Prayer, Persecution, and Hope: Dr. Chotka's Ukrainian Journey

In this episode of "Conversations with Rich Bennett," Rich sits down with Dr. David Chotka to discuss his powerful experiences in Ukraine. Dr. Chotka shares his journey of spreading faith in a country rebuilding from decades of persecution. From the challenges faced by Ukrainian Christians under communist rule to the miraculous stories of hope and prayer, Dr. Chotka's insights provide a profound look into the resilience of the human spirit. Sponsored by Harford County Living, join us for an inspiring conversation about faith, freedom, and the transformative power of prayer.

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:02
So this gentleman was on before and we talked about his one book, believe it was Healing Prayer, God's Idea for Restoring Body Mind and Spirit. And we actually had a good conversation about God and pray and how to pray. And one of the things that afterwards I believe we were talking to afterwards, and I say, why is it that I don't know what was why people don't talk to God or. 

Dr. David Chotka 0:33
Or talk about. 

Rich Bennett 0:34
Or talk about God. Yeah, you're right. It's total backup, because one of the things that we discussed was, well, the way the way the world is today, and I think a lot of it happened when, you know, like they took God out of the schools. You saw it with a lot of your political offices where they went to take the Ten Commandments away and all this. And it's like 

it just I don't know. To me, it doesn't make sense. I mean, I know you would. What did they say You got to separate God from. 

Dr. David Chotka 1:09
They want your. 

Rich Bennett 1:09
Churches. Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 1:11
But historically, now you're American. I'm Canadian, but so 

Rich Bennett 1:14
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 1:14
a little bit different. We grew up with your mother, England, and you decided to rebel. So that's why one. But it's our cultures have a lot of overlap. 

Rich Bennett 1:24
Right? 

Dr. David Chotka 1:25
It's different in yours. When your country was established. You didn't want a state church like the Anglican Church being the Church of the Church of England and the, 

Rich Bennett 1:34
Mm 

Dr. David Chotka 1:34
you know, 

Rich Bennett 1:35
hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 1:35
the Lutheran Church being the Church of Norway or the Lutheran Church being the Church of Germany. You didn't want a state church. And so when when the framers of the American Constitution wrote it, they they they basically were a bunch of believers, but they didn't want any one church to be the dominant church. And that's 

Rich Bennett 1:50
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 1:50
why they had this idea of separation of church and state. And it didn't mean no faith. It meant, oh, by the way, I don't want to make sure that everybody's a Baptist or I don't want to make sure that everybody's an Anglican. 

Rich Bennett 2:00
Which 

Dr. David Chotka 2:00
What 

Rich Bennett 2:01
makes sense. 

Dr. David Chotka 2:02
You were trying to say, okay, listen there, there's Methodism, there's an Anglican, there's Baptist, 

Rich Bennett 2:05
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 2:06
they can be Christian under this thing. And oh, by the way, we do believe in God. But let's make sure that no one of those organizations becomes the lever of power in terms of political influence. That's what that's what's behind your American Constitution on that one. 

Rich Bennett 2:20
Well, at least that's what's supposed to be. 

Dr. David Chotka 2:22
Well, I know at least, though, Thomas Jefferson, he loved his, but he couldn't stand that miraculous stuff. He didn't believe in the miraculous stuff. 

Rich Bennett 2:29
Yeah, 

Dr. David Chotka 2:29
So. So. But he did believe in Jesus, but he didn't know about all those miracles. So, 

Rich Bennett 2:35
I just. 

Dr. David Chotka 2:36
yeah. 

Rich Bennett 2:37
It just gets me because I think they're they're trying to take it too far where they don't yet. It's church. I understand. But I feel like they're trying to take God out of everything. 

Dr. David Chotka 2:48
Well, that's the trend of secular culture, and we have to be careful that what I'm looking for. I don't particularly care if the government is or isn't Christian. What I care about is the freedom to be able to talk about it anywhere I want to. 

Rich Bennett 3:00
Yes. 

Dr. David Chotka 3:01
That's the issue. And so, like I have spoken in the Ukraine just after they were allowed to start talking about God and oh, man, you should have seen that before and after kind of thing. 

Rich Bennett 3:12
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 3:13
They were so that my very first three missions trip led to the writing of this book. Here. I wrote this one. This is a book on the Lord's Prayer, but I developed the manuscript because I was trying to teach its content to them, and they had not been able to gather in places of public worship. They were not allowed to do that. What happened? 

Rich Bennett 3:34
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 3:35
The communist came in and they said there is no God and Christianity and Judaism and any kind of faith is sickness. So we're not going to if you want to be a success here in this society, you have to remember the Communist Party. That means you have to declare. 

Rich Bennett 3:46
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 3:48
And then they would persecute. They would actively persecute. So my background's Ukrainian. And I don't know if you know the history. Stalin took all the Eastern Orthodox priests and all the Lutherans and all Baptists and whatever group there happened to be, and would separate husbands and wives, put one husband in Siberia, put the wife back in the Ukraine, or vice versa. 

Rich Bennett 4:06
Whoa. 

Dr. David Chotka 4:07
Then he would eliminated the publishing of new Christian books. They eliminated that so you couldn't buy. They said they had freedom and they purchased. But nobody wants these books that we're not going to print them. And so to buy a Bible in the Ukraine between 1922 or three and the end when the wall came down was about three months of your entire wage. But if you wanted to buy. 

Rich Bennett 4:31
What? 

Dr. David Chotka 4:32
If you wanted to buy a communist book, it would cost you $0.20. And so they said, we have freedom of the press, but then they didn't have freedom of the press. So I came in just after Mikhail Gorbachev created freedom in that state, and they were allowed them to become their own country. Now Putin wants his back because he wants all the land. He wants to. He wants to. 

Rich Bennett 4:51
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 4:52
Products and so on. And he's going to destroy those people who've now had 30 years of freedom. But regardless of this, when I was there and he brought a Bible, they would just take they shake and they would they would hit the ground weeping as they sang to you and kiss your hand and that kind of thing. Because they hadn't. So I got to see some of those students. Some of those students had met behind a rock, and if they'd managed to find a passage of scripture in some of the old books, like a Dostoyevsky book or a Tolstoy book or something like that, they would take that and scribble it into a notebook. And then if they heard a snatch of a message on Radio Free Europe, or if they heard Communist propaganda against the Bible, they would not listen to the propaganda. They'd write down the Scripture verse, but they'd hide behind a rock somewhere and they would share those scripture verses. And some of these people only had two or three pages. That's all. 

Rich Bennett 5:46
Was it? 

