A Song for Anya
From Psalm 84: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts! My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing for joy to the living God.”
I’d like to tell you the story of 14 year-old Anya. She’s a girl without a home. No lovely dwelling place. Her heart and her flesh do not sing for joy, yet her soul longs, indeed it faints for home. Home and her mother. Anya is Ukrainian.
As Russian forces invaded the city of Mariupol last spring, children fled bombed-out group homes and boarding schools where they had been living without parents. (Some had no parents. Others were attending school and others were recovering from illnesses.) As they fled they followed neighbors and strangers heading west hoping to find safety in central Ukraine.
Much of this story comes from the reporting of Emma Bubola, a New York Times reporter based in London who spent months trying to track down the missing children. As the children on their own fled the indiscriminate bombing in Mariupol, they were forced to stop at checkpoints around the city controlled by Russian forces. There Russian authorities put them on buses headed into Russian-held territory and deep into Russia itself.
Since Russian’s invasion of Ukraine began last February it is reported with great patriotic fanfare by Russia itself that they have transferred over 2000 children from Ukraine – children whose parents were killed, injured or went missing, vulnerable children like Anya who were in group homes or boarding school.
It sounds like this is a whole-scale deliberate deportation of Ukrainian children against their will by Russian soldiers, and it is speculated that this potential kidnapping of thousands of children could be classified as a war crime while at the same time Vladimir Putin claims that Ukrainian children are really Russian children and mother Russia is simply providing the children new homes and new families.
From Psalm 84: “Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.” Instead here we have children as the spoils of war moved about and used as propaganda. We have an enemy stealing the youngest and most vulnerable of sparrows, the children who are sick, poor and orphaned, and laying them at the altars of a brutal dictator. And each child taken to a Russian family to be adopted against their will has to listen to an orientation video featuring Putin himself who tells the children that they ought to be proud to be in
Russia.
From Psalm 84: “Happy are those who live in your house, ever singing your praise. Happy are those whose strength is in you, in whose heart are the highways to Zion.” Some of the children fleeing on their own are injured and end up in hospitals completely alone. An 8-year-old boy named Nazar, who had hidden with his mother in the Mariupol theater that was destroyed by Russian bombs ended up in a hospital in a Russian controlled city. He survived but he never did find his mother. Another child – a toddler – who survived the bombing arrived in a stroller pushed by a stranger along with a handwritten note that read, “This is Misha. Please help him!” A man at that hospital who was trying to help these children told the reporter, that one-by-one the children vanished. He said, “They simple took away all the children who were left without parents. We still do not know where these children are.”
Do you remember how Psalm 84 began? “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of hosts.” Now it is clear that this lovely dwelling place to which the psalmist refers is the temple – the place of worship, and those who sing this psalm, those who are struck by its beauty have travelled a very long time and endured much hardship to get to this beautiful temple.
Two Sundays ago, this beautiful temple, this lovely place of worship that we call Holy Trinity was teaming with joy, was filled to the rafters with all kinds of music, and those very rafters were shaking from the 30 or so children drumming with all their might. And there was a moment that took my breath away. A moment where I, like the psalmist, sang in my heart these words from verse 2: “My soul longs, indeed it faints for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my flesh sing to the living God.”
This was the moment – after worship had ended and I could “let down” a bit. I stepped outside through the doors of the sacristy out onto the beautiful lawn on the gorgeous day at the precise moment that the children were streaming outside from another door, and it was just when they saw the bouncy houses, pointed at them and they all began to run towards the bouncy houses, and I just kind of lost it. “My heart and my flesh sing to the living God.” At the sight of such happy, delighted and eager children – and safe children – tears started rolling down my cheeks. ‘My heart and my flesh sing to the living God.”
It was as if I had caught a glimpse of the kingdom – of God’s kingdom here on earth. A split-second snapshot of how God intends us to live. The kids and parents of Rose Conservatory, the kids and parents and people of Holy Trinity and Bristol Trinity, the people of School on Wheels, the people of Raising Multicultural Kids, the people who serve Father Bill’s, current and former pastors and priests, musicians politicians, cable TV folk and on and on. It was as if at that moment we caught a glimpse of the joy that comes in the creation of community, but not just joy, but also safety, protection, respect and dignity.
It’s the same kind of glimpse of the kingdom we get a peek at today and every time we gather in this beautiful temple. In her talk at the beginning of worship, did you hear Julie’s remarkable courage, her wonderful gifts, her inspiring faith to serve others for the sake of serving others, for the sake of enriching our community? Will we not see a glimpse of the kingdom when we welcome two beautiful children of God, now adults of course, Delores and Julie into our fellowship? Will we not taste the kingdom of God as we break bread, and in today’s case Vel’s Italian Sweet bread, and give thanks for receiving Jesus himself, his body and blood, the bread and the wine into our very own bodies?
How blessed, how fortunate we are that we can sing the song of the psalmist: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!” How blessed we are that we have this beautiful temple – this place of worship. How blessed we are that every one of us has a beautiful home to live in.
But not so for 14-year-old Anya in Ukraine whose temporary home as the war broke out was a group home on a wooded campus with a red swing set where she was recovering from tuberculosis. But as explosions blew up her building she fled so quickly that she left behind on a scrap of paper with her mother’s phone number. She could only remember the first three numbers. And now she had been taken against her will to live with a foster family near Moscow but she longed to be home.
In the words of the reporter, “Sometimes, Anya said, she cries, wondering if something horrible has happened to her family.” After more than a month of searching, reporters finally found Anya’s mother, Oksana in Ukraine. With no job, no internet access, a small disability pension and a war going on, she said she had no idea how to find her daughter. “I’m looking everywhere, but I can’t find her,” she said. And with hope she said, “She is looking for me.”
She did not know Anya had been taken to Russia. Reporters told Anya and Oksana how to contact each other. The prospect of Anya returning home, though, is unclear. Ukrainian officials have been tight-lipped about how they have gotten dozens of children back from Russian. Then perhaps with some doubt and hope at the same time, Anya asked the reporter, “Is this really her number?”
All the psalms like today’s, Psalm 84 – are actually songs for worship. Some psalms are filled with hope, some despair, some longing, some confessional, some joyful. This morning in our beautiful temple let’s sing for Anya knowing that through God’s voice, Anya will hear us. The words go like this: “There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord, for you to reveal yourself to us.” Let’s also sing for Anya. How about this? “There is a longing in our hearts, O Lord, for you to reveal yourself to Anya.” Amen.