Beeson Podcast, Episode #592 Dr. Oleg Turlac March 9, 2022 >>Announcer: Welcome to the Beeson podcast, coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford University. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla. >>Doug Sweeney: Welcome to the Beeson Podcast. I am your host, Doug Sweeney, here with my co-host, Kristen Padilla. And we are here today to discuss a very important and timely topic, the war in the Ukraine. Many of us have been watching the war in Ukraine in bewilderment, shock, sadness, and concern. Many of us have been praying for brothers and sisters who are suffering in the Ukraine. To help us better understand this conflict and how we can pray, Kristen and I have invited a two-time Beeson graduate who was born during the time of the Soviet Union and was raised in Moldova. He and his wife have been running a ministry to eastern Europe since 2004. So, he does know a lot more than the rest of us about what’s going on, on the ground, these days in Ukraine. We’re deeply grateful to him for giving us time today so that all of us can pray and support our friends more adequately. Kristen, would you please tell our listeners a little bit more about today’s guest? >>Kristen Padilla: Yes. Thank you, Doug. Hello, everyone. Today on the show we have Oleg Turlac. He is a two-time Beeson graduate, as Doug has just said, having graduated with his MDIV in 1999 and his DMIN degree in 2006. He is the founding president of Turlac Mission, which aids victims of persecution and human trafficking in former republics of the Soviet Union torn apart by ethnic conflicts and civil war. Providing them resources needed to live a quality life of faith and witness to Jesus Christ. He is an ordained Baptist minister and Oleg is married to Natasha. They live in Canada. Welcome to the Beeson Podcast, Oleg. We’re so glad you’re here. >>Oleg Turlac: Thank you so much. It’s good to be with you. >>Kristen Padilla: Well, let us begin just learning more about yourself, specifically where you are from, your connection to Ukraine and Russia and then what brought you to the United States and eventually to Beeson Divinity School? >>Oleg Turlac: I was born in the Soviet Union, or as it’s known Soviet Russia, the Red Empire, a Communist country in 1970s. And I come from the background of the persecuted church. My family, we have a wonderful heritage of faithfulness to Jesus Christ. All of us, four generations, are Baptists. My great grandfather and my grandfather served prison sentences for their belief in Jesus Christ. So, I was born into a Christian family, but in a Communist country. So, that makes my background very interesting. Now, the Soviet Union was a huge empire, a huge country, which incorporated both Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus, and 12 other republics. So, obviously Ukraine was one of them. And living in the Soviet Union we didn’t consider all of these 15 total different republics as separate entities. We were called “Soviet Citizens.” On my birth certificate I have the words, “USSR.” So, we were known as Soviets and many referred to us as “Russians.” Even to Ukrainians, Belarusians, Moldovians, Chechens, and 80 other different people groups – they all were called “Russians.” Although Soviet Russia, the Soviet Union, was very, very diverse. To give you just an idea of how interconnected people were in the Soviet Union ... Let me say this, my background is Bulgarian. My ancestors ran away from the Ottoman Turks and settled in what is now southern Ukraine. In 1961, because of persecution, because the church in the little town where they served was destroyed they had to move to Moldova. Just to survive somehow and I was born in Moldova. Okay? So, my grandparents, both sets, were born in Ukraine. I was born in Moldova. Now, because it was a part of the Soviet Union we’re all taught Russian in school. So, my first language is Russian. Now, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. And so I became a citizen of Moldova. And now I live in Canada. And I pastor at a Russian speaking church in the very heart of Toronto. So, who am I? In a way I am a citizen of the world. And this kind of will help explain to our listeners how interconnected Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, and other little republics were in the Soviet Union. Now, when I graduated from the high school, the Soviet Union collapsed. And back then the very first Baptist seminary in Russia was started in Moscow. So, I became part of the very first class of that very first Russian Baptist Seminary. After studying for four years some professors from Georgetown, Kentucky took interest in me and I ended up going to Georgetown College for my undergraduate degree. And then ended up at Beeson Divinity School because of Dr. and Mrs. [inaudible 00:06:05] and the generosity of Mr. Beeson. Because of this I was able to get a full scholarship and do my MDIV and later DMIN at Beeson, which I am very grateful. >>Doug Sweeney: What an amazing story of God’s providential care in your own life. My goodness, you do have an interesting identity and story, Oleg. It occurs to me that not all of our listeners understand completely the historical background to the war that’s going on today in the Ukraine. And I wonder, could you take just a few minutes and help us out? What is it historically that ties the Ukraine to Russia? And