Keeping the Faith in the Soviet Union and America — Yuriy Kravets

I believe that God does His work in whatever context He is allowed to do His work. And with the ready accessibility we have to the Scriptures and people in general have to the Scriptures, somebody somewhere is bound to be reading these words. And again, like Dean Taylor and his wife were finishing up the day and reading the Bible as they were in the military and asking, "What do we do with this when Jesus says, 'Love your enemies'? What do we do with this?"

Yuri Kravitz, welcome to the Anabaptist Perspectives podcast. So by way of context or introduction, you were born in Ukraine, behind the Iron Curtain, actually, before the Iron Curtain would have fallen in what was the Soviet Union at the time. Ultimately, you left and we're here now in America. You were in, you know, Pennsylvania doing this. And there is quite a story in between for you and your family. And I want to capture that today and, you know, lessons learned along the way and what you all went through through that whole process. So let's just jump right in. And the first question being, what was it like growing up in Ukraine? What kind of church situation were you a part of?

And let's start at the beginning. Sure. So, like you said, I was born in the Ukraine, in the Soviet Union, actually. So in 1988, right before the fall. And I still have some memories of that time, growing up there and in our village right on the edge of Kyiv, the capital city. And yes, still a good bit of memories. It's helped that our family has went back and forth a number of times there, which I'll get into the story as we go. So growing up, I'd say I'd had a happy childhood, you know, functional Christian family, which is a blessing, something that I value more and more as the years go by.

Parents did their best to raise us boys. I have five brothers, but six, actually, one passed away when he was little. So the first big change in my life is we're going to America. Like, "Oh, America, what's that like?" Right?

Because you heard things. We didn't have a TV, right? So we weren't exactly sure. We just heard stories. Now, to my parents, what America was, was the illegal radio broadcast that I think it was the Voice of Peace or some Christian radio station would beam their messages. So these messages would, the government would try to jam them to make sure they couldn't get through. But they still somehow managed to get through. And so America was a Christian nation where people were Christians and upright, and they had this preaching, this message of salvation to spread to the whole world. So that was in our eyes and most of my parents' eyes, that was America, right? So, hey, we're actually going there through a set of circumstances.

It's kind of not a straightforward path that it took for us to get here, but we're going there. But I think it would help to give some additional context of what it was like in Ukraine, probably even before my time. So, as I mentioned, I was born into a Christian family, and my parents would have been part of the unregistered or underground church, as is commonly known. So part of why it was unregistered was that they believed in the separation of church and state. The separation of church and state meant that the state should not have any say in church affairs.

They rejected government involvement and particularly the communist regime, which was the regime at the time for a whole generation of Slavic people. That was the regime that they lived with, which was atheistic and, you know, everything that comes along as part of that package.

And my dad was actually imprisoned for his faith on Trumped-up charges for some time. How long was he in prison? Almost three years. So his sentence was cut short by just a little bit because of the fall of the Soviet Union. And they're all political prisoners, I think, which included religious prisoners, were set free.

Hmm. Hmm. Man, that's kind of wild. Like, I don't know, I've heard stories or you read a book, you know, about whatever the underground church and for you to have such a direct connection to that, wow, that must have been really hard, you know, for your family in that kind of environment.

Yeah, there were some difficulties for sure, but in a way, those prisoners, they had a mission field in the prisons. That's true. And so that's one of the things that the underground church was good at adapting to is what are the circumstances? How can we still live out the teachings of Christ to evangelize, to share the gospel? And so I believe that God did His work there through the multitudes of prisoners that were prisoned for their faith and are essentially the heroes of modern-day heroes of the faith, even though here in the American context, we know about them, but we may not know their names except for maybe a few that books were written about and that kind of thing.

So, of course, I don't remember any of that. I don't remember meeting in the woods. I don't remember police coming in, breaking up services and that kind of thing. But growing up, these are the stories I heard. And these are, so this was really ingrained into me that this was a regular Christian experience.

