You choose to have faith.

You choose not to let fear control you or overwhelm you.

It's okay to have fear.

It's normal to have fear, but the fear that doesn't grip you.

And the faith in God is the deciding factor.

It's much easier to make that choice.

Welcome everybody. This is Simon Gilbo with Inspired. Inspired is all about telling good stories, inspiring stories amidst the rubbish

news that we're being bombarded with. The world is a messy place. There's lots of bad stuff

going on. But even in the bad stuff, God is powerfully at work. And this week, I'm really excited to have my Ukrainian friend. We go back about 10 years. His company is an entrepreneur. He creative. They've done our web stuff at Great Lakes, Irish for a number of years. We've stopped that relationship now, but he's

absolutely superb. He's also involved in politics. We're going to get to that all in due course.

And he's also, I'm not sure if I can call you a cyclist, Victor, because Victor joined me for two tours.

We do our annual Tourge Bawndi, which we've just done recently again, and Victor came out for two of them.

Actually, I came around the corner and found him in a ditch, and that was actually quite a scary

moment. This is only audio. If this was video, I would post the bruised pictures of his body was completely wrecked, and he lying out there and we thought, is it game over? But in his bravery, he got back on the bike the next day. He couldn't quite believe it. So, I mean, there's so much to unpack and he's a very dear friend. And obviously, with what's going on in the Ukraine right now, it's super heavy. But anyway, welcome Victor. Thank you, Simon. Thank you for having me. Oh my goodness. It's been 10 years. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, time flies, eh? Lots gone in the meantime. But I want to go back even before those 10 years, bro. And actually, I know some of your background beyond that, but not that much. So I want to unpack that. So, you know,

were you born in Cherkasi or how did it all start? Yeah, I was born in Chikasi, pretty much

five-minute drive from where I live right now, where my parents still live. I went to school here,

and then I went to university first to Kiev to get my bachelor's degree in law, and then I went to school here, and then I went to university first to Kiev to get my bachelor's degree

in law, and then I went to an American university in Budapest to get my master's, and I worked

with my PhD there. And then I came back to Cherkasi, and I've been here ever since. Right. And where did Jesus come in?

Jesus came in in Chikaze in 1998 when I was 13 years old and always yearning for community,

always yearning to have friends and total devastation, very big poverty.

It was the seventh year of independent Ukraine, still struggling from the Soviet collapse,

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