Sunday, November 1, 2026From the news

The Long Road Home: Finding God Near the Border

After years of separation and fear, families in Oleshky were reunited at a border crossing, and Scripture reminds us that God draws near to the brokenhearted and calls us to welcome the stranger.

The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.

Psalm 34:18

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.

Isaiah 43:2

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.

Matthew 25:35-36

Take a moment this morning to picture a scene that many of us will find hard to forget. On Saturday, evacuees from the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky stepped off buses at the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, wrapped in flags, and were held by family members they had not embraced in a long time. Volunteers waited with hand-drawn welcome signs and cups of coffee. Villagers lined the highway with flags and torches. Among the travelers was Liza Paliy, who was nineteen when she fled with her mother and sister more than two and a half years ago. They thought it would be a month, two at most. Her father was still in the city, and she waited at the border for him. Some waits are much longer than anyone expected.

The story is not simple, and I do not want to pretend that it is. Ivan Yevhenovych spoke of months without staple food, of drones over the streets, and of landmines and strikes that killed neighbors nearly every day. Roughly two thousand people were still in Oleshky when the truce took hold, and many chose to stay, for their homes and for their animals. Reports also describe drone attacks and power outages affecting households far from the border. If you are reading this with a heavy heart, you are not alone in it. The sorrow in these stories is real, and God sees it.

That is where the psalmist meets us. "The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit" (Psalm 34:18). Notice that God does not promise to keep us from every hardship. He promises to be near in it. Liza's wait, the grief of those who could not leave, and the fear that has become ordinary for too many people are all known to him. He is not distant from the crowded bus or the empty kitchen.

The prophet Isaiah speaks in the same spirit. "When you pass through the waters, I will be with you" (Isaiah 43:2). The waters in Oleshky are not symbolic. They are the danger, the uncertainty, and the years of waiting. Yet God's word to his people is not that the waters will disappear, but that he will go through them with us. When Tetiana Leonidivna, seventy-one, wept as she thanked the soldiers who helped her flee, she was giving voice to a deep gratitude that only grows out of having been carried through something terrible. Let us hold that same gratitude before God, and let us remember that he is the one who carries us.

Jesus gives us a surprising picture of where he is found in moments like this. "I was a stranger and you welcomed me" (Matthew 25:35). The volunteers with the Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières, and World Central Kitchen, along with the families who opened their arms and the people who handed out coffee at the border, were doing exactly that. Jesus said that when we welcome the hungry, the thirsty, and the stranger, we welcome him. Ordinary kindness in a difficult moment is never small in the eyes of God.

So what does this mean for your week? Perhaps it means praying for families who are still separated, and for the two thousand who remain in Oleshky without enough food or medicine. Perhaps it means giving to a relief organization, or simply noticing the stranger in your own life, the new coworker, the neighbor who is struggling quietly, or the person who lost something you cannot see. And if you are weary yourself, come to God as you are. He is near the brokenhearted, and he has not forgotten you.

The story at the border is not finished, and neither is yours. Jesus is faithful to those who wait, and he will not lose a single one of his people along the way.