That's just so interesting because that's very different from, I'm assuming, what most of our audience would know as a regular Christian experience, right? You know, and so you're coming out of the Soviet Union, you end up coming to America. So tell me about that process. Like, how did that manage to happen? What year is this then that you all came as a family to America?

So from 1990 to 1995, there was a lot of openness to hearing about religious things. So remember, a whole generation of not having any kind of religious influence. And now all of a sudden, all these doors are open. And so my dad was involved in evangelism.

Various places opened their doors, like institutions of higher learning, even military bases. Wow. Okay, tell me more. Like, what was going on there? Were they just like, we're curious like everybody else or what's happening? Pretty much. It was just, it was a state of political upheaval, right? So people weren't sure. Things weren't settled down. The new government wasn't really functioning too well, although it definitely wasn't anarchy.

But there were, you know, some mafia stirrings and that kind of stuff you hear about when the government isn't really solidified in its workings. So there was some of that. But at the same time, there was openness. There was openness for evangelism. And my dad and a few others just had open doors.

They were able to share testimonies and they were able to supply Bibles by, I think it's the Gideons, that once, again, the Soviet Union fell apart, a lot of different groups now had access to the former republics that made up the Soviet Union. So Gideons International, I think, was one of them. And they supplied the Bibles, but they had the local teams that went out and did the evangelism and handed them out. So my dad was involved with that. And it was kind of what I would describe, and I think he would describe as well, as a disconnect between the head and the heart. Because the opportunity to immigrate to the States came up several times.

But my parents' rationale was, well, God's opening this door for evangelism here. Why would we go somewhere to, well, that they didn't really know about a different place, a different culture, different language, and that kind of thing? And, you know, a lot of unknowns.

So the head said, there's no reason to go to immigrate. But there was something in the heart that said, this is the right thing to do. So that's a significant part of the context of my parents deciding to immigrate. And the church we were a part of at the time, which comes back in the story later, they were supportive of this, which was not the case for a lot of immigrants, as I understand it, during that time, because it wasn't only our family. There were a lot of families that decided to immigrate. And so we had the blessing of our church. And 1995, we got on a plane in Kyiv and flew to JFK.

And that was the beginning of our experience. And I still remember that this was almost 30 years ago. I still remember my first impression of America. I had my first taste of Coke. I remember it burning my mouth, that kind of thing. I remember just on the van that came and brought us to Pennsylvania, just looking at all these cars that were just on the road and the New York City traffic and everything. Oh, wow. Just all these cars.

We had nothing of the sort there in Kyiv at the time, early 90s. So you'd fell apart. Yes, you'd see some like imported cars and you think, whoa, like BMWs or Mercedes. But here, just the roads are chock full of cars. And that was just, those are two very prominent memories that stick out as we came.

Yeah. So the culture shock is pretty immediate. Yes, very much so. Very much so. So with this whole story, okay, so now you're in America as a family. Where did the Anabaptists come into the picture here? Yes, that's a very good question. And along what I said about lots of groups making inroads into the former Soviet republics, I think CAM, and I think it was MIM, jumped on the opportunity relatively early. Now, again, I was three years old at the time, so I don't have recollection of this, but according to the stories I've heard, that CAM came in with the humanitarian aspect of things. MIM came in with the missional, the church aspect of things.

And so there, my dad in particular made the initial contact with a group I think we knew very little about. It's Mennonites, Anabaptists. They looked different. They appeared to have the same beliefs as us. But yeah, again, it was a state of upheaval.

Like politically, culturally, so many different things happening. But that was the initial contact. So when we arrived to the States, we continued to have a little bit of contact back and forth with the Mennonites or the Anabaptists in Kyiv there, but not much.

So we got connected with an evangelical church, which we had relatives in, and they had Baptist in the name, which was very familiar to us because we would have identified with officially evangelical Christian Baptists, which the Baptist meant that it was believers' baptism. Okay. So that's the context of being baptised in the former Soviet Union as opposed to being baptized as an infant.