why is President Putin invading the Ukraine now? >>Oleg Turlac: Well, Ukraine and Russia were part of the same empire for a while and then Ukraine and Russia were the two founding republics of the Soviet Union in 1922 along with Belarus. So, for nearly 70 years Ukraine and Russia were very close. And Ukrainians and Russians very connected at this point because in the Soviet Union people migrated from territory to territory. also, it was a policy of Moscow to mix the population. The Russian rulers, like Stalin, Khrushchev and others, they wanted to create a Soviet identity, or so-called Soviet Man. And in order to do that they moved different people groups from one territory to another. So, even today you can find many families where the husband would be a Russian and the wife would be Ukrainian. We sometimes say that half of the population of Moscow, you know, has Ukrainian endings of their last names. Likewise, there are many Russian speaking people that live in the Ukraine, especially in the eastern part. So, this is what makes this conflict very painful. It’s like a family conflict in a way, because we can’t quite figure out where our Russian identity ends and where Ukrainian identity begins. Because we were born in one huge country. Now, to help understand why this invasion is happening it helps to know that Russia is still governed by the generation that was raised, education, and grew up under the USSR. So, that generation to which Vladimir Putin and other people in power, they belong to the generation that still considers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova as one country. They’ve never really considered Ukraine to be independent. Now, because the collapse of the Soviet Union happened so rapidly in 1991, no one could have predicted it, no one could have prevented it, and in the mind of Putin and other politicians it seemed like this was a temporary thing. And Russia, all Russians always had in mind that one day Ukraine, Belarus, and other republics will come back into the fold. Now, Russia has an imperial mentality. And without Ukraine, Russia can’t be an empire. And Russia always wanted to have an influence in the Black Sea Basin, in the Balkans, and so in a way historically speaking, this conflict was unavoidable. Since Vladimir Putin has that old Soviet mentality and according to his own words, he considers the collapse of the Soviet Union to be a greatest tragedy, the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Apparently his motives are to restore the Soviet Union or to create the Eurasian Union in some form or fashion and I guess that’s one of his pursuits. And it’s evident in his support of Belarus and the current regime there, and his goals in the Ukraine. Since Russia, Ukraine and Belarus were the founders of the Soviet Union, they are the core nations. So, if you bring back Ukraine into the fold there you go. You have the empire or the core of the empire restored. >>Kristen Padilla: I mentioned, Oleg, about your ministry when I introduced you. I wonder if you can tell us more about this ministry? The ways in which you have seen God move and work in the Ukraine, Moldova, and that area of the world since 2004? And then finally how is your ministry changing or adapting to the current conflict? >>Oleg Turlac: Our ministry was born in 2004 right after my graduation from Beeson Divinity School with a doctorate. And actually those years were very formative for me and for my wife, Natasha. It was at Samford, Beeson, while studying there that we received a vision of going back to Moldova and starting and anti trafficking ministry among women. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that huge empire disintegrated and that created a tremendous economic calamity. And human trafficking became one of the most pressing problems in that part of the world. More than 100,000 women have been trafficking out of Moldova since 1990 for prostitution, for slave trade, for organ harvesting – and the same happened to Ukraine and Russia. And so while at Beeson and while serving on the staff of the global center assisting the director there, reading books and communicating with Dr. Mark Elliott who was the director at that time, we received a vision and a calling of going back and starting this important ministry. So, after returning back to Moldova we established a safe house for women, victims of trafficking, and we started a preventative ministry. We established several tailoring shops where teenage girls and young women could study sewing and alterations, receive a profession, and in this way that would prevent them from going into trafficking. That would create an economic means for them to make an income. Of course, this ministry had a Christian component. We witnessed about Christ. All of the instructors that provided training for those young women were Christians and a number of them came to the knowledge of Jesus Christ. We’re also involved in helping the persecuted church in central Asia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union the Istans (as we call them) Kazakhstan, [inaudible 00:13:27], Uzbekistan, begin to tilt toward Islam and quite a few missionaries came to those territories from Islamic countries. Which created a situation when Christian churches, those believers that accepted Christ in the ‘90s as a result of missionary activities from Americans