Today Brian Hancock interviews Doug Stevens who is an expeditionary pastor, working faith-based diplomacy to improve international relations. The discussion is on his work travelling to partner nations to reach out to locals and leaders to overcome social trauma from war, genocide and help rebuild communities.
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One CA is a product of the civil affairs association
and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on the ground with a partner nation's people and leadership.
We aim to inspire anyone interested in working in the "last three feet" of U.S. foreign relations.
To contact the show, email us at [email protected]
or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www civilaffairsassoc.org
Links mentioned: Hope international ministries: Hope4nations.org
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Special thanks to Dimitar Dodovski for sampling Keith Jarrett's album Spirits 20. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Yeh7OX5m4E
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Transcript
00:00:03 Introduction
Welcome to the 1CA Podcast. This is your host, Jack Gaines. 1CA is a product of the Civil Affairs Association and brings in people who are current or former military, diplomats, development officers, and field agents to discuss their experiences on ground with the partner nation's people and leadership. Our goal is to inspire anyone interested in working the last three feet of foreign relations. To contact the show, email us at capodcasting at gmail .com. or look us up on the Civil Affairs Association website at www .civilaffairsassos .org. I'll have those in the show notes.
00:00:38 BRIAN HANCOCK
I'm Lieutenant Colonel Brian Hancock, and I will be your host for this session. Today we have with us Pastor Douglas Stevens to discuss religious outreach, relief operations in Ukraine, and mission opportunities in Ukraine. Doug is a graduate of both Cal Berkeley and Fuller Seminary. Doug is active with humanitarian missions in Eastern Europe. in Haiti and elsewhere. He is a people lover, culture watcher, mountain bike rider, and avid world trader. Isn't that the truth? A quick disclaimer to the audience, a reminder, all remarks are solely those of the presenters. Further, due to the subject matter of our session today, some of the content may be a little bit disturbing to some audiences. Now, Doug, I first met you in the United States. when you swooped in to rescue our church as God's quick response force. Do you remember those days? I do. I remember them fondly. It seems like a lifetime ago to me, so much has happened since, but our church is still standing, so you must have done something right.
00:01:36 DOUGLAS STEVENS
It seems
00:01:42 DOUGLAS STEVENS
Well, it was a great time. I have friendships from that that continue.
00:01:46 BRIAN HANCOCK
Outstanding. Some of the things that you do are similar to what we do in the Army of the United States, or at least there are some similarities to it. The way we view the American military is as an expeditionary force. We often go places with large numbers, with lots of equipment and logistics and partnerships. And oftentimes these areas we are going to are characterized by great suffering. Relief agencies may not be able to get in there to operate. So that's usually when the world often turns to the U .S. military. Now, it seems to me that you've spent much of your life in a similar capacity as an expeditionary pastor.
00:02:29 DOUGLAS STEVENS
Well, first of all, I just want to say what you're doing and what you represent is not well enough known as a part of the U .S. military's mission, the humanitarian side of that. And I just want to encourage you. So thank you for what you're doing. Now, my experience is on a different plane and yet heading in the same direction, just trying to help people. and have been in a variety of places around the world. In Haiti, for example, serving in Colombia, South America. I have been to Bosnia during the war back in the 90s when things were very tense. That was with World Vision. I have been to Rwanda in East Africa. That was with International Justice Mission. I have been overseas to places like Beijing, China, Cambodia, in the aftermath of their genocide. And have seen light shining in some of the darkest places in the world, places that you wouldn't expect any good news to come out of. And yet some wonderful people doing some heroic work in those places. In fact, we have just returned from more than a weekend in Ukraine. I know that you personally have a podcast that you host.
00:03:34 BRIAN HANCOCK
know that you personally have a podcast that you host. Yes. Very, very inspiring. Hello, darkness. Stories that transform. And I'll tell you, having read about... The scenario in Rwanda you mentioned, I think a number of people have watched the movie Hotel Rwanda. Yes. Very dark. You've got Hutu mothers murdering their neighbors Tutsi Chol. Yeah. You've got massive numbers fleeing. Yes. You have the radio saying there is work to be done. Kill the cockroaches. Right. You have female leaderships in the government calling the men in the camps, often stadiums, other places where, Hutu have herded the Tutsis to kill them brutally with machetes and complaining, saying, well, you need to rape these women before you kill them. And they're saying, well, we're just too tired because of all this killing. It's what they were saying at the time. And of course, the international community, we have some bases there and some other things, but we are not allowed to leave the base. There is no protection that is offered by the international community. There is no sanctuary. Clearly, this was hell on earth. It was. Have you seen some light come out of something like that?
00:04:48 DOUGLAS STEVENS
It went on for about 90 days back in 1994. That took nearly a million lives, as I understand it. We were there in the aftermath and the recovery time. And they had these wonderful trials for people who had been convicted of murder. But in these trials, you actually had the opportunity for reconciliation. You had the opportunity to extend forgiveness. potential repair of communities. And so we were close to that. We were supporting efforts as that was happening. There was a filmmaker who was there with us. So that was our time in Kigali and the countryside in Rwanda. And pleased to see the development since then. And of course, there are more complications now politically, and that's happening in our world. So that's a whole nother story.
00:05:33 BRIAN HANCOCK
I hear you. But I'm also glad to hear that some justice, some reconciliation, some path forward does exist there that you were able to see. Now, in Army Civil Affairs and United States Marine Corps Civil Affairs, both of us work with what we call united action partners. These may be local allies, they may be host nations, oftentimes the non -government organizations. We often can't work directly with them if they need to maintain a neutrality. help both sides, such as Doctors Without Borders. You are for World Vision and I believe a few others. What is it like working with a non -government organization doing this type of work? And did you ever have any interaction with the military in that role? And would you have even liked any interaction with military civil affairs?