So the great contribution there in that context was that the pastor encouraged and urged my parents not to send me and my siblings to the public school and instead attend the private Christian school that was there at the church.

And looking back now, that was very helpful because it kept us in a religious environment. Now I say religious environment as I get into the story more, you'll see why I use that phrase. But I think it really helped us in the long run. That was a struggle for my parents because they grew up going to public school and under an atheistic government. And here being told, no, the public school will just erode the values of your children and the values you're trying to raise them with, that just didn't make sense. And it was one of the many things that did not make sense to my parents about America and how Christianity functioned here and everything.

So that was a good experience, all circumstances considered for us, for me and my brothers as we integrated here in the States. So I said earlier about the religious environment because it is from that time period that I'm beginning to connect the dots on things that eventually bring me to the values I hold dear today.

Looking back at that time, I would be hard-pressed to say that most of my classmates from that time are following the Lord today. Yes, we had daily exposure to Bible stories and did Bible memory, but the hard practical teachings of Jesus, such as loving your enemies and living a countercultural lifestyle, weren't emphasized.

So to give you an example, a vivid memory that sticks out in particular is there was this rule, no going to movie theaters. Well, middle schoolers being middle schoolers had the obvious. But what if we go with our parents? Or what if we buy that same movie and watch it at home?

And I don't remember a good answer being given to that, yeah, that very legitimate question.

And the other thing is just the doctrinal teaching. So the teaching, once saved, always saved, was something that was brought up again and again, saying like once you're saved, you're saved, you're good to go. And it's just ever present.

So again, some students asked, well, what if someone who is saved keeps singing? And then I vividly remember the response to that question is, you will die.

Okay. Yeah, God will take you home. And again, something that did not make sense, but it was a very, again, looking at it now, it's kind of jumping some hoops, jumping some hoops. But at that time, we were young and impressionable. It says, okay, we better not sin. Even though we're saved, we better not sin because we will die, is what I remember from that time. And I may, time and memory has probably failed me on some of these particulars. And if I was to revisit some of those conversations now, they probably would look a little different. But that was essentially my impression. And so it caused a lot of this confusion.

Besides the cultural confusion that was happening and the culture shocks, like you mentioned, I remember just struggling spiritually. And what does this all mean? I don't ever remember doubting that God existed, but there was just this inner turmoil. And I didn't have good answers to these questions, which I wish I did, but I think that's part of the journey to where God has brought me now so that I can look back and say, oh, you know what? That is what God brought you through. And so be grateful to God's protection and his merciful hand and his grace for bringing you through that situation so that you can now see it and do your best to influence the context you come in contact with to make somebody else's life different.

So it sounds like some of this is just part of the larger story of the challenge of integrating into a new culture, a new country, new language, new everything, really, you know, and trying to find, okay, like where do we plug in with church? What do we believe? You know, all of that. That's a lot, you know, right?

So again, you'd mentioned you bump into the Anabaptists a bit in Ukraine before you come here. Okay, you come to the States. Where do you run into the Anabaptists again then? Yes, good question. So that's the next part of the story.

My dad, at some point, I guess it was one year or two years in, reached out to some of the contacts he made back in Kyiv and asked, well, are there any churches like yours, people like yours over here? Because we were living in Delco. There are not many Anabaptists in Delco. I don't know of any congregations there in Delaware County.

So yes, there are some, but in a different part of the state. So I don't think we even had our own vehicle at the time. This is not like the 2020s, right, where as soon as immigrants come, they can almost expect to have a vehicle ready for them. This is the late 1990s. Things were different back then, especially in that area.

So we found a way to get over and visit, I think it was a beachy congregation in central Pennsylvania somewhere, which was not really sustainable to attend there long term. However, they did suggest a similar congregation in Lancaster County. And we ended up attending there regularly for several years. And this is where things get interesting. So even though we were doctrinally aligned on so many issues, at that time, cultural differences made long-term fellowship really challenging.

For example, the big issue was the mode of baptism. Pouring or sprinkling was what the unregenerate Orthodox Church did to babies. Right? That's the context.

