christian organizations and churches in Ukraine stepped up to care for their communities during the crisis and organize evacuation routes. Ministries in Europe mobilized to receive the refugees. And in the Walkers’ adopted country, some church leaders estimated there were twice as many Ukrainian Christians as local believers by April.

For the last two decades, James and Lisa had intentionally kept a low profile in the Christian community in Central Europe. They partnered closely with local churches but didn’t attend denominational gatherings or hold leadership positions, except within Pioneers. They adopted that approach because of their experience in Moigorod, where church politics often led to possessiveness toward missionaries and their resources. When the war started, James realized that keeping his distance from denominational leadership meant he now had little credibility at a time when networking and relationship became essential. “Without really knowing it, we applied what we learned culturally in one situation to our new situation, not realizing it was a misapplication. I wish I could do that all over again.”

But the Walkers were still well-known in the missionary community. Friends of friends called at all hours asking them to pick up refugees crossing the border, which was just over an hour away. Vans organized by Ukrainian churches dropped groups off at their door to wait for transportation farther west. James describes it as “an ad hoc, informal network from five different organizations. You called who you knew. If I couldn’t help, I directed them to someone else.” The Walkers decided to only host people in their home who were referred by a friend or a Christian organization. They helped others with supplies, meals and transportation as they were able.

Soup and Tears

For weeks, James and Lisa woke every morning to phone calls and young children either playing or crying. In three months, they hosted more than 150 people and their pets. Most stayed only a few nights before moving on to friends, relatives or resettlement centers. “The first wave of people stood in line at the border for days,” Lisa says. “When they arrived, they were cold. The children were freaked out. Some hadn’t eaten properly. Some arrived sick. A few older people seemed to have dementia and looked terrified.” A 14-year-old boy declared he wouldn’t eat until he was taken home. His family went on to Spain, and Lisa hopes he didn’t maintain his hunger strike for too long. “Grief manifests in different ways. He had no aspirations of going back to fight. He just wanted to go back and die like everyone else. Not exactly the thoughts you would expect to hear from a junior high boy.”

The majority of the refugees spoke Russian, even if it wasn’t their first language, so the Walkers strained to dredge up a language they hadn’t spoken much in 20 years. James says, “When I was with Ukrainians, I could usually at least catch what they were saying. With Google’s help, I could communicate back. I would look at the word on my phone and remember, Oh, that’s right! and then I could say it.”

Lisa’s sister Janet came for a few weeks to help manage the flow of people. They developed a system for welcoming up to 15 refugees at a time. On quiet days, Lisa cooked and froze huge batches of dill pickle soup, a Central European comfort food. When a group arrived, Janet heated the soup, cut bread and distributed bowls. James handed out towels and managed the shower rotation. Lisa, whose Russian language came back faster, sat at the kitchen table listening to the refugees share their stories, which she found difficult both linguistically and emotionally.

“They often showed me pictures of bloody bodies. I was able to understand enough Russian to have empathy and hug them and tell them it was terrible. And I communicated with them about where they needed to go next. I remember thinking, I could not be getting through this right now if the Lord were not helping bring language back to my mind. I don’t really know these words, but here they are, coming out of my mouth. People were patient with me because they could tell I was trying.”

The strain was significant, especially because Lisa is an introvert. “I’m not that person who’s like, ‘Everybody come on in! Let me make soup!’ It was more like, O Lord, help me make the soup and help me get through talking to all these people and listening to their heartbreaking stories. That’s what God did with our lives and our home.”

A Story Without an Ending

While the Walkers willingly opened their home to strangers, they also had the joy of reuniting with a close friend from Moigorod. A local believer named Masha had worked with James at the institute and kept in touch with Lisa ever since. For the last few years, she had left her homeland to join a ministry in Ukraine. In the early days of the war, she was too afraid to flee. Eventually, though, she called the Walkers to say she was on a bus headed toward the border.

“We cried at the news,” Lisa remembers. “We told her, ‘We will be here to greet you!’”

