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RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — A Bible school in a faraway land has little chance against political upheaval.
And so it was that the Coyle family — Pastor Andy and his wife, Monica, and their children — left Ukraine last year with heavy hearts after four years of long, passionate work.
"It was bittersweet, because it became a home for us," Monica said in a recent interview. "We grew to love the people there, our neighbors, our kids' classmates. We left a part of us behind."
"We felt safe in our homes," Andy said, "but we knew it had come to an end."
Russia was bullying Ukraine, choking off resources for the Coyles' Bible school there, which was just short of its fourth anniversary. The family returned to the Black Hills last June, the Rapid City Journal (http://bit.ly/1PDvYM6 ) reported.
Andy and Monica were foreign missionaries with the Association of Free Lutheran Congregations, brought in by the East European Missions Network. The EEMN had started a Bible school in Ukraine, a strategic location that allowed that nation's students, plus others from Russia and other Eastern European nations, to attend and study.
"It's something that allows students to learn and go back into their own nations to build a church, or enter youth ministry, help in practical areas with a spiritual foundation," Andy said. "It's a way to rebuild the church in an area where it was decimated."
The Coyles have experience in European missions; they previously worked in Russia, Latvia, Poland and the Czech Republic, where they used the Bible to teach English. The two had met and bonded over similar interests in European mission work, and initially tried to start a Bible school in Russia but were unable to get visas.
The Coyles, along with their two children at the time (two more were born while the family was in Ukraine), established the ministry in the village of Petrodolina. There, Andy's work included Bible classes every day, as well as helping with social or physical needs for locals.
"If there were nearby village kids without family or drunk family members, they could come in to get help with their homework," Andy said. "And the students would get hundreds of hours of practical experience in whatever their focus was."
The family was just as engaged in the area.
"We took Russian classes, our kids went to Ukrainian school," Monica said. "We did as much as possible to learn about the culture and the people. We got to understand life for them there."
The Coyles bonded closely with the people of Petrodolina, but said that they noticed both the heavy poverty in the area and the staggering corruption of the government.
"We had a cargo van, and Andy was sometimes pulled over on the road because they thought he was smuggling in Russians," Monica said. "He had done nothing wrong, but sometimes he had to pay money before they let him go because they were looking for papers that didn't exist."
"The students are 18- to 25-year-olds struggling to get paid good money," Andy said. "They'll go to university and honestly want to study, but they have to bribe teachers to get good grades. Many won't do that, and it hurts them, and they'll go to work at McDonald's because it pays better than getting an actual degree."
Andy said that he was always hopeful that things would change, but that he would not hold his breath, as the problem is "systemic and deep."
Things got worse in 2014 when riots in Kiev left 98 dead and 15,000 injured in January, and Russia took control of Crimea in February. In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, insurgencies were led, escalating into an armed conflict between the separatists forces and Ukrainian government. Despite attempts at ceasefires, the conflict is ongoing, with over 9,000 killed.
The Coyles said that they were safe, as the conflict stayed in eastern Ukraine, but that the political situation between Ukraine and Russia deteriorated, and international support was pulled from the Bible ministry.
"People in Ukraine had so many conflicts, there was dramatic propaganda in Russia that didn't match reality, and Bible school students stopped being sent from Russia and other nations," Monica said.
"All of the relationships with other churches were gone, and we didn't have enough students from Ukraine to sustain a full-time residential program," Andy said. "The church we were working with in Ukraine imploded, and with that, the writing was on the wall."
In February 2015, when the church chose not to renew their agreement, the family started getting ready to leave.
"It wasn't part of the plan, but it was how it happened," Andy said. "We're glad to be back, but there's a mixed feeling, a mourning process for how things turned out."
Back in Rapid City, the Coyles have started a new church, Shiloh Free Lutheran, as a way to serve the area.
"South Dakota is home for me," Monica said. "Our mission is church-planting, reaching out to people who have become discouraged or disillusioned with the church."
"We're excited to get into the community, because there are a lot of needs, spiritual or otherwise," Andy said.
The connection between their time in Ukraine and their new ministry in Rapid City is their focus on people.
"People are the same everywhere," Monica said. "They want to be appreciated for who they are and seek to understand someone else."
"Often in church we focus on minutiae and lose focus on people," Andy said. "Getting out of the country was a good thing, because it helped us understand that life is short, and that people matter."
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, http://www.rapidcityjournal.com
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