Oh, man.

Communion, the mode of communion, having it not once a month like we were used to, but having it once or twice a year was also different. Yeah. Feet washing. Again, the way we grew up understanding that passage was that it was for that culture where people walked barefoot and needed, it was a practical thing. And here, people show up, their feet are essentially clean, right? But they still hold on to this thing of foot washing. Again, just these things give you a little glimpse of what was going through the minds of people that come from a completely different culture.

Notwithstanding, I have good memories of that time. Sunday school, Christmas caroling, being invited to people's houses, and the acquaintances we made, they were helpful. They were helpful in our journey. So if anybody watching this remembers the Kravitz family from that time attending Mine Road, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for the input and the impact that you had to our family. It made a difference. We were kind of like a little blip on the radar at that time, but I believe it really helped our family kind of find some kind of grounding in a time that was very confusing to us.

So here, an obvious question can arise. Why didn't the Kravitz family start attending one of the many Slavic churches that mushroomed in the States during that time? Because, like I said, we weren't the only immigrants that came. And a lot of those that came were Christians, and they started their own congregations. And the response to that is my parents observed what they deemed to be drastic changes in values among their peers.

The freedom that America offered quickly affected the practical Christian walk of former persecuted people, of these immigrants. And it was yet another challenge that my parents were faced with.

I said it, and I'll say it again, that this was just a confusing time for me. I never doubted the existence of God, and I wanted to be a Christian, but it was a cycle of praying the sinner's prayer, asking for forgiveness, falling back into sin, doubting my salvation, and repenting again. And just that cycle that went on for a long time.

So this is, yeah, this is a long process from what I'm picking up, right? It's not like you land in America and boom, you're like integrated into a great church and everything is good. Like there's, it sounds like years, right, of, I guess the word that comes to mind is kind of circuitous. Like you're, okay, we're here, okay, we're trying this, we're visiting this church, we're trying to find a place to plug in and a community that we can be a part of that matches the convictions and beliefs that you all had, that you know your parents, the rest of your family had. So ultimately then, through this experience, if you want to talk more about that experience, but then ultimately, how did you find a place to plug into long term?

Yes, good question. And I just want to say that I'm very thankful to God that he kept working on my heart and not letting me go down the path that many of my peers ended up going. That is by his grace alone, his mercy that that was looking back now is so evident in my life.

But the question that you asked requires some additional context. We were now at a place where we didn't feel at home with people from our ethnic background because of the compromises that my parents saw happening. We certainly didn't fit into the evangelical church because of differences in beliefs.

Couldn't plug into the Mennonite church because of the culture barriers my parents were facing. And we were left up in the air, so to speak. So in 1998, we met with who I will call the family-centric conservative evangelical movement.

Now, that's not a label that you'll find anywhere. But looking back now, I'm not sure of a better way to describe it. So in 1998, we become acquainted with families that are part of this movement. And we surprisingly found some shared values.

We were beginning to explore homeschooling at the time. Music was a big part of our life, conservative music, dress standards, modesty, that kind of thing. And these families shared these values. And the major emphasis looking back now was the family-centric approach to Christianity.

And so despite doctrinal differences, we focused on what we had in common. And we fellowshipped with those circles for, I don't know, a period of three, four, five years, that kind of time. And so these were fellowships that either met at a home or in a formal place of worship, heavily influenced by fundamentalism, Calvinism, IBLP, and the teachings of Bill Gothard. That if you can imagine that kind of a community, although it's a little bit vague, it's hard to define it exactly, but that kind of sphere of influence.

And on the surface, things looked quite pleasant. The children were taught to respect their parents and others. Families were large. The music was conservative, etc. But as a famous marketer once said, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And by that, I mean that the values and beliefs eventually catch up and reveal what a philosophy has underneath.

So after a few years, a family we were close with sent their oldest son, a good friend of mine, to the Air Force. And we were just shocked how, again, non-resistance wasn't something that was brought up often. It was just one of those things that was kind of put aside because everything's going fine, right? We don't have a war happening.

