Cathy Day told listeners they would hear “lots of God Dots” in the story about to be told by Roger and Diane McMurrin. She was right.
The McMurrins brought a message of “don’t forget Ukraine” to a group gathered at Old Toccoa Farm last Tuesday. Their words were filled with signs of how God worked to develop their hearts for the people of Ukraine.
The McMurrins’ story began when Roger was leading a choir at a Presbyterian church in Orlando and decided he wanted to do something different. He talked his group into a European tour that would include Moscow and end in Czechoslovakia. But news of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the unknown that accompanied it reached the choir, ending the tour plans. The year was 1992.
All was not lost. Roger and Diane were invited to travel to Kiev, Ukraine, to conduct Handel’s Messiah and the first God Dot was in place.
“I had an experience where I promised God I’d move to Ukraine.”
-Roger McMurrin
Roger told how he worked with atheists and agnostics. He hired 37 professional singers and a local orchestra for the performance. It was the first time many Ukrainians, musicians and the audience alike, had heard these sacred pieces. The music had been banned when the country was under Communist rule.
Returning to the United States, Roger was soon headed to the West Coast to lead the music as part of an R.C. Sproul crusade.
Roger had already bought his airline ticket when Sproul called and told him to bring Diane along, there were enough people registered that the organizers would cover her costs, too.
But when Diane went to purchase her ticket, Roger’s plane was already full, so she had to take another flight.
“Flying to California, I had an experience where I promised God I’d move to Ukraine,” Roger said.
But his knees trembled at the idea of telling Diane his promise. She had lived in Ukraine and, as Roger described, knew what it was like to feel like a midget in a kitchen. Her return to Ukraine would be a far cry from their spacious Florida home.
But Roger’s promise was just another God Dot, to be followed by another.
Roger told how he waited nervously in the California hotel room for Diane to arrive so he could tell her about his promise.
But when Diane entered the room, and before Roger could speak, she announced, “I think God wants us to move to Kiev.”
She remembered how those words came about. On the flight, she had been reading from Isaiah 55:5. It says, “Surely you shall call a nation you do not know, And nations who do not know you shall run to you. Because of the Lord your God, and the Holy One of Israel: For He has glorified you.”
Another God Dot was connected and the future was set – and Roger was relieved.
With no financial support, except for $50 a month from each of their mothers, the McMurrin’s mission began. The year was 1993.
In Kiev, Roger sent out a call to meet with the 37 singers who performed Handel’s Messiah the year before. Excited by the promise of $1 a day, 85 people showed up. The Kiev Symphony Orchestra and Chorus and later its partner, Music Mission Kiev, were born.
The first performance was a concert of spirituals followed by a repeat performance of Handel’s Messiah. The next step was a series of concerts. Roger smiled as he told how the orchestra performed over 500 concerts in the United States including one at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
But the McMurrin’s work was more than just music.
Roger established two churches in Kiev and a food ministry for widows.
He told how the first time members of his choir and orchestra delivered food, widows would ask, “Why?” No one had ever helped them before. They heard a message of “Jesus loves you.” Still, they did not come to church.
Then Roger’s mother died. He turned a service for her at his church in Ukraine into a celebration. All the widows showed up. Roger said they could not understand how death could be celebrated.
They saw first hand the Christian belief of an eternity with Jesus. Another dot was connected.
The food ministry started by serving 20 widows. It now serves about 500.
Roger and Diane echo a cry that the people of Ukraine are suffering as Russia presses its invasion.
The people of Europe are getting poorer as supply chains are cut off and farmers are kept out of their fields by the war. “We have to realize the people of Ukraine are in great trouble,” Roger said.
But this war is also spiritual in a land where any worship of God or connection to Christianity was once banned and almost non-existent.
“The largest worshiping Protestant congregation in all of Europe is the Baptist Church in Kiev,” Roger said.
Within the last two weeks, the Orthodox churches in Ukraine, governed separately by Russia and Ukraine, have put differences aside to unite since they grew apart in 1992. This came after the Russian branch in Kiev cut all ties with the church in Moscow.
Roger tells of his 2,000 friends in Ukraine, none of whom have been killed during the war. He asks everyone to “Pray that God will intervene” on their behalves.
Music Mission Kiev works to help the musicians still in the Ukraine, the widows of soldiers, the elderly and the orphanages.
“God is alive and working in Ukraine,” Diane said.
The McMurrins urge everyone, “Don’t forget Ukraine.” And through their message, another of God’s Dots is connected.