Praying for Ukraine: The Journey of a Song

National dress of Ukraine

Bucha, Ukraine 1998

The children, girls dressed in red skirts, flowered white blouses and bobby socks dance and sing for us. The boys in floppy red pants and white shirts athletically do the Cossack dance, knees bent, hands flying backwards to the ground as they bounce up and back—a feet of great skill and athleticism.

One twelve-year old girl with dark hair, almond eyes and tanned skin (later we curiously ask where she is from and the children explain Egypt, but I suspect she had Kyrgyz heritage, part of that fallen Soviet Empire) sings Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” with such skill that we give her a huge ovation.

Then a group of young teenage girls stand up as the second to last performance and sing with such sentiment and longing, it goes deep—touching something. These orphan girls sing a melody that goes deep into my fourteen-year old soul, ushering me into some deep national memory. It calls to something mystical, something spiritual, yearning, longing, dripping in sentiment. I struggle to hold a part of the melody in my mind, even as the final song wrecks us—orphaned children singing about how babies need mothers and fathers.

After sobbing and hugging non-performing children, we head outside and I hum as best I can any part of the melody and mumble something that sounds like the words. I look for the girl who sang it and find her, trying to recreate anything she can recognize. After a minute of my humming, she brightens and sings it again for me. She slows down and tries to get me to pronounce words and rolling “r”s and I’m failing miserably while the children giggle and I smile to let them know it’s all right.

Later I ask the translator what the song is and find out its “The Prayer for Ukraine.” Over the next few days, I manage to learn some of it, enough to keep it alive in my memory over the next year away, and just enough that when I return I can find her and her friends and they can sing it to me again.

Kyiv, Ukraine 2005

My friend giggles as I struggle to say the numbers with a proper accent. She laughs again when I try the Ukrainian words for "Please and Thank you.” Budlaska. Diyakoyu. The Russian alternatives i’m very okay at, but she says its better I learn the Ukrainian. And she would know. She’s just completed a year in Kyiv learning Ukrainian as her Christian University only has a Russian program. She’s pioneered this degree by herself, and having graduated, she’s moved to Kyiv permanently, although she doesn’t know that yet. But right now It’s three in the morning, we are jet-lagged and cannot sleep.

After multiple times trying to teach me some more words, she gives up. I ask her to sing that Prayer for Ukraine song, which I know she knows because she learned it on my last, her first trip to Ukraine in 2001 with no problem at all. The melody and words stuck right in her mind. She obliges this time but will eventually refuse to sing it on-demand, although I cannot get enough. As the people of the house wake-up, we finally drift off into sleep for a few hours.

Later, over freshly scrubbed red-potatoes, dill, butter and sour-cream, the pastor and his wife ask us what was so funny last night. Mortified, we explain my inept language abilities, and apologize profusely for keeping them awake. My friend asks me to perform my two successful Ukrainian words and i get a pleased smile from our hosts when they recognize my jumble of sounds. Deep down, I am extremely jealous at her command of the language and her ease at slipping into a crowd unnoticed. I am obviously at the very least a German, or Australian but most likely an American. I stick out so much that i am not allowed to speak in public. Not even my carefully practiced Ukrainian will do for fear the prices will be doubled on my account.

When she takes me to the airport without hesitation she sings in her beautiful voice this song for me, and i sob my way through security, trying to let go of jealousy and longing for Ukraine.

Cheyenne, Wyoming, 2007

She has arrived! It’s been two years since I’ve seen her and I’m lucky she is willing to travel to me on her three months of home-leave. I’m stationed at the local Air Force Base and cannot take leave to come visit her. Upon entering my newly purchased townhome, she dumps open a bag of gifts. Karona chocolate—my favorite. A few magnets from Ukraine, and then she presents me with something written in Ukrainian and places it behind those magnets on the fridge. “Here. Read this.” I struggle through and she laughs, as I recognize the words to my song! “I’m going to teach this to you before I leave so you can quit asking me!”