Dr. David Chotka 5:48
Handwritten. That's all they had. So it was it was banned. It was just banned. They weren't allowed to do it. And so I actually maybe I should tell you the story of one of the most powerful prayer times they ever had. So I did. Yeah, I did my master's thesis in the Book of Effusions. And so I had when I went to Ukraine, one of the things that I taught was effusions. And there's this interesting thing that goes on in the book of effusions. It's the highest concentration of spirit language, and it's the highest concentration of demon language. It when they're both put together. So it's the third highest content for Holy Spirit. It's the first highest for unclean spirits, and it's just about evenly balanced. And when you read the book, it's called The Queen of the Epistles. And if you start to read that, you'll know why. Trying to absorb all of that book in one read it like wading through mud and rubber stilts is lots of this. The content is so deep, it's just deep. So anyway, I was teaching. 

Rich Bennett 6:43
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 6:45
And here's what they would do. They would. They would study with me. They had professors coming in because the wall had come down in 1990. I went in 1993 and I went in 94. And there was a new church that had just grown out of nothing because now they were allowed to talk about it in public circles and they had not been able to. And so I went to a worship service to worship services. While I was there. I went over to weekends and they would they would worship for four or 5 hours and they'd line up one preacher after another because they'd not been allowed to sing, they'd not been allowed to read the Bible, they'd not been allowed to gather. They've not been allowed to talk to each other unless it had to do with communist propaganda. And if you talked about faith outside of the walls of one of the churches that they had designated, they would then arrest you. And sometimes they kill you. They shot all the Orthodox priests and they took all the processes, separated them out. And you couldn't get a job. So I wound up standing beside many of these people who had suffered because they would not renounce Christianity in the name of the communist state. And they couldn't get work and some of them couldn't eat very much and they would be going from hand to mouth. And that went on for decades. So we're talking about 70 years 

Rich Bennett 7:56
She. 

Dr. David Chotka 7:56
of that, that kind of thing. You know what? Most people in our countries, America and Canada, don't really understand this. 

Rich Bennett 8:04
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 8:04
In western Canada. There's a huge population of Ukrainians, Right? And now we know there is not. I'm Ukrainian by background. And now there's another million Ukrainians who have come into Canada because of the war. So there's 

Rich Bennett 8:18
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 8:18
a. Half million Ukrainians inside Canada right now. Half of them are war refugees and the other half are people who settled in western Canada and developed learning institutions and grew and planted Orthodox 

Rich Bennett 8:29
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 8:29
Roman Catholic churches because they wanted to. And that was such a freedom to them. So if you drive through rural Canada in the western provinces, you're comfortable a little town, and they'll be there'll be three things in the town, a bar, a place to buy your groceries, and either an Eastern Orthodox or a Roman Catholic church with a Ukrainian accent. 

So, you know, these old towns and what happened back in the day when Canada was opening up the West. Clifford Sifton, who was the was assistant to the prime minister in charge of immigration, went to Eastern Europe and got all these people from Eastern Europe to come to Canada on the basis of free land. And so the ones who did not inherit land said we're going, and they would bring their friends with them and whole towns would just transfer over. That's what they. 

Rich Bennett 9:15
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 9:16
And they'd recreate the town inside Canada. And the first language was Ukrainian. So my dad and mom used to talk about this. They'd have a Chinese merchant in the town who had a restaurant or they had a laundromat, one or the other. And if they wanted to do business, the Chinese guy had to speak Ukrainian. If you can imagine. 

Rich Bennett 9:36
I bet that was. 

Dr. David Chotka 9:38
Anyway, so. So here's the thing. So Ukrainians have come to Canada because of the war, and so they've been easily accepted inside the framework of this culture. And now Americans know Ukrainians are not Russians. They're like the Dutch in world. 

Rich Bennett 9:49
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 9:50
There was the Concorde. They were the ones who saw And to call somebody Ukrainian Russians an insult like calling a Dutch person a Nazi is an insult 

Rich Bennett 9:57
Ukrainian. 

Dr. David Chotka 9:57
anyway. 

Rich Bennett 9:58
Russian. 

Dr. David Chotka 10:00
Yeah, well, when I was a kid, if I said my name, they'd say, Is that a Russian name? I'd say, No, it's Ukrainian. They said, Oh, it's the same thing. And. 

Rich Bennett 10:06
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 10:07
No, no, no, it's not. It's not. But the assumption was that it was. And Russia believes that Ukraine is just a subset of Russia. 

Rich Bennett 10:14
She's. 

Dr. David Chotka 10:15
So now I don't know if you know this, I'm going to tell you a story about the Bible school students, because that's important. Here, let me finish the Bible school student thing. All right. So I was teaching them that the center of the book of Ephesians is that Jesus power is greater than the demons. And the reason why the letter to the official was written was because the Apostle Paul was dealing with people who had been converted under the pagan practices. And those pagan practices included the practice of witchcraft and cursing, and it included worship of idols and so on and so forth. And when they came to Jesus, they had said yes, based upon whatever reason they did, but they still had this fear of the unclean spirit beings attached to the old cult. In fact, if you wanted to be a worshiper of the God of wine disease or because you would drink wine until you became intoxicated, and then you would invite an unclean spirit into you so that you could prophesy. And this is where this is where the the phrase spirits came from. 

Rich Bennett 11:17
Series. 

Dr. David Chotka 11:18
I'm very serious. Called a disease. So they become. And now they're they're afraid because they've asked these unclean spirits into them to do this. And so Paul rakes his letter and he's trying to tell them that the power of God is greater than the power of the demons. And that's the whole point of the letter from. 

Rich Bennett 11:34
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 11:35
Anyway. So, you know and you look it's interesting thing about every nine verses you have a reference to the Holy Spirit in the book just about evenly through the book. And you. Sections of of concentrated language about unclean spirit beings. And it's a very, very, very interesting study to put those two things side by side and look at them and that was my master's thesis. So I'm in Ukraine. I'm teaching the students. And I showed them a diagram. And the diagram was that when they were dead ensigns, they were like dead. But walking. It's like going to the Wal-Mart Mart mall, watching all those people walk around. Anyway, the text of Ephesians two one, two, three says, You lived in those cities and you were dead, but you were walking in your senses. This picture of these zombies. And just before that, you know the picture of Jesus rising from the dead. And just after that you have this picture of the church being joined the Jesus resurrection. And so you've got Jesus rises, the dead walk, and they're full of sin. And oh, by the way, now we're raised in Christ. And so it's an intentional contrast. If the whole point of it is this crazy contrast. And to summarize it in a single verse, you would say, Jesus came to embarrass the power of the demon. So I spent a day teaching the students what the text said. 

Rich Bennett 12:46
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 12:47
That may teach you, but the slogan that came out of it was what I just said to you. So here's what happened. They would study with a Canadian, an American, a sweet or a Norwegian. And we came at our own expense and then paid their tuition. 

Rich Bennett 12:59
Okay. 

