Rescuer

We serve a God who knows us, who has rescued us from the power of sin and is near to those who are in need, which ultimately includes all of us. Psalm 10 relates:
17 Lord, You have heard the desire of the humble; You will prepare their heart; You will cause Your ear to hear,
18 To do justice to the fatherless and the oppressed, That the man of the earth may oppress no more.

We reflect the glory of our Savior when we demonstrate our willingness to advocate for someone in need.  Jesus is called our Advocate in 1st John chapter 2. And, throughout God's Word, we read about a God who loved the people whom He created so much that He was willing to send His son so that we might be rescued from the power of sin and death. That is now part of our new nature - to look upon those in trouble and to offer the love of Jesus.

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We can reflect on the kindness of God, the One who sent His Son in order to rescue us. And, according to Psalm 82, He has a special place for the orphan, for the destitute, for those who are displaced and threatened. We find this passage in that Psalm:
3 Defend the poor and fatherless; Do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4 Deliver the poor and needy; Free them from the hand of the wicked.

I spent part of an afternoon recently getting a new tire - fortunately, I was able to get some work done on my phone and watch some daytime television.  The TV programming moved from background to foreground as I listened to the voice of a mother who was on a talk show sharing about the Lord regarding a child from Ukraine.  Well, I really perked up. 

You may have heard my recent interview with Missy Maxwell Worton, or the interview from the 2020 National Religious Broadcasters Convention.  She detailed the harrowing adventure in which she and her husband participated in trying to retrieve the child they had adopted from Ethiopia - in the process, they even faced accusations of being human traffickers!  But, God gave them favor - in more ways than one - that is the name of their now-teenaged daughter: Favor.  

So, this story that I took an interest to on television in the tire store lobby had a similar feel, only it dealt with a child adopted from Ukraine.  I immediately began to do some searching on that afore-mentioned phone and found an earlier newspaper story about a devoted - and tenacious - mother named Brittney Hejl.  A report on the KLTV.com website from March related:

Brittney Hejl, a brave Central Texas mother, traveled to Eastern Europe, succeeded in getting her adoptive son Andriy out of a Ukrainian orphanage, and is currently working to bring the 16-year-old boy to his new home in Abbott.

“If that’s the only way you can get to your child, you would do it,” said Hejl, who left Wednesday to travel more than 5,500 miles to rescue Andriy from war-torn Ukraine.

“I logged onto the computer (last week) having no idea where I was going to stay or what I was going to be doing, I just knew I needed to get to Poland,” said Hejl.

Andriy was supposed to come to the U.S. in March, but the Russian invasion of Ukraine stood in the way.  That's when Brittney swung into action.  The article says:

... one of Brittney’s friend’s moms got in touch with a friend of hers who used to live in the Dallas-Fort Worth area but now lives in Poland.

That friend offered to give Brittney a place to stay.

“It’s a God thing,” said Brittney Hejl. “It’s a weird place to be to be safe over here and very well taken care of while others are suffering, but it’s been great to be here with this family.”

And, through Twitter, Brittney's husband, Matt discovered "a ministry that’s been evacuating people from Andriy’s city in Ukraine."  That ministry has transitioned from primarily supplying music equipment to churches to helping provide relief.  Matt said:

“The first morning they (the ministry) came, they weren’t able to get into the town because it was getting actively shelled, they had to turn around,” said Matt Hejl. “The next morning they were able to get in, they needed to go south and there’s a main road they had to take and there was this huge tank battle going on, so they had to use a bunch of rural roads to go around--it took them a day to get to what normally takes an hour-and-a-half to an hour-and-forty-five minutes, but they got him out of his town, that was the first big hurdle to get him out because his city was one of the ones that’s actively being shelled every single day.”

Ultimately, Andriy got to the Polish border and he was assisted by someone with the U.S. Embassy there.  And, as the television show indicated, Andriy is now in Texas. 

Brittney told KLTV: “To know that so many people praying for this kid they didn’t know, complete strangers, just to thank you for that because that is it, there’s nothing that Matt and I could have done to make this go the way that it did other than God just making miracles happen,” adding, “Through Andriy’s story, faith has been restored for so many people, us included.”

It's always gratifying to see the pieces fall into place in a God-ordained operation. And, the story is a reminder that we might not always see how God is working, but He is at work. He responded to the prayers of the Hejls and their prayer partners on behalf of Andriy.  We can continue to trust Him, even when we may not comprehend what the end result will be. 

I am also reminded of the lengths that God our loving Heavenly Father took in order to rescue us from the powers of sin and death.  Humanity had fallen, but the unfortunate separation of the Garden was not the end of a plan, it much closer to the beginning, and we read throughout the Old Testament about God's love for His people and the Messiah whom He would send.  Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies written about Him, and we recognize that in order to bring salvation to us, He had to become the sacrifice for sin, the perfect, spotless Passover Lamb, so that by His death, we could have life.  And, because death could not hold Him due to His perfection, because He was God's Son, He was able to rescue us and to live in our hearts.  It is God's nature to be a rescuer, and we can partner with Him to help bring hope to people in need.