HOW A UKRAINIAN SOLDIER MET GOD
Ilgar was raised in a unique home, with a Muslim father and a Christian mother.
“Initially, my parents tried to reach an agreement, but eventually, my mother's maternal heart couldn't bear it, and she baptized me in the Sofiysky Cathedral. Soon, my father found out, and within a year, an Imam flew in from Azerbaijan and performed the circumcision ceremony at our home.”
Due to these differences, his parents divorced, and Ilgar lived with his mother. His quest for spiritual truth was not over though. He researched numerous religions in his free time and decided they were all various ways of manipulating people and getting rich off of them, so he became an atheist.
“As I grew older, wisdom came, and I realized that the world is not just as it seems, and there is something higher than us. I became an agnostic.” He acknowledged some sort of higher power and this set him on the path toward meeting the real God.
“When I turned 27, I had a well-paying job, relationships, and plans for the future, but then the war broke out. I left everything behind to defend my homeland. Soon, I found myself in various cities of Ukraine, meeting different people and witnessing the horrors firsthand.
“Every time I thought it couldn't get worse, we were sent to even more terrifying places. In the fall of 2023, we were carrying out a combat mission on the Donetsk-Luhansk front. Serebryansky Forest will forever remain in my memory, along with the comrades who never made it out. But it was precisely there, in such a dreadful place where there seemed to be nothing sacred, that I felt the presence of God.” They spent three months in that forest, holding positions at the cost of their own lives.
Ilgar says that there was one moment that defined his faith, which he will never forget. “It was a regular day in the trenches. Enemy soldiers stood a hundred meters away. Since communication was very poor, we improvised with an antenna. As I approached the radio to report the situation, a mine landed about one and a half meters away from me, and immediately another one landed exactly where I was standing. Thanks to God, I only suffered a concussion. When I came to my senses, I saw that the jacket I was wearing was shredded by shrapnel, but I didn’t even have a scratch on me. That's when I realized it wasn't luck or my skills but a divine miracle that saved me!”
From that moment, Ilgar says his life has been divided into ‘before and after.’ He left the battlezone, but thoughts about God didn’t leave. In another coincidence, the first day he was released from military service, an old friend–Steiger missionary Angela–sent him a message.
“She wrote to me, for the first time in many years, suggesting a meeting. At that time, I didn't understand anything, but now I’m convinced that this meeting was planned by God. We continued our communication, sharing different thoughts, and I dared to tell Angela that I believed in God. You can't imagine how shocked and at the same time happy she was.”
Angela continued to share about her relationship with God, and eventually invited him to the Steiger Community House. There he met many people, learned from the Bible, and found a friend–Kirill.
“At first, I went to the Community House to see Angela, and when she left, I continued going on my own. Every Thursday, we studied the Bible, and I became more and more convinced of how almighty and loving God is. It was there I found answers to my questions.”
Ilgar’s faith solidified one Sunday when he visited the Community House for a “Sunday mass.” After the sermon, the speaker invited those willing to accept the Lord into their hearts to come forward and pray together.
“I was shy because I understood that if I went forward, there would be no turning back. But something inside pushed me, as if an invisible force pulled me onto the stage.”
Disregarding logic and nervousness, he went forward and a few people from the team prayed for him. “At that moment, chills ran through my body, and I was so nervous, but after saying ‘Amen,’ it felt like a huge burden lifted from my shoulders. It was an irreversible moment in my life!
“Now I continue to study the Bible with my friend Kirill and daily build a relationship with God."