Dr. David Chotka 12:59
And so this was them getting a foothold and being able to start again because they've not been allowed to have any training for 70 years. We got some books translated into Ukrainian and gave it to them, and I was translated as I spoke because my language, my you know what? I would say something. They laugh 100. 

Rich Bennett 13:18
Were. You're saying it. 

Dr. David Chotka 13:19
I'm not. We should be. 

Or that we're apart a couple of times. I'll tell you a funny story after the. Getting back to this, the students would study with it with the teacher all day, and then they would go and they would do outreach in a neighboring town or community. They didn't have any kind of Christian presence at all, 

Rich Bennett 13:39
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 13:39
so they wouldn't move church there at all. And sometimes people wanted to have one. Students would go out there and talk about their faith, and then various people would come forward and the result was, while I was there, I watched 2000 people say yes to the claims of Christ. And one of those students from the Bible school that became pastor to 500 new converts. It was this amazing kind of thing. 

Rich Bennett 13:58
Whoa. 

Dr. David Chotka 13:59
You want to talk about church planning? That was fun. But here's what happens. So we have this evening thing, and for fun, I would join the students, right? And they would sing these songs. And some of them were songs of my childhood. And so they were shocked and amazed when I was able to sing those songs with them because my mommy and my daddy had taught me some And it created a great bond with us, you know, just marvelous thing. And then I would I would learn some of the songs that they were getting, the new ones, and we would try and do this. And it was great 

Rich Bennett 14:26
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 14:26
fun. And they would be about my bad accent and all that. Anyway, we were on this bus and the bus was was donated by the Norwegians and there was a tent that they set up in a neighboring town. It was donated by the Americans. And then I was a Canadian teacher who came in and our goal was to give them a start to help them replant the gospel in that country. 

Rich Bennett 14:46
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 14:47
And so, you know, I went with the students and while we were driving by, just we went a couple of nights and we had some amazing experiences. And on the third night we heard that there was a communist army commander who still believed in communism. And we were going to a military town called Oak Ridge, which is about an hour's drive from Chernobyl. That place where the radiation. 

Rich Bennett 15:08
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 15:10
And we had set up the tent and a bunch of those soldiers wanted to receive Bibles and literature because they didn't have any because they couldn't afford 

Rich Bennett 15:17
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 15:17
it. And the Army commander told those soldiers that they were forbidden to go to the meeting. And he was an old communist who believed that God was not real. And this was delusion. And the soldiers were getting sick. There had been a colonel who'd got up and he testified, and 60 people said yes to the claims of Christ. They wanted literature, they wanted Bible stuff. And we had loaded that up in our bus. And then we heard that the soldiers were forbidden, and it meant 60, 70% of our crowd would be able to come. 

Rich Bennett 15:45
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 15:46
So well, what are we going to do? And so we decided to go anyway because there were other people in town apart from the military. But it was a blow to the students. Right. So we're driving in this Norwegian bus and the bus breaks down. Now you need to know something. There was no. There was no infrastructure in the on that road. We're talking about nothing. There was no gas stations. There was no mechanics, because they were allowed to travel in that culture. In fact, the signs were liars. So if they didn't want people to travel because if they travelled to get information and so they they if some if there was a town and it was a two hour drive away, they the sign would say that it was 4 hours. As 

Rich Bennett 16:24
Really? 

Dr. David Chotka 16:24
to stop. Yes, they would. And so we they laughed at the signs when I showed up because everybody knew they were lies now. But back in the day, they weren't. They were allowed to travel, but they were they were lied to about the distances to the towns. Anyway, there was no gas stations. There was no ability to be able to distribute goods and services. They had not yet learned how to do that because the state had done all of that and the Russians had left. They were so mean. They took the fence posts out of the ground of the Ukrainians because they said we built the fences. That belongs to us. When I arrived there in 1984, I watched, you know, people harvesting crop with their hands because they didn't have machinery. They weren't allowed to learn, they weren't allowed to study, they weren't allowed to grow. Now, I don't know. Listen, I will tell you that because of what happened with them receiving freedom and because Western Europe made the decision to help train them within a few years, they were starting to develop middle class economy. It was amazing. So I will tell you about what happened two years later. But let me finish this story. So we're driving along and the bus breaks down. Of course, the students were already low because they had heard that the communist Army commander was going to wreck the thing. 

Rich Bennett 17:35
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 17:35
Stop it. And now our bus is broken down and we have 25, 30 students in the bus. We have a guitar player who's the worship leader, and we have somebody who's the preacher. And they can't get there and they're really depressed. And then they looked at me and they said, Oh, teacher David, They called me. Well, Teacher David, That's my teacher. The teacher, the teacher the. Didn't you teach us this morning that Jesus would embarrass the power of the demons? I said, yes. They said, Well, the Communist Army commander said, No, and now the bus is broken down. Do you think that might be the devil? I said, Well, it could be white. And then they started talking and then they said, We have to pray. Now, it was Pentecost, those in Baptist, as a very, very two different cultures to. 

Rich Bennett 18:19
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 18:21
The Pentecostal. He sings out loud. He speaks in tongues. He walks around with his hands in. The Baptist kneels and bows his hip. 

So the Baptist students knelt and cried out to God saying, Oh God, please embrace the demons. And the Pentecostals walked around them shouting, Oh God bears the demons, bears knees. And they prayed like that for about 20 minutes. And there's suddenly, suddenly there was this profound sense of presence and all 20, 25 of us all felt it all at once. 

Rich Bennett 18:52
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 18:52
Then it went snap and it lifted and we knew our prayer was answered. And so we looked at each other and said, We're done praying. And right at that moment, a taxi came by and it was there would only been one car come by that route the whole time. And it stopped. And it was one person who had been to that outreach is over. And he looks at the students and said, You're going over. And the students said, yes. And he said, Well, I got room for the guitar player in the preacher. And so two of them went into the car and he drove them over. The rest of us were still stuck at the 

Rich Bennett 19:22
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 19:22
side of the room. And so we started to pray again. So same thing. The Baptist knelt down and said, Oh, God, have mercy, you know, adversity. And the Pentecostals started to walk it around and nobody cared what way you did it. They were praying the same prayer. Anyway, another 5 minutes left, and then suddenly it lifted and we all looked at each other and knew the prayer was. So we just got up from our prayer and an army transport stopped 

Rich Bennett 19:47
Oh, God. 