This was before 9/11, before the invasion of Afghanistan and that kind of thing. And he was, this young man was very pleasant, not ashamed of his faith, the kind of guy that parents would consider a role model. However, once he got into the Air Force, his spiritual end came rather quickly.

Drugs, I think it was a dishonorable discharge, then marriage, then divorce, and then prison again, and just that vicious cycle. And somebody that I was relatively close with just transformed unimaginably. And so that left a serious impression on me. I was just like, how can this happen?

These were people we shared, spent a lot of time with. And how could that happen? Other families from that time experienced things like sexual abuse in the home. And two fathers who were part of this kind of circle of fellowship we were part of eventually met again in prison, of all places.

So looking back now, I'm like, wow, what was happening? What was happening? Although, again, things on the surface looked very nice and pleasant and modest and conservative, and just things were okay.

So then come the early 2000s. And through these family-centric connections, we come in contact with the charity circles as they're known in popular meno culture, right? So the charity context, to give it to those that may be listening and are not aware of who the charity circles are, is started by a former evangelical minister and a former Amishman. So can you imagine those two worlds coming together? Yeah. And oddly enough, it was an expression of Christianity that felt a lot like home.

So family-focused, promoted homeschooling. The Godly Home series was and still is a big part of that community. A strong relationship with Christ, believers' baptism, and a vibrant expression of faith. Those were the hallmarks of the charity movement that come to mind when I'm thinking about those times.

And I would say that this was my first conscious exposure to the concept of Kingdom Christianity. And so God was working on my heart, and I committed my life to him in my late teens, got baptized. And the various charity Bible schools, which is essentially like a week where young people come together here teaching and preaching, and there are evangelistic messages in the evening, those Bible schools really shaped me spiritually and just made me step over into the Kingdom Christianity camp knowingly, not by inertia, not by tradition, not by culture, but knowingly. And it still was a process, but I remember that that was like a watershed moment.

Yeah, so you kind of, again, one of the themes it seems like it keeps coming up is this is a journey. This is a process. Maybe it fails, I'm guessing at the time, felt kind of meandering and like, oh my, you know, where are we going? And maybe here or here, like trying to find where can we plug in and live out what God wants us to live. But somewhere in this story, like because we had been talking before we turned the cameras on, that your family ended up back in Ukraine again.

So what happened there to where y'all went back? Yeah, that's a good question. My dad being the visionary that he was, there were some things he really appreciated about what he saw in American Christianity, which resonated with some of the things we imagined America was before we came over, which turned out not to be exactly true. But there were good things. God's children were here. God was doing a work here. And he liked what he saw. And he had this vision of trying to take some of that back to our native Ukraine and say, hey, you can, in his words, you can actually make it to heaven from America.

Right? Kind of seems funny now, but again, what we thought of America as being and what it was like in reality were two different worlds apart. And so God put on his heart, and we went back as a family to Ukraine. So we got involved with the church our family was part of before immigrating and started reacquainting ourselves with what I would call Slavic Anabaptism while keeping in mind the experiences we had in the States.

So at this time, I'm just going to fast forward a little bit. We were involved in various ministry opportunities with music and that kind of thing. However, I'm starting to connect more of these dots that I call Kingdom Christianity.

And I'm analyzing more of what's happening. Like I've had lots of varied and maybe you can say extreme experiences up until this time when it comes to fellowship. And so I'm thinking about these concepts I'm observing. And I began to see how the teachings of Christ, though expressed differently in different cultures, they transcend culture.

I also began seeing that compromises on these teachings never end well.

One of these circumstances from this time was the difficulties our church and family experienced. Dad was pastoring at the time, and there were just some added stress. There was some division and just overall difficulties. And looking back, there are things from these years I'm ashamed of, and they would be related to following the teachings of Christ, even when circumstances pressed otherwise or compelled otherwise. Things like brotherly love in both interpersonal and interchurch relationships are not values you want to compromise on.