She practices with me a few times a day over the next two weeks and by time she leaves, I have it haltingly memorized. I practice every day for a while. And then I deploy to Iraq. And then move to a place called the Sultanate of Oman and immediately become enchanted. Life gets busy.

Oman, 2011

We listen to the undulating sound of Arabic music while drinking tea at the cafe on the beach. My friend sits beside me as I rant about the mystery and beauty of Muscat, the capital city, as the sun drops quickly behind the water, and it is suddenly night. We talk. It’s been a year. We giggle, remembering my visit the year before to stay with her in Irpin near Kyiv. She sang me the song once or twice then, but now with the tribal rhythms thrumming our souls, we just sit awash in the sounds of the ocean by moonlight.

North Dakota, February 2022

The news flashing before me is like a punch in the gut. She said it probably is a bunch of bolstering. It turns out that it isn’t, and the invasion of Ukraine has begun. I send her a Facebook message, knowing she’s already visiting western Ukraine and is relatively safe. She’ll be over the border in less than 48 hours from now. She goes because she’s a supported missionary and her supporters and family want her out. But she goes only for them. Her heart is with her people, and it burns deeply she isn’t there to help. I know this, even if she doesn’t voice it. I know.

Immediately all I can think about is rallying people to prayer. I think of the song and I begin to search: “The Prayer for Ukraine.” It pulls up some other orchestrated song, which is good, but is not the song. I text her to see if she can sing it and post it. It was thoughtless. She is a wreck trying to get her friends out of the now isolated Irpin and is continuing helping refugees as they cross the boarder. This is what she is made for. The heart inside of this woman matches no one else I know. She has lived in and served a country that truly has now become her homeland. Even as a refugee herself, she has found places and people to serve. I am honored to have known her all my life.

And the Song. It is burning in me constantly. I sing it. I can remember only half of it. Its time is now. it is necessary now. I search for two days. I can’t find it anywhere. Then, as I’m praying, I get this idea to find a Cyrillic keyboard and try to sound out the first lines. It works! The Cyrillic Google recognizes my misspelled Russian and takes me directly to the song. I watch and I watch over and over. Different versions. Different sounds of it. It fills my soul with memories and love. I show it to my church. I play it for my prayer team. I sing it to my children. I pray it over Ukraine.

This song, sung by a people recently freed from religious oppression way back in my memory is the blessing stowed up in heaven for this moment in time. This song is everything I remembered it to be, and still is more than I hoped. They are singing it in the subways in Kyiv as it is being encircled. The diaspora is singing it in rallies and shows of support. I am singing it over Ukraine as a prayer, as a blessing. This is the heart of Ukraine. My God bless you and keep you YKPAIHA.

 (Click the title to visit my favorite version as it shows how much this song means)
Молитва за Україну                          Praying for Ukraine

Verse 1

Моя молитва нехай лине      Let my prayer flow

До Тебе, наче фіміам.          To You like the aroma of incense.

І серце лине без зупину     And the song pours incessantly (Heart drawn without ceasing)

В чудовий Твій небесний храм.       In Your wonderful (glorious) heavenly temple 

Chorus:

Боже, я молю за Україну,                 God, I pray for Ukraine,

Боже, молю тебе за людей,             God, I pray for people,

Ти їх прости,                                       (May) You forgive them,

Ти їх спаси,                                         (May) You save them

І милість Твою нам яви.                    And show us your mercy.

Боже, я знаю,                                     God, I know

Що Ти будешз нами                           You will be with us

В храмі Твоєму під небесами           In Your temple under heaven,

Радість і мир Ти дарував,                 Joy and peace You have given,

Життя для людей віддав,                 You gave Your life for the people,

В Книгу Життя нас записав!              You inscribed us in the Book of Life.

Verse 2 

В Своєму Слові Живому,                   In Your living Word

Ти для людей ведіння дав,               You gave salvation for life (You laid out the vision for life)

Щоб люди всі молились Богу,          So that all men may pray to God

Що на Хресті за нас вмирав.            Who died for them on the cross.