Dr. David Chotka 19:47
right where the students were and out of the army transport truck come several of the soldiers who wanted those Bibles. And they looked at us with hint, hint, wink, wink. And they said, What happened? And they said, Well, we're on our way to all routes. We were going to finish out the retreat. And the soldiers said, we're not allowed to go. So don't know what you want your Bible say. So then they said, Wait a minute, we have an idea. So they got on their communication device. I think it was a walkie talkie, and they called the nearest divisional outreach commander and they said, Commander, we have 25, 30 students, Ukrainian citizens stranded by the side of the road and they can't get to their destination. What are your orders? And he said, I will order three transports. You take all of them to their destination and make sure they get home. And so the students looked at me and they began nodding their heads. And then 

Rich Bennett 20:39
I 

Dr. David Chotka 20:39
we loaded 

Rich Bennett 20:39
love that. 

Dr. David Chotka 20:40
and all of the students were driven inside army transports to Oak Ridge. Then they did the outreach and a whole bunch of those soldiers who are required now to be there because the Army commander added it required them to 

Rich Bennett 20:55
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 20:55
be. A bunch of them said yes to the claims of Christ. All of the soldiers who wanted the resources got them because they were all friends together. So all of the material got passed out. They all got it. And then we found out that the army commander who had made the order to not for them not to go was the very same divisional commander who ordered them to accompany the students to that place and then take them home at night. And so the students. She chose to be. God is embarrassed. The demons. I said, Yes, He has. Yes, he has. That's. So that was an amazing answer to prayer. And I. 

Rich Bennett 21:32
Oh. 

Dr. David Chotka 21:33
That country begin to rise again. 

Rich Bennett 21:35
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 21:36
Well, that story actually is is in this book here. I put that story inside this book. 

Rich Bennett 21:41
Power praying. 

Dr. David Chotka 21:42
Yeah, that's the one. And but it was I did a video on this one. What happened with those students fundamentally transform my way of understanding how to pray. And now when I see what looks like evil, beginning to move into a situation. I had learned the theory and I taught the theory to the students. And they were the first ones to actually pray that prayer. Based upon my research from my master's. And 

Rich Bennett 22:09
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 22:09
so, yes, it was a while. And so I'm warmly connected to that group now. Two years later, I went back to Ukraine to teach a different group of students and one of the students who had been at the event was in my second class. But when I landed the first time in the Ukraine, I walked into the airport in Kiev and it was very primitive. The store was. Floor was stone and there was nothing on it to make it look appealing. They didn't even have places for you to stand in line. They had soldiers all over the place. There were pieces of metal coming out of the out of the turnstile and the airport the airport sign was was that was dangerous. Some of that broke some of the landing strips had been abandoned 

Rich Bennett 22:49
She. 

Dr. David Chotka 22:49
because they had holes in them, because the Russians would milk the economy and not put back in. And they want to do the same thing again. Anyway, two years later, after they were free, I came back and that airport was world class. It had a beautiful 

Rich Bennett 23:04
Really? 

Dr. David Chotka 23:04
life. Yes, it was. They had beautiful lines. They had a coffee shop, they had turnstiles. They had world class washroom facilities. The everything had been because Air France had been invited by Air Ukraine to come and. And so what happened was Air France taught them about how to create a world class airport. And they did. And it was it was only two years. It was like night and day. They learned as soon as they had opportunity to learn. And that happens to almost every people group on the planet if you give them opportunity and you 

Rich Bennett 23:38
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 23:39
can. People start to rise. And so the stereotype of the Ukrainian when I was growing up was dumb and stupid, and he'll do the job if you tell him. And now the stereotype of the Ukrainian is valiant and brilliant. Someone will rise up and defend his country if he needs to. Even to the point of death. And so the language about what a Ukrainian is is completely changed in that little bit of time. Anyway, that that was an amazing thing to see. For the first time in the airport was crazy so 

Rich Bennett 24:07
Oh, 

Dr. David Chotka 24:07
I. 

Rich Bennett 24:07
it sounds like it. 

Dr. David Chotka 24:09
Here's what they had to go home. And I was flying on Air Finland, Finnair. And I spoke a little bit of French, a little bit of Russian, a little bit Ukrainian and English. That's right. So and I have a I have ancient Greek and Hebrew as well as my theological studies, anyway. So I'm in the airport. And the fellow who was supposed to take me couldn't. And so somebody else took me there, but he couldn't remain with me. So I was on my own in the airport and they had these these crazy lines. So I was I was in the line to get to my airport. 

Rich Bennett 24:38
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 24:39
And nobody was moving. And I heard over the loudspeaker in French and Russian and English that my Finnair flight was about to leave in 25 minutes and I had to 

Rich Bennett 24:51
Oh. 

Dr. David Chotka 24:51
get. I was there 15 or 20 people ahead of me and nobody was moving. While I was standing in the line. Somebody tried to butt in and somebody else took a swing at him and a fistfight broke out. 

Rich Bennett 25:02
Oh, she. 

Dr. David Chotka 25:02
And the soldiers who were standing there with AK 47 watching this did not interfere with the fight. While I was standing there, there was a group of Hasidic Jews who came to their hour of prayer while the fight was happening. They began to do a circle dance. They started to stick their socks. Their hats into the air and they said help. And so there was a circle dance on one side. There was a fist fight on the other. And there were 25 people ahead of me. And so I yelled out in three languages and French, Russian and English. My plane is leaving in 25 minutes. Could someone let me in? And I said it in all three languages and nobody moved. There was a little Ukrainian baba standing next to me. She had to be all of five foot nothing. And she. In broken English. And she said, You are not from here. 

No, I'm not. And she said, I will help you. And she took her heavy purse and she began to sweat. 

Rich Bennett 25:59
Oh. 

Dr. David Chotka 25:59
She said, How come we get it before the light? So I got to the. So everybody got out of the way, and I. 

Rich Bennett 26:08
I guess so. 

Dr. David Chotka 26:10
I got to the front of the line and the guy with the AK 47 looked at the lady, looked at the fistfight, looked at the circle, deads stepped my passport, let me through. 

So that was what it was like in 1994. Now, in 1996, when I went back, there was order. There 

Rich Bennett 26:31
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 26:31
was there was, you know, these little things that they put up to make lines work, you know, that kind of thing. There were people who were professional. There was a coffee shop. There was a breakfast place. There was there was clean washrooms with with sealed doors so that nobody could see what you were doing. It was actually railroad glass. Air France took. The difference between just two years, two years fundamentally transformed the people who had nothing into to people who had something. 

Rich Bennett 27:00
That 

Dr. David Chotka 27:00
And Kiev 

Rich Bennett 27:00
is. 

Dr. David Chotka 27:01
went from being a place where you couldn't buy a loaf of bread to being a place of international commerce. And now the Russians want to destroyed. So now my prayer is that God would embarrass the demons. I'm praying that all the time. Yeah. So, you know, that's that was that was my first ever missions trip. I'd had never but it was to the land of my ancestors. And it was a strange thing. I was more Canadian than I was Ukrainian, but I had but all the things they were doing had behaviors in my family, you're saying. 

Rich Bennett 27:28
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 27:29
The food was the same, but it was covered in grease, you know. If a Ukrainian in that country would take a piece of goose fat and chew on it for fun because that was tasty. And I didn't I didn't want to do that. 

Rich Bennett 27:40
Hold up, 

Dr. David Chotka 27:41
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 27:42
Raul. 

Dr. David Chotka 27:44
Yeah, they would. Yeah. They 

Rich Bennett 27:45
Oh. 

Dr. David Chotka 27:46
went right to the stuff that was on the edge of the break, and they too. And. And I thought, Oh, man, I don't want to do that. That was when I arrived in 94. In 19 six. Their diet changed and you could see 

Rich Bennett 27:57
Because 

Dr. David Chotka 27:57
the. 

Rich Bennett 27:57
they all got sick. 

Dr. David Chotka 27:59
Well, more than that. But, you know, everybody did. The death age was young. 

Rich Bennett 28:03
Oh, 

Dr. David Chotka 28:03
I 

Rich Bennett 28:03
yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 28:03
mean, because. Because whatever. Anyway, now that they had 30 years of developing a culture, a society that was very, very helpful, very good to them. 

Rich Bennett 28:12
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 28:13
And they became just about just about on par with some of the lower middle class nations in Europe in those 30 years. And they were moving rapidly to becoming a world class place. And then Putin decided to invade because he didn't want a country to become that prosperous. Actually, Lithuania has now become that prosperous. So has Latvia become that prosperous? And these countries that had nothing are now starting. And now they're integrated with the European economy and they have NAITO and so on and so forth. And so they're safe. But the Ukraine was much bigger. It's bigger. It's the biggest European nation. Actually, I don't know if you know that. 

Rich Bennett 28:54
No, I didn't a. 

Dr. David Chotka 28:56
Bigger than France and Germany. It's bigger, has more landmass. And so they had a lot more work to do to turn that economy around than Latvia and Lithuania, which are small little principalities and small nations next. 

Rich Bennett 29:10
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 29:11
And so but they were making major, major progress and becoming, you know, on the borders of joining the European Union and and on the borders of joining NATO's as well. And for whatever reason, Germany decided to veto their entry. 

Rich Bennett 29:26
What? 

Dr. David Chotka 29:27
They decided to veto their entrance. They thought that they were still too primitive to meet, to meet NATO's standards, and so they were not allowed in. And actually, Angela merkel, who was raised in East Germany and spoke Russian together with German because of East Germany, who became to be the leader of Germany, was the one who issued the veto. And she was trying to do that because back in the day, the goal was that there would develop trade between the two countries, between Russia and the European Union. And that's why they had said yes to these gas contracts, because if you do business with someone, it's not your advantage to be at war with them. And the whole philosophy of approach at that point in the game was to create economic bonds with Russia so that Russia would not want to be at war. 

Rich Bennett 30:13
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 30:14
In Europe. That was the approach. And Ukraine had been such a part of the Russian orb. They didn't want to rock the boat. Because Poland had become part of the of needle and or by the way, Latvia and Lithuania and all those countries that are now part of that. They were in the Russian or before. And every time another country said, yes, it made the Russians a little more angry. And Ukraine was the biggest chunk, right? It was the biggest chunk. And so Gorbachev freed it. Putin wants to destroy it. 

Rich Bennett 30:46
Greed. 

Dr. David Chotka 30:48
Yeah, that's what it is. Anyway. So I'll tell you about the not quite fitting. So, you know, when I was a kid, you know, if you belong to one of these cultures, you'd raise your glass and you'd say, you know, cheers. Or you'd say school, or you'd say, whatever 

Rich Bennett 31:02
A lot. 

Dr. David Chotka 31:02
you. 

Rich Bennett 31:03
Whatever. Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 31:04
You created a diversion that means God gives to God give you health or something. 

Rich Bennett 31:08
What is it? Iboga. 

Dr. David Chotka 31:10
Yeah. So here's what happened. I was teaching that class and I had a glass of water, and I looked around and I said, diversion. And all of the class starts to laugh. I said, Why are you laughing? He said, Oh, Pesto, dammit. You just don't know. I said, No. I said, 100 years ago, when the Kazakhs wanted to rape and pillage a town, they would take a glass of vodka. They'd raise it up and they'd say that they drink it down and they go and attack the town. And so it's now the mark of the drunk. What? I was 

Rich Bennett 31:41
So what you're telling me is 

Dr. David Chotka 31:44
afraid. 

Rich Bennett 31:44
the next time that I have a barbecue and we're drinking bourbon, why should I hold up a glass and say dabaja? 

Dr. David Chotka 31:49
I've always said that you shouldn't do that. 

Rich Bennett 31:51
Okay. 

Dr. David Chotka 31:51
So that was funny. And then there was one moment that was really kind of straight. So I was teaching this class and there was a do I think it was 22 students in the first class? Anyway, I was beginning to remember my childhood Ukrainian, and I was really beginning to remember my textbook Russian. And so after the first few days, I spoke entirely in English. And then by the time I got to the second week, I was starting to use the textbook Russian. And I threw in the odd Ukrainian phrase, Right. And so the students were really liking that. And then one day I, a girl named Eva, dropped her pencil and I said, Eva, you dropped your pencil. And suddenly every female in the room turned bright red and looked down and all the men's jaws dropped. So I looked at my interpreter and I said. 

What did I say? And he said, Oh, Pastor Garvey. It is most unutterably foul. It cannot be repeated, he said. Then he said this to me. He said, You speak excellent English, Speak English. I should translate you. You speak textbook Russian, speak Russian. You don't need me to translate you, but don't speak Ukrainian. 

Some terms have changed over all those years. Anyway, the bottom line was it was a really lewd thing. It used to be a kind of a banal thing and it became really lewd. And that that frightened it all over. All over those students all over the Ukraine. They heard that Pastor David didn't know what he was talking about, the little speak Ukrainian. So those kinds of moments. But what I saw, I saw goodhearted people. Want a chance to start again. And I was given them opportunity to study and learn and grow. And we. 

Rich Bennett 33:35
That was 96. 

Dr. David Chotka 33:37
That was 94 and 96 I went to. And so, I mean, and there's, by the way, is a huge Jewish population in Ukraine. So Zelensky, who's the premier of the country, he's Jewish. And I was in the second time I went, I was into Dnipro, that section of the news all the time where that big flood was. I was in that town. 

Rich Bennett 33:57
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 33:58
When I saw that the dam had been exploded by the Russians. It's ruined that beautiful city. But while I was there, I went to a celebration of the 3000 anniversary of Jerusalem. 

Rich Bennett 34:10
Who? 

Dr. David Chotka 34:11
Because the Jewish population in that town had strong links to Israel. And so it was a Jewish festival. I went to it and that there's there's a huge number of people who have Jewish backgrounds. So Putin's claim that it's a bunch of Nazis in that country is totally, totally propaganda. 