You used a term that I want to go back to just briefly. You said the Slavic Anabaptists. Who are you talking about in that case? Like I got to be honest, I don't know if I've ever heard that term used. So who are these people, and how were you integrating in with this community of believers when you went back to Ukraine? Yeah, that's a good question. It's not two terms that you hear next to each other often. But what I mean is those that take the teachings of Christ seriously. Things like non-resistance, things like what to do with the teachings of Calvinism, right? The eternal security question, what to do with divorce and remarriage.

Those core, and I'd say hard teachings that Christ presented when he was here on earth. So when I say the term Anabaptist, that to me means a group of people, communities that want to ask those hard questions. They're saying, what did Christ actually mean? And in the words of Dean Taylor, did Jesus Christ actually mean what he said? Yeah.

So when I say Anabaptist, I'm referring to those that are asking these questions instead of finding ways to explain them away, like a lot of religious currents are trying to do nowadays. That's helpful context.

Because you also mentioned something earlier that I think is another important piece about how these teachings and these values, these things you were learning and processing through go beyond culture. I can't remember your exact wording, but something about it, this is beyond culture. Yeah, they transcend culture. And it sounds like you were really seeing that when you go back to Ukraine. You're seeing it in a different setting and noticing that. I think that's an important piece to note. It is kind of easy to think of things like the Mennonites, the Amish, the whatever. Oh, that's just a culture. It's like it is a culture, but there's other elements to it as well. And anyways, I think this Ukraine piece is kind of significant.

So y'all were back in Ukraine for how long then? We were back for about six or seven years. And then where the story continues is that being American citizens, we relied on getting stamps in our passports that would allow us to stay in the country for extended periods of time. However, after about six years, the political disposition towards Americans changed somewhat. There were some, yeah, political happenings there at the time where part of the country wanted to integrate more with Europe, where the other part was wanting to align themselves closely with Russia. And eventually, that broke out into a full-scale war, which I think everybody is aware of by now.

But part of those changes was that we could not get our passports stamped and be able to stay there for extended periods of time. So that combination of circumstances made it appear that God was closing the door for us to remain there.

So you end back up here in America. And again, we're here in Pennsylvania. This is where you live. Yeah, bring us up to the present day and kind of reflect back along on this story too and anything else you want to add with that as well.

Yeah, so we came back to the States. I think it was the very end of 2011. And it was interesting to start evaluating the events since our immigration in 1995, which next year, at the time of this recording, will be 30 years. It's hard to believe that.

And what sticks out in my mind is who and what stayed the same and who and what changed radically. I already shared some of those moments and some of those experiences that I just saw lots of radical change. And I was sad to say it wasn't good change.

And one of the things that really sticks out in my mind is that those that kept the teachings of Christ, we are closer with today. Those who did not place a high value on these Kingdom teachings, we are at a very different place today, 30 years later.

Well, so I think we're probably going to just spend a whole nother episode on this very topic. But back to the Slavic Anabaptist thing. It does seem there's an impression or it's easy to think, oh, well, you know, the Anabaptist, it's like a North American phenomenon and it's kind of unique to hear and it doesn't really have effects elsewhere around the world.

And you're basically wanting to make the point of, like from your experience, that it was not the case. Is that a fair assessment? Yeah, so again, the context there is that there were those who kept the faith during the communist regime. And they're the ones that really aligned themselves with the teachings of Christ and not with what the government was trying to dictate onto them. And out of that grew out a form of Anabaptism. And so that's why I use Slavic Anabaptists, because if you would look at their materials and writings today, you will see, you know what, there's a lot we have in common here. I believe that God does his work in whatever context he is allowed to do his work.

And with the ready accessibility we have to the scriptures and people in general have to the scriptures, somebody somewhere is bound to be reading these words. And again, like Dean Taylor and his wife were finishing up the day and reading the Bible as they were in the military and asking, what do we do with this when Jesus says, love your enemies? What do we do with this?