and south Koreans they began to experience persecution. So, we are assisting those churches, supporting pastors, training young church leaders, and for ten years I was involved in teaching at the Bible College in Moldova. In the decade in which I taught there we graduated close to a thousand students that are now serving all over the former Soviet Union, including Ukraine, which is dear to our hearts at this time and always, always was. We have seen tremendous work of God during all these years proceeding to the war. Many of my students became pastors, church planters, evangelists, missionaries. Many female students became social workers. The ministry expanded greatly. It was like multiplication. There was a time when American Christians invested in me, they brought me to Beeson, and after going back to Moldova I trained many young people. And so now we see in those countries students of my students who accepted Christ and who are now starting churches and helping people in difficult times. >>Doug Sweeney: What are you hearing, Dr. Turlac, from friends who are near the war these days about what’s going on? And how can our listeners be praying better for brothers and sisters there and supporting them in their suffering? >>Oleg Turlac: The war always brings devastation. It brings grief. And we hear reports from Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, which has been surrounded by Russian forces. And let me mention this, with all the historical reasoning that I’ve mentioned, there is no justification for war. Human lives are being lost at this hour and there is no justification for any imperial ambitions of Russia. Quite a few citizens around Kyiv, I mentioned, think the battle is raging right now for the city of [Mykoliev 00:16:03] and different regions of Ukraine are now experiencing Russian attacks maybe with the exception of western Ukraine, closer to the border with Poland. Many Ukrainian Christians run away from the war zones. We have those Christians that stayed in those cities that were surrounded and we hear wonderful stories from there. Christians encourage other people who fear war, who are in bomb shelters, who hid themselves in the subways stations. They sing, they share the scripture, they share what they have – food, water, and most importantly share the gospel of Jesus Christ. People’s hearts are very open to accepting Christ at the time of distress. When people have no hope at all, God is the only hope. And text from the Book of Psalms being read. We find refuge under his wings. And Ukrainians, before the war, had the largest number of Baptists in the whole of Europe. I think the number even surpassed the Baptist in Great Britain. And you add Pentecostal Christians, you add independent Christians, and Ukraine had the largest number of Christians out of the former Soviet Union – several thousand Baptist churches. So, Ukraine had a tremendous influence on Russia and other countries by sending missionaries even to Russia to Siberia and other regions. And in a way because so many Ukrainians are now leaving the country, trying to find refuge in Moldova, Poland, Romania, and other countries, that migration in a way can become the source of Christian mission. Because as Christians move to other countries, as they move to western Europe, which now experiences a sort of crisis – you see empty churches in Great Britain, in Western Europe, and Ukrainians will be able to revitalize some of that. We now know of Ukrainian church communities in Italy, in Portugal, and in a way migration is becoming mission and a way of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ to them there. >>Kristen Padilla: That’s a good word. Oleg, I know that there are many people listening who are concerned, as you are, about just the outcome of this war. How specifically can Christians in the States pray for this conflict? For the people in Ukraine? Also for people in Russia? What are some specific ways people can pray? >>Oleg Turlac: Pray for peace. Ukraine needs peace. Pray that the war would stop. We really need God’s intervention. Because according to what we know our Ukrainian army is not a match for Russian army. But Ukrainians are motivated, they’re defending their homeland, they’re defending their own homes, and so this is why the fight is still raging. Everyone expected for the fight to be over. But in some form or fashion we need God’s interference and we need to ask him to put an end to the war. Because with every new hour, lives are being lost. We need to pray that God would give wisdom to those in power. For any negotiations to have a result. They would have to get rid of a part of their human pride. There needs to be a compromise found. So far, there is no compromise. We need to pray for God to send them a sense of humility and a sense of understanding that it’s not them who are controlling the destiny of history, that it is God who has the power over them. We also need to remember in prayer the Russians. Because not all Russians are supporting the war. There are many Russians who are vocal and against the war. Russia and Russian Christians will most likely experience very tough times in the near future – with all the sanctions, with all the limitations, with all the restrictions that were in place even before the war started. The Russian Church now doesn’t have complete freedom as it had in the ‘90s. Our