Rich Bennett 34:29
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 34:30
Totally false, completely demonically evil. So I do pray to God for God to embarrass the. That's how I pray. So I'll send you that video so you can send it to Google. 5 minutes. They had 5000 views on YouTube and that was kind of that's my biggest YouTube thing. 

Rich Bennett 34:48
And 96 was the last time you were there, right? 

Dr. David Chotka 34:51
That's correct. I haven't been since I arrived. So my my information is old. I do know what I can tell you, though, that the advances that I saw in just two years. 

Rich Bennett 35:01
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 35:02
Was remarkable the first time I went. My translator and my driver came down to Kiev to pick me up and they wanted to buy some bread from Kiev because it was they had more ability to produce it. And so we went to the first store and there was no bread there. And so they got back in the car and they drove 15 minutes. They found another The stores were magazine. That's how you that's what you call a confectionery. 

Rich Bennett 35:27
Okay. 

Dr. David Chotka 35:27
So we pulled up to the next magazine and we walked in. There was dusty old bottles of this and that and no bread there. And then we went to a third. We drove 15 minutes and they found another one and there was dusty old bottles of this and that, but no bread. We went to five in total, no bread in five. And then I looked on the street and I saw a truck that had the sign for bread heap. It said Cleve on the side of the road. And suddenly, from all directions, people started to run toward that magazine where the bread was going to be sold. And I walked into that place, and there were all these men and women pushing and shoving to get toward where the bread was, shoving it under their arms without paper, no bags, no plastic. And there was a guy who had an AK 47 standing by the till. And when they saw the guy with the AK 47, they got into orderly lines and they took to peace and they paid as they left the thing. But it was the sixth store that we went to, and they had to have a guard with a machine. To make sure that you just steal the bread. Now, that was two years later. You could buy bread wherever you wanted. So in two years they went from being unable to market and produce to being able to run a store, to being able to purchase and buy and sell things. It was it was a major shift. So I watched the transformation of that culture and it was a remarkable thing. And I have friends who continue to travel to the Ukraine to go back and forth. Why would you? I was in Ukraine just a few short years after the Chernobyl accident, and I was staying in a town called Cawston, which is in what's called the third radiation zone. And and so if you got in the main radiation zone, you would not live long. If you were in the second radiation zone, you could stay there a few days and then you would have to move in the third radiation zone. It was like having two x rays a day. And eventually that would it would it would change your your metabolism that you could stay there for a week or two and you'd be all right. But there were people living there. And when Chernobyl happened, a whole bunch of nations suffered, including Russia. 

Rich Bennett 37:33
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 37:34
The winds carried the nuclear dust all over it. It wrecked it in Norway, erected in parts of Poland and Ukraine. It wrecked parts of Russia as well. So the Russians know from experience if there's a nuclear accident, it's going to ruin a whole pile of nations and huge. 

Rich Bennett 37:51
Including their own. 

Dr. David Chotka 37:52
Yes. If you drop a nuclear bomb, it's not just going to be focused on the one. It's going to transform the whole culture and change everything. Including their own country. And that's right on their border. 

Rich Bennett 38:03
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 38:03
So they have a bomb there, the nuclear radiation. There's no respect for borders. You just cross the border and take people out. 

Rich Bennett 38:11
Sure. 

Dr. David Chotka 38:12
Anyway, it's it's a fascinating thing to to watch that we haven't talked about here God yet. 

Rich Bennett 38:18
Well, I'm hoping that 

apparently there's some people that need to hear what God's saying because, you know, God's against all of this. Has to be. And the thing is, I mean, what you told me, how Ukraine built up just within those two years. The man upstairs, I guarantee you, is very upset to see that destroyed. 

Dr. David Chotka 38:48
Yes. Now, here's what you know this. God works through human nature. 

Rich Bennett 38:51
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 38:52
And he wants the Lord's love to be shown to somebody who's in desperate need down the street. You go and drop some food off. 

Rich Bennett 38:59
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 38:59
Human who does that. It's the same thing with it was an unjustified invasion of a nation. The nation has to defend itself. But if it doesn't have the ability to do that because it's been too poor, because it's been held under the thumb of the Russians and they want to rape and pillage and destroy, they will do that. And the only way to stop it is to meet force with force. And that's the only way to stop it. And the only way to do it is to have superior force and to put the tools in their hands to do it. And for the first year of the fight, the Ukrainians were winning. 

Rich Bennett 39:28
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 39:29
And then the Russians have now worn down that nation. It's at the point where if it doesn't happen in the next couple of months, it's over. 

Rich Bennett 39:37
I hate to say it, but because there's everything still going on over was It is. 

Dr. David Chotka 39:44
Yeah. So the Gaza thing was averted, the attention. That's right. And so Joe Biden started to pay attention to Gaza and Hamas. And again, it was I mean, you're talking about an unjustified saying Hamas came. 

Rich Bennett 39:55
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 39:55
People just who were out for a picnic or something. It was totally unprovoked. Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of the state of Israel. They don't believe it has a right to exist. And so Netanyahu had no choice except to declare war. But all these millions of people are in the middle. Hamas tunnels under hospitals. And so if you want to get to the Hamas tunnel, you have to blow up the hospital. And so they use human shields. And so what happened was the American populace started stop looking at Ukraine and they started looking at Gaza because Israel's been a long time ally. It's been a long. 

Rich Bennett 40:28
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 40:29
It's a it's a pillar of democracy in the middle of a sea of autocracy. And so they want that nation to succeed. And so all the news went there. That's that's what happened. But it it means that Ukraine suffering. And if they do not succeed, Putin will smile and smirk and take whatever he wants. 

Rich Bennett 40:49
You here. You see a lot of people on social media talking about the start of World War three and all this just here and this. It says. Yeah, it's 

it's it's scary because nobody ever wants a war on their land. 

Dr. David Chotka 41:08
Yes. The bottom line here is if we do not defend the helpless. There's an old saying that if you heard the saying, the one who is kind to the cruel is cruel to the queen. 

And if we just stop because we don't want to be if we're cruel to somebody kind, we're kind to somebody cruel. 

Rich Bennett 41:31
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 41:32
And that's not wisdom. 

Rich Bennett 41:34
No. 

Dr. David Chotka 41:35
That is not wisdom. That's just stupidity. It's also it's it's it's to fail to do anything is to allow the weak to be destroyed. That's what it is. 

Anyway. 

Rich Bennett 41:48
These 

Dr. David Chotka 41:48
So 

Rich Bennett 41:48
are 

Dr. David Chotka 41:49
then my 

Rich Bennett 41:49
times. 