That is interesting because actually going back to Dean, we've interviewed him a few times on this podcast and people can check that out if they want. But you know, he would have been there when the Berlin Wall came down in '89. So I guess, I don't know, that would have been in Germany. So not super close to where you were. But it's just interesting how these pieces come together and God moves in all kinds of mysterious ways.

And often we can't always see that until after. And that's the one piece as well. You've had such a range of experience living in different cultures and trying to figure out, okay, what churches do we integrate with? How do we plug into a community and all of these things?

So as we kind of circle it back around, what's a piece you'd like to leave with our audience as they consider this story? So as you say that, an interesting turn of events happened about two years ago that made it feel like things came full circle in this meandering path that our family has taken. And that is that one of my brothers got married to a girl whose family we first met when we attended that beachy church in the late '90s for those few years. And to me, it's just like, wow, for things to get reestablished and reconnected in that way, to me, it's just amazing.

All the pieces kind of coming together, right? Yeah. Is there a word of encouragement you'd like to leave with people who are on their own journey? You know, they're searching for, where's a community I can plug into? I'm trying to find a church, you know, or I have these beliefs. I'm not sure what to do about that. How do I live these things out? I mean, these things are hard, right? Yeah, what's some encouragement you'd like to leave with them? Yeah, so the big thing that sticks out in my mind is that ideas have consequences.

Following the teachings of Christ has consequences, and not following the teachings of Christ has consequences. And so it's almost a way of choosing your hard. What hard are you going to choose? So for those who are being exposed to these Kingdom values and are looking at how they can serve Christ and make him Lord and Savior of their life, I would just say that you may have to make some hard choices when it comes to who you fellowship with, what kind of circumstances you place your family or those entrusted to you in. It may require moving. Something that I found in the States is there's this spirit of independence, right?

It gets everywhere, not just the politics. Sometimes the Anabaptists like to think, well, separation of church and state, that's very clear-cut. But it's more subtle than a lot of people would think, right? There's always this temptation to get politically involved and eventually turn to politics as a solution.

Or other distractions, such as getting caught up with sports and the entertainment world. And that's a distraction that will steal your time and can cause you to turn your sight off of Christ. But at the end of the day, I think God will put his children in front of choices that they need to make, that they need to take ownership of. And some of those choices may be hard. Some of those choices may not fit into the culture you grew up with.

Some of those choices, you may, like my father, like the fruit, but you don't like the methods that you come by that fruit. And so what will you do then?

You will be challenged in your pride and other things. And that's part of God's process of redeeming his children and refining them. And I can think of, again, a lot of families that I'm looking back now with a lot of sadness, that that choice was placed in front of them.

But it just ended up being too hard. And now they're at a sad place. So my encouragement is when God does put those choices in front of you, when you hear the still small voice speaking, to really think deeply and count the cost and think, is this following the teachings of Christ? Will this help me to better know my Lord and Savior in the end, even though maybe you don't understand the way, you don't understand the path? But is the end goal here for me to be transformed more into the image of Christ? And if so, that is the way to pursue with all of your heart.

Otherwise, if you reject making a good choice, it can have very negative ramifications for you, your family, and those that you have responsibility for. So that's the encouragement I would leave with anybody listening is to press into the Kingdom, is to take these values and make them your own and not compromise on them.

Wow. Well, Yuri, thanks for taking the time to come out today and tell your story. I think you've given us all a lot to think about. Yeah, that's quite the story. I really hope this is an encouragement to listeners and they're able to pull some pieces out and say, okay, yeah, I can have some clarity on what is the next step God wants me to take. So yeah, thank you for sharing today. Thank you for having me.

Thanks for listening to this episode with Yuri Kravitz. If you found this interesting, stay tuned as we have some other conversations with Yuri that should be releasing soon. So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss those. We also have a monthly email newsletter, which you can join through our website at anabaptistperspectives.org. And of course, all the content we've made is on our website as well. Thanks so much for watching, and we'll see you in the next episode.