Ukrainian Pastor Calls Home: How Two Brothers are Sharing the Gospel During the War in Ukraine

Ukrainian brothers Oleksandr, left photo, and Serhii Rybak, right, produce the podcast "10,000 km" for TWR Ukraine. Alexander lives in Kyiv with his wife, Anna, the daughter of TWR Ukraine's director. Serhii and his wife, Maryana, live in California. The wives now join their husbands in recording the podcast.

It started as an ordinary Bible study night for a church youth group in Hemet, California. 

After participants had spent time studying the Word in smaller groups, Pastor Serhii Rybak called everyone together for a time of prayer.  

What can we pray for? he asked.   

Someone answered: Your city is under attack. 

It was Feb. 23, 2022, but on the other side of the world it was early in the morning of Feb. 24, and Russian missiles were pounding Serhii’s hometown of Kyiv. 

Since the start of the war, more than 270,000 Ukrainian refugees have entered the United States, according to the Department of Homeland Security. But more than 1 million Ukrainians called the U.S. home well before the war began. Among them are two pastors – Serhii Rybak and Roman Kapran – who are speaking to their homeland through TWR Ukraine. 

In this two-part story, we’ll focus today on Serhii and in Part 2 on Roman.  

Connected 

Each man has a connection with Alexander Chmut, director of TWR Ukraine.  

Serhii’s connection is through his brother. Oleksandr Rybak is on the pastoral staff of the same church in Kyiv where Alexander Chmut is a pastor. Alexander’s daughter Anna is Oleksandr’s wife.  

Serhii is eight years older than Oleksandr, but the brothers are close, he said. It was their long phone calls that led to the birth of a podcast that’s produced by TWR Ukraine. It’s called 10,000 km, reflecting their geographical distance apart.  

“We talk about differences … in ministry, differences in culture,” Serhii said. “Because, you know, when you move to a different culture, you expand your worldview tremendously, and I saw things that I never thought of in Ukraine. And now, especially with the war in Ukraine, their worldview expanded as well.” 

Serhii, who started preaching alongside his father when he was 12, moved to California seven years ago with his wife, Maryana. She is also Ukrainian but grew up in Hemet and already was a U.S. citizen. They came with their children, now 10 and almost 12. In addition to his brother, Serhii has a sister still in Ukraine and another sister in Hemet. Although they have not lost family members to the war, they know that their loved ones’ lives have been deeply affected.

‘We Die Together’ 

“They’re tired,” Serhii said. “Very often they are desperate, and they feel hopeless.” 

Oleksandr and Anna have a very young child, Serhii said, and they’ve developed the routine of always being in the same room. They’ve seen too many reports of one family member surviving when a bomb killed others in another room. 

“So they decided: If we die, we die together,” Serhii said. “It’s just horrible even to think about this, but this is their reality that they need to adjust to. They say: It seems like we live in death, like … death just surrounds us constantly, because somebody is dying all the time.” 

Adding the Wives 

In the midst of that, Serhii and Oleksandr are bringing hope through TWR Ukraine. 

After developing their one-on-one program, Serhii and Oleksandr added their wives to the conversation and placed the focus on family.  

“We started seeing things like divorce … addictions in families,” Serhii said. “So when we started talking with my brother about this, he said, ‘Let’s just talk about this with our wives.’ Both of our families, his family as well, they both are involved in ministry.”  

One of the things Serhii won’t talk about on the podcast is the war. Since he’s not experiencing the war directly, he doesn’t feel it’s appropriate for him to offer advice to those who are, he said. 

Yet the war shadows everything. 

Sleepless Nights 

The news on that February evening that their country was under attack was the beginning of many sleepless nights for his family, Serhii said. 

“I immediately called my parents,” he said. “I called my brother, because all these explosions were very close to their houses. … We all came together to our living room, my sister with her family and my family, and we were just sitting watching news and looking at our phones and the location of our parents and my siblings.” 

Without being asked, their church rallied around them, Serhii said. They came to pray. They brought food. They gave of their resources for the Ukrainian people.  

“That’s what I think Christianity really is, when you’re surrounded by people who reflect Christ,” he said.  

‘Not Afraid to Cry’ 

In Ukraine, the war has changed perspectives, Serhii said. It “helped to destroy religion in a good way.” Ukrainians are turning to a genuine relationship with God in which they aren’t afraid to ask questions. “You understand that he’s with you, that he is grieving with you. He is going through this with you. 

“They’re not afraid to cry and tell him: Why?” 

Serhii said he and Oleksandr don’t view themselves as experts who know all the answers a grieving population seeks. “However, our foundation is to help people to find freedom and healing in Jesus.”  

They’ll continue the podcast until it no longer seems useful, Serhii said. For now, they’re getting positive feedback, and they’re encouraged to keep going. 

“If it helps people to also raise those questions and answer them in the light of Scripture, that’s amazing.”  

Join us tomorrow for Part Two: Studying the Bible together, seven time zones apart.