Dr. David Chotka 41:49
first yeah, my first missions trip was there. But now listen, there is hope after war is done. So I mean, next year I'm taking I'm taking this book this year already in October and going to Vietnam. And I will be. 

Rich Bennett 42:02
Oh. 

Dr. David Chotka 42:02
And it's. It's been overrun by communists. Now, here's what's happened. I belong to a denomination called the Christian Missionary Alliance. Many of our missionaries from the United States and Canada were shot and killed by the by the by the by the Vietnamese 

Rich Bennett 42:15
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 42:15
people who became communists. I can read the names anymore. It's an old war now. Have it in the seventies. And then the communists would not allow the Christians to study. They wouldn't allow them to do anything. And I have just been given permission to bring my book to that country. 

Rich Bennett 42:33
Nice. 

Dr. David Chotka 42:34
We have. Yeah, we have to publish it in country and we're going to distribute it to 1700 pastors and leaders inside the framework of of Communist Vietnam and that's going to happen. I have a I have a give thing on my on my website where people can give to help pay for me. What I want to do is I want to give this book, this book, this group here is a book on the Lord's Prayer that has that Ukraine story in it. It's just been translated into Vietnamese. They're in the midst of getting it done. And I've just met someone who's a Christian pastor who's just been allowed to publish inside Vietnam. He's going to help me get the book published. There's going to be a gathering of my denomination in Vietnam in October. I'm going to travel there, teach a few of the precepts and give the book. And so that's that. So listen, even if there is despair and trouble comes within a generation, there's always opportunity to turn. 

Rich Bennett 43:26
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 43:27
Always. But I can't bring a book in from outside. But if I publish it in country, they'll let me do it. They have sensors that make it stop. Most books 

Rich Bennett 43:35
Christine. 

Dr. David Chotka 43:35
at Yeah, but so I. My denomination was there before the wall fell, right. 

Rich Bennett 43:42
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 43:42
Catholic Church. So these two groups are sanctioned by the by the communist government. They allow them to exist. And so if there's a letter issued by the communist government to that denomination to bring books in and they're published in country, they will allow that just happened. It's just so that's what I'm going to do and that's what I'm going to do. 

Rich Bennett 44:03
Your books have been published in how many different languages now? 

Dr. David Chotka 44:07
Each one has its own different stream. So this one here has been published in five. 

Rich Bennett 44:11
Power of prayer 

Dr. David Chotka 44:11
So. 

Rich Bennett 44:11
for power praying. 

Dr. David Chotka 44:13
That's the one. Yeah. Now, the one that I'm going to. That's what the one I'm taking in there. And there was this fascinating kind of story. So my goal was that this book would cover the planet. That was the goal. 

Rich Bennett 44:23
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 44:24
I wrote it so that I could train the persecuted church. That's why I wrote it and I gave it to Ugandans. And I want to get it. It was it was translated and given away to the persecuted church in Pakistan. It's been translated into Urdu and it's been translated into French and brought into places like the Congo and Senegal and places like that, because they speak French as their first language and while I was in Australia, I went to Australia to do a deeper life conference for the Australian branch of my denomination. There was a Vietnamese pastor there. He invited me to his home and so I walked in. We had a little chat and it was a funny moment when I walked in. So I'm an instructor in the Canadian branch, and I walked into this house in Australia and one of the daughters in the house had taken courses and she said, I can't believe you're here. You teach at our training centre. I said, I do. So you do YouTube channel stuff? I said, Yes, I do. Let me take my. And she took her photos, started to ask me questions and videoed me. So the whole family started to giggle and laugh because the girl was a queer and she mistook me for somebody else. I look just like it, but I was so. 

Rich Bennett 45:27
Who was that? Do you know? 

Dr. David Chotka 45:29
Yeah, I met him. I haven't met him personally, but I met him over Facebook because the two of us started to correspond. We're both. We both have the same kind of face. We both are the same kind of expression there. Laughs the same. And so she thought it was the other guy. Anyway, he had turned into a screaming French. I taught the Canadian and I was videotaping the Canadian, and he was videotaped in the Australian one. And when she said, Oh, you can videotape that you teach online, I said, Yes, I do. And I knew I wasn't lying. I was telling the truth. Anyway, she liked my answers that she posted on her social media. She invited a bunch of her friends to come to my seminar that night. And then we had ten Vietnamese who spoke English well in that seminar. And then she walked up to me with her mom and she said, Is your book available in Vietnamese? I said, Well, as a rough translation, but not officially. And they said, We will translate it for you. We want to get it to the yeah, we want to get it to the Vietnamese churches because they don't have resources in our town. I said, Well, if you can get that done, I'm more than happy to give it away carte blanche for free if we can fundraise. And they did. Good is their word. So right now, as we speak, they're in the final throes of getting the final translation done. I have received an invitation to go and speak there. And I will I will go there in October. And if the book is not yet done because it has to pass through all kinds of layers. 

Rich Bennett 46:39
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 46:41
Then. Then the book will be given to the denominational headquarters and distributed to all the past. So we're going to do that. So there's 1700 pastors who are there. 

Rich Bennett 46:52
How many? 

Dr. David Chotka 46:53
1700 and the branch has 1.5 million believers in. 

Rich Bennett 46:58
Wow. 

Dr. David Chotka 46:59
It's a large stream of the Christian and missionary lines. The other church this large is the Catholic Church, and those are the two that are the ones Protestant ones, Catholic. 

Rich Bennett 47:08
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 47:08
Those are the Christian streams that are there. So the Communist government has allowed those two streams to exist, and so they would do so. So but you have to talk to the communist government to say yes to my speaking in country. And when that has been done, then the the denomination with the sanction of the government issued me an invitation. And with the invitation, I can then go in and teach, but without the invitation, not alone. So this is this has just happened. And as it turns out, the Australian president worked with the Vietnamese president and that they have a good friendship. And when I taught for Australia and there were Vietnamese pastors there, they all started talking about inviting me to their country. And so that's how I wound up being able to go. 

Rich Bennett 47:56
You know, this means 

Dr. David Chotka 47:58
It means that the Lord wants it done. 

Rich Bennett 48:00
that to. 

Dr. David Chotka 48:02
Well, it doesn't mean. 

Rich Bennett 48:03
You say you're going over there in October, right? 

Dr. David Chotka 48:05
Yes, I am. 

Rich Bennett 48:07
It means when you get back, we got to do this again because you got to hear the stories about what happened over there. 

Dr. David Chotka 48:12
I would be delighted to do that. Yes, 

Rich Bennett 48:14
So here. 

Dr. David Chotka 48:14
we still talked about hearing God yet. 

Rich Bennett 48:18
Okay, because this just means we're going to have to do this again. See 

Dr. David Chotka 48:22
Sure. 

