Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, March 24, 1994 TAG: 9403240256
SECTION: NEIGHBORS PAGE: S-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Dr. Ray Mayberry, who is leaving for his fourth monthlong trip to the city of Kiev on March 30, said Ukrainians' need for vaccines and antibiotics is matched only by their "thirst for God."
Both churches and medicines are in short supply, said Mayberry, a retired psychiatrist and member of Greene Memorial United Methodist Church in downtown Roanoke. Active in the Christian Medical Society of the Roanoke Valley, which led him to two international agencies trying to meet some medical and spiritual needs in the former Soviet Union, Mayberry has visited the old city three times since last May.
He has found there, he said, "a Third World country." He sees a promise by President Clinton to send $700 million in aid to Ukraine as the best hope of steering the people away from a dictatorship such as Hitler inflicted on war-ruined Germany earlier in this century.
"Economic conditions get worse every time I'm over there," the doctor said. "In American terms, a loaf of bread has risen in nine months from 15 cents to a dollar a loaf. The mean spendable income is about $18 a month."
However, the communist government legacy still includes free -- if poor quality - housing, transportation and schools. Money for food, clothes and personal needs is the major daily concern, he pointed out.
His personal interests in medicine and religion fare poorly, Mayberry said. There are plenty of trained medical personnel, but they have only the most basic drugs to treat the mentally ill, alcoholics and sufferers of physical ailments such as hepatitis.
Mayberry also was horrified to find hospitals full of patients who in America could be living with their families or in adult homes with the aid of medicines which came into use 40 years ago.
Religious practice is equally discouraging.
Mayberry said one of his joys in working in Kiev is association with Ukrainian doctors who are gradually moving from atheism to trust in Jesus Christ. But even those who say they were baptized long ago in the Russian Orthodox church have only the barest understanding of deep Christian commitment, he has noticed.
The two agencies with which Mayberry works are ISSA and Lifeline Ministries.
The name of the first is a translation of the word "Savior." Its major concerns are Christian witnessing and offering continuing education for medical personnel in impoverished countries. Mayberry's first trip to Kiev last May was under the sponsorship of this group.
Lifeline includes representatives of several mainstream American denominations; its workers have established two churches in Kiev - currently meeting in secular buildings - and a school to educate the children of Americans on mercy missions.
Mission work in the former Soviet Union is being conducted most successfully by groups independent of national church headquarters, Mayberry said. The current trend in denominations such as United Methodist, Presbyterian and Episcopal is to raise funds on a local level for specific projects in which people in sponsoring churches can be personally involved.
Mayberry and his wife, Carole, a counselor who sometimes accompