How would you feel if you could tell the Christmas story to someone who had never before heard it?  This was my wife, Cheri’s, experience recently when she told the story of Jesus’ birth to a group of young teenagers.

“They were incredulous,” Cheri said later.  “First, I asked them why much of the world celebrates the birth of this one man, and they didn’t know.  When I told them

that Joseph was not Jesus’ father, they laughed and looked knowingly at each other.  Then I explained that Jesus had no human father, that He was God’s Son, sent to earth from heaven.  They kept whispering, ‘чудо!’ to each other– ‘a miracle!’  One girl said to me, ‘No wonder you Americans make Christmas a holiday!’”

In a country like Ukraine, which was held in the grip of atheism for many decades under Communism, the story of Christ’s advent was virtually lost for much of the population.  Today, Christmas trees and ornaments and “twinkle lights” can be found in major cities of Ukraine, but Jesus’ birth is celebrated only by Bible-believing Christians, who make up 3.8% of Ukraine’s 46 million souls.

Someone recently suggested to me that Ukraine is not a true “mission field” because it is not in the “10-40 Window.”  While it is a fact that Ukrainians have much more access to the Gospel than nations located in the “Window,” there are still millions here who may not know that Christ came to earth to seek and save the lost.  They are lost, and they do not know it.  God has made a way for them to come to Him, through Jesus, and they need to hear this message.

       “How then shall they call upon Him in whom they have not believed?  And how

        shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard?  And how shall they hear

        without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” (Rom. 10)