Rich Bennett 48:22
the. This is the thing, I think especially today here. We talk about Ukraine a lot, which is important. And I think when people hear those stories, it opens up their mind and they they hear it. You are spreading God's words through your stories. You're spreading the word. And people realize, yes, they need help over there. 

Dr. David Chotka 48:48
Lots of ways. They need infrastructure help. And they need. They need armaments in the Ukraine. 

Rich Bennett 48:53
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 48:54
In Vietnam. They need infrastructure help now because the nation is rebuilding. And when I talk to Americans about Vietnam, there's no longer any kind of animosity and. 

Rich Bennett 49:03
Nope. 

Dr. David Chotka 49:04
Gone because the average Vietnamese person, they simply want to make a living. It's. 

Rich Bennett 49:08
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 49:09
It's this whole thing about the war and the communists and the Chinese in that country. But it's not. The average person that you're talking about is fact. The same is also true in Russia. I will tell you that when I was in those classes, the classes were translated into Russian and Ukrainian because some of them intermarried. And as happens with Canadians and Americans too, I know people. I live right in Watertown region. There's all kinds of people in my congregation who have an American husband or a Canadian wife or vice versa. And, you know, they work across the border. And that's just standard procedure because I live right on the edge of the of United States, Right. I mean, 

Rich Bennett 49:41
Right? 

Dr. David Chotka 49:41
smack on the edge. I'm only 150 yards to Detroit River. And on the other side is Michigan. So, I mean a right coast. Yeah. So people work in Michigan, some Americans work in Canada, etc., etc.. Easy kind of PC stuff. That's just because our cultures are very similar. 

Rich Bennett 49:55
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 49:55
That'll happen with Ukraine and Russia. As Ukraine was rebuilding, you had you'd have a Ukrainian wife and a Russian husband and vice versa and they would raise kids together from both streams and they would learn both languages. And nobody thought anything about it because it was just, okay, now this is our nation and that's your nation. The terms and what's the big deal? And now that's all changed. It's fundamentally altered. 

Rich Bennett 50:19
Well, we're going to get back to that one way. 

Dr. David Chotka 50:22
We should talk about hearing the voice of God. 

Rich Bennett 50:26
And that's just. I think in all honesty, I think, well, you've seen it throughout the years, you know, with unfortunately, yes, there's been a lot of death because of it. But prime example is look at World War two. Was it when they dropped the US, dropped the bomb, they went over there and helped rebuild and how 

Dr. David Chotka 50:50
Both 

Rich Bennett 50:50
much 

Dr. David Chotka 50:50
Japan and Germany. Yes. 

Rich Bennett 50:51
it. 

Dr. David Chotka 50:51
Now, German economy and the Japanese economy are the rivals of the world. It's true. 

Rich Bennett 50:55
Yeah. And I think the change going to whoop, whoop, whoop. 

Dr. David Chotka 50:59
So I. 

Rich Bennett 51:00
He's hoping the work will help his work, but not what I was trying to happen. I think the same is going to happen over there in Russia and Ukraine. 

Dr. David Chotka 51:08
I hope it does now. I'll just tell you this. Were it not for the generosity of all things American, there would have been no rebuild of your. 

Rich Bennett 51:15
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 51:15
So the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe. It 

Rich Bennett 51:18
Yeah. 

Dr. David Chotka 51:18
was American and allied money, mostly American, that went back into that place after they had fought the war. They helped Germany become an economic power. And I must tell you something, I've spoken in East Germany what used to be East Germany after the wall came down. The Western province built a beautiful highway into that place. And I was actually in the place where the price of reformation started. So Martin Luther, the guy who said, Here I stand, I could do no other, you know, the founder of the Lutheran Church. I was on the spot where Luther stared down the big boys and made his little statement. And so began the and Reformation. I was on the spot. It's in East Germany. It's in a town called Airport. There's a statue of Luther there, and there's there's paintings and frescoes on the walls of him doing his heroic thing, taking a stand against the powers that be of the day. Now, of course, Germans and Lutheran, German, Lutherans, German Catholics don't argue with each more. There's no time for that. 

Rich Bennett 52:13
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 52:14
They did. You know, they wanted a kid actually to be Protestant. Talk to a Catholic old man. That's you doing the right thing here. But that's all changed now. Nobody cares. Nobody cared. I mean, if you're a Christian and I'm a Christian, that you worship differently than I do, who cares? 

Rich Bennett 52:28
Mm hmm. 

Dr. David Chotka 52:29
Time for the fight. Let's 

Rich Bennett 52:31
Now. 

Dr. David Chotka 52:31
see. Things in common. That's what I would say to them. 

Rich Bennett 52:34
Absolutely. 

Dr. David Chotka 52:36
So you may not be soul mate may not be so. But listen, before we get to Vietnam, I have to I haven't talked to you about hearing the voice of God yet. 

Rich Bennett 52:44
Well, no, this is what I want to do because I'm looking at the time I wanted to spend another hour just talking about. Hey, are you there? It's me. God. Yeah, here in the. 

Dr. David Chotka 52:53
I would love to do that. Okay, so why don't we do it quickly? And the last time I know for your audiences sake, we were booked in to do this much sooner. And the jack. 

Rich Bennett 52:59
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 53:00
I'm standing outside your door so you couldn't interview me. So we had to push it off for another three or four weeks and. 

Rich Bennett 53:06
Right. 

Dr. David Chotka 53:07
You lost that the flow of the content. But now you've heard about my my, my book on the Lord's Prayer. You've heard about the healing prayer book. I think it would be an appropriate thing to have a conversation about how you hear the voice, because that's really amazing. It's just an amazing thing. And I'm convinced of this. I believe that God talks to everyone. 

Rich Bennett 53:24
Oh, absolutely. 

Dr. David Chotka 53:26
I don't think you have to be a particular kind of a believer to hear 

Rich Bennett 53:28
Now. 

Dr. David Chotka 53:28
the voice. In fact, in the scripture itself, you have the Lord speaking to Saul of Tarsus before he was a Christian. You actually have God talking to balance donkey. 

So I mean, and by the way, the donkey was not involved in liturgical worship services. He was. Think the donkey was not involved in scripture memory. He was he was actually April. The donkey had more sense than the rider of the donkey. And so the angel appears to the donkey and warns the donkey so that the rider of the donkey would not get killed anyway. So the point I'm trying to make and actually sometimes enemies of the Lord heard the voice, the King of Cyrus, of Persia, they were not Hebrew or Christian, yet God spoke to them and they did amazing things. So that sets up your next conversation. I'd be delighted to have a conversation with you about hearing the voice of God. 

Rich Bennett 54:17
Says Good. Thanks a lot, David. 

Dr. David Chotka 54:20
It's been a joy to talk to you again. And I'm going to duck soon again. 

Rich Bennett 54:23
Says, good. Take care.