00:06:30 DOUGLAS STEVENS
Well, we primarily worked with churches and NGOs that were there doing a variety of things, and those folks are the heroes on the ground, often unsung and unrewarded for what they did. But they didn't do it for that reason. They were doing it for the people they loved, the people they were sacrificing for. And we worked very closely with them and wanted to support them because they were the ones who were on the ground. We're going to be there for a long time after we left doing whatever we were doing. And often we were bringing in humanitarian aid. Sometimes we were doing leadership training. Sometimes we were doing reconciliation, conflict resolution, working with local churches that were... suddenly coming back to life again and wanting to encourage them, and the work they were doing in drawing people close to the, well, the work of God, if I can put it bluntly, because what needed to be done seemed impossible. How do you crawl out of this deep, dark hole? But it was happening, and there was a tremendous resurgence of faith in the hearts of many people who were then living it out. Hard to explain how this happened except to call it a miracle.
00:07:35 BRIAN HANCOCK
And I'm glad that miracles still do happen.
00:07:37 DOUGLAS STEVENS
They do. You have to invest in it. It doesn't happen because you're hoping for it.
00:07:42 BRIAN HANCOCK
Right. May of last year, you found yourself in Moldova. Now, that may not be a household name for many folks in America. I knew nothing about it until I went there.
00:07:51 DOUGLAS STEVENS
knew nothing about it until I went there. Next door to Ukraine.
00:07:54 BRIAN HANCOCK
We have a regionally aligned civil affairs commands who get to know some of these places. And for the European region, civil affairs command is... the 353rd Civil Affairs Command, which is back on the East Coast. And in January 2023, they actually published an excellent article in our flagship publication in the military, the Military Review. You've arrived if you get peer review publication in Military Review. And the functional specialty team, a couple of brilliant captains, published. an article regarding food resiliency in Moldova. So this is a hot topic. Can you tell the audience a bit about the mission that you were doing in Moldova, as well as what you experienced?
00:08:41 DOUGLAS STEVENS
Well, Moldova is a relatively poor country inside the EU, hoping to get in, not in NATO yet, hoping to enter, be approved, along with Ukraine, of course. that took in a million refugees in the last couple of years that were flooding out of Ukraine, looking to escape. The Moldovans themselves, many of them literally have their bags packed in case Ukraine is overrun by the Russian invaders. And they know that they would be next and they have no defense. And NATO is not officially obligated to intervene. So right now, for the moment, they look relatively safe, but they have absorbed an awful lot of special needs. coming in from Ukraine. Now, Moldova is also an agricultural country. They produce a lot of what they need, but they were overwhelmed by this crisis that took place. And so there is help coming in from other places. We were able to bring some of those materials in, and we were very impressed by the work of many different missions and churches working together in ways they never have before. And that's happening all across this area. People are working together like they never have. So it's a great thing to watch that happen and be part of it.
00:09:54 BRIAN HANCOCK
That's outstanding. And of course, right now, you've got a lot of Russian interference in going Moldavian elections.
00:10:00 DOUGLAS STEVENS
We've heard about that. It's still a controversy because Russia apparently is jealously looking at other parts of other countries they would like to retake as part of the Soviet venture. Now, no longer part of the Soviet experiment, which closed down in 1989, 91, somewhere in there. but want to now reestablish, according to Putin, the Holy Russian Empire. And it now has a religious overtone, backed by the Russian Orthodox Church, that basically wants to reclaim all of these lands, whether it's Poland, whether it's Georgia, whether it's Moldova, Ukraine, the Baltic states. We don't know how far this ambition goes, but we've been shocked so far, so nothing right now is going to shock me.
00:10:44 BRIAN HANCOCK
I thought we had closed the chapter on large wars in Europe. Maybe not. It sounds like Putin styles himself a bit of a czar. We know how well that worked out. It's a shame that we seem to be heading that direction. Putin's language, of course, is, hey, we want to open another front just to take Ukraine.
00:11:02 DOUGLAS STEVENS
And, of course, the war in Ukraine has been going on from at least 2014 when they took Crimea. And then the oblasts in the east, they've been occupying there. And now, of course, trying to come across. Right now, the front is essentially frozen, although I will defer to you and the military for a better estimate of what is actually happening. And we don't know where this is going. And my role, our role, is to come in and support those who are doing this good humanitarian work, especially in the faith -based areas.
00:11:30 BRIAN HANCOCK
Yeah, I'd like to tug at that string a little bit, because you just literally, a few days ago, got back from a mission in Ukraine. And I understand that it was a multifaceted mission. You're doing a number of different things, all important works, why you're there. Now, while most of the audience is at least to some degree aware of the mental suffering that's taking place in Ukraine, can you, having some firsthand experience, tell us a little bit about what you saw, what you did, and what you found?
00:12:00 DOUGLAS STEVENS
A year ago, when I went into Ukraine, we went from Odessa all the way to Kyrgyzstan, all the way to the front lines, essentially, visiting along the way, doing leadership training, because the churches were asking for that. As people left, all kinds of new people flooded into these churches, which was a surprise to me. I didn't know about that. I wasn't expecting that. I thought maybe they'd be emptied out. But because they are serving so well, not just their own congregation, but the whole community now is looking to the church, even more than the government, which is busy fighting a war to supply those needs. And there are... Of course, other organizations that are there are Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, World Central Kitchen, various other churches in that area. And I had no idea how strong the church was in Ukraine, the evangelical, Protestant, Pentecostal, Catholic working together. Not the Orthodox so much. They tend to be a little bit more aloof. Some of them are still aligned with Russia, even though Russia is the invader. But the other churches working together and mitigating the trauma and the food insecurity and everything else that's needed and providing m