brothers and sisters will experience suffering. And there are many ministries that have been started in Russia. So, there is a big concern of how we’ll continue to support those. So, we need to pray for Russia. And we need to pray for reconciliation between Russians and Ukrainians so that this seed of hatred wouldn’t be sewn for the generations ahead. Russians and Ukrainians are both Slavic people. They can understand languages of each other. We need to pray for healing in the families, because there are some ruptures in families where some relatives support Russia and some relatives support the Ukrainian cause. We need healing even there. I’ve heard of a few cases of divorces now because of this situation. So, we need healing on the level of countries, and we need healing on the level of families, and most importantly we need to pray for peace in human hearts because if God gives peace into human hearts than many problems can be solved. It starts with the human heart always. >>Doug Sweeney: Many of us want to be praying for you, too, Oleg, and for the ministries of Turlac Mission in the republics of the former Soviet Union. How can we be praying in a special way for you and your ministry in days ahead? >>Oleg Turlac: I’m grateful that together with many American Christians we’re joined hands and we’re providing help for refugees for Ukrainian refugees that are flooding Moldova. They’re pouring into Moldova, more than 100,000 of them. And into other countries as well. We also are helping Ukrainians in west Ukraine, those that moved there. The Baptist leadership is now located in western Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of bottles of water, hundreds of pounds of food, clothing, medicine, are being provided because of generosity of American Christians. We’re help coordinating these efforts. We have our people on the ground that are meeting the refugees, that are giving them help, getting them oriented, helping them with documents. Pray that God will give us strength because we don’t know how long this military campaign will last. We pray for peace. But it may last longer than we expect. Pray for endurance. Because there are more refugees coming with each new day. There is a shortage of bed spaces in Moldova and other countries. Just pray that God will give us wisdom of how to impart all of the resources and to serve the needs of the people that are in distress. Besides meeting people’s physical needs, the most important thing is meeting their spiritual needs. Many are broken, many are hopeless, and so pray that God would use this very difficult time to turn many people to him. >>Kristen Padilla: For those who want to find out more information or to reach out to you, how can they find Turlac Mission or connect with you? >>Oleg Turlac: They can go to the web page of www.WorldWideWord.com, web based in Canada. In America we’re represented by World Wide Word. Just Google that and you can help, you can make a donation, just mark “Ukraine Aid” as the designated ministry place. Your donation will go to help Ukrainian refugees and all the needs in that part of the world. >>Kristen Padilla: Thank you. We’ll put a link to it in our show notes. We always like to end, Oleg, by hearing what the Lord has been teaching you, or doing in your life, what he’s been doing in your life. Even at such a time of great need and concern. I’m sure that the Lord has still been teaching you and speaking to you. So, what has the Lord been sharing with you recently that you could share with us? >>Oleg Turlac: I’m always amazed of the unexpected ways in which the Lord is using me. Of course, historically speaking, we could have predicted that something like this could have happened. But no one really believed it was 100% in this day and age that the war would break out in the heart of Europe. But the Lord is teaching us that we shouldn’t rely on our plans, on our visions for the future. Everything can change, unfortunately. But God is in control. Even in the midst of all the chaos. And just following his plans, being ready to be used by him in any function that he determines, that he plans for us. You can have a plan for ministry for the next five or ten years, but this situation teaches us that in an instant it can change. And just being flexible, being responsive to God’s call to God’s voice is the biggest thing that I have carried out of all this situation. >>Doug Sweeney: You have been listening to Dr. Oleg Turlac. He is the Founding President of the Turlac Mission, which aids victims of persecution and human trafficking in former republics of the Soviet Union. We are pleased to say he’s a two-time alumnus of Beeson Divinity School. We are profoundly grateful to you in this very busy season, Dr. Turlac, for giving us some time today and helping our listeners. We’re grateful to you and for your ministry. Pray that God will bless it. Listeners, we love you. We ask you to pray for Oleg in particular. And for brothers and sisters in Christ suffering in the Ukraine right now. Goodbye for now. >>Kristen Padilla: You’ve been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the Cathedral Church of the Advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquarello. Our co-hosts are Doug Sweeney and, myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at www.BeesonDivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.