The Walkers had no idea how long it would take Masha’s bus to reach the border. James drove to the crossing at 9:30 that night to wait by the side of the main road. As the night wore on, he struggled to stay awake. If he missed the bus, it would take Masha to the next city, six hours away, where there would be no one to meet her. James started a cycle of setting an alarm, sleeping for an hour, and then waking up to check his phone for any communication from Masha. He didn’t hear from her until 11 a.m. Just after noon, she finally stepped down off the bus on the side of the road where James had been waiting for 15 hours. “Both she and I cried because God had answered our prayers and brought her out.”

A few days later, Lisa drove Masha to the capital so she could fly to Israel, where her son now pastored a messianic church. “I think I had a deeper conversation in Russian with Masha on that two-hour drive than the whole time I lived in Moigorod. The Lord just opened up my mind and her mind, too, I’m sure, to fill in the gaps of what I was trying to say.” Lisa remembers thinking at the time, The Lord is doing this. I have this Russian somewhere in this head of mine, and He’s bringing it up so I can be here for Masha.

Masha also felt a deeper connection with Lisa. “I guess I’m kind of feeling what you felt when you were deported,” Masha said. “I mean, we were sad when it happened, but we never really thought about all you went through.” She was right that the Walkers’ experience of being displaced connected them with the Ukrainians they served. James clarifies, “It’s not that we’ve ‘been there done that,’ but we tried to go as far down the extra mile as we could because we understood what it meant to be forced to leave your home. I remember arriving in Europe from Moigorod and thinking, What are we going to do now? Where are we going to live? At least we had an income and knew someone who took us in.”

James is also cautious about exaggerating their role in the Ukrainian refugee crisis. “In the context of all the other stories of what was going on, ours is tiny. I don’t feel like we did anything anybody else wouldn’t do.”

By the end of May 2022, the number of Ukrainian refugees crossing the border each day dwindled and the Walkers decided they no longer needed to keep their home set up as a transit center. They took down most of the beds at their house and packed away the extra linens. Most government and non-profit reception centers had closed. Aid workers and equipment moved on to address other crises. The Walkers were impressed with the generosity of their community, but realized, “People have reached the extent of what they feel they can give and do.”

But the refugee crisis wasn’t over. A year after the start of the war, the Walkers were still trying to find help for 15 Ukrainians living in a rundown house on the edge of town because the refugee center shut down. “This isn’t a story with a bow at the end of it,” Lisa says. “There’s a Ukrainian girl with leukemia living in a really bad house and her mom has no job. And it’s not like there’s going to be more help coming. When we say we’re done, we’re probably some people’s last stand.”

Stewarding the Unknown

In all the twists and turns of their missionary lives over the last 25-plus years, the Walkers have noticed a theme: “When things really get hard and difficult, you have a choice to shut down or to see where God is leading.” In each hard experience, they have seen God’s goodness. That doesn’t cancel out the pain or the loss, but it does strengthen their faith.

James says, “I’ve become less long-range in my planning, and more faithful to what God has given me to do rather than faithful to what I hope I will be doing. When we went to Moigorod, we thought, We’ll be here for a long time. We had great plans, but God didn’t want us there for a long time. It all just—boom!—fell apart. Then we came here to Central Europe, and it’s been a long time. We focus much less on what happens five years from now and more on, Am I doing what God wants me to do today, in this moment? It’s not like I’ve mastered it. But I now realize where I’m failing faster.”

From Lisa’s perspective, “We’re trained to be strategic, but our strategies sometimes completely fall apart. I’ve learned to be more accepting of that. Instead of thinking, What are my goals? I now ask, What has God given me stewardship over? That’s helped me, a planner who has been disappointed on many fronts, to cope when goals don’t come to fruition.”

The Walkers are learning to live in contentment with what the Lord has given them now and to trust Him with the big picture of His purpose—even when that purpose includes deportation, war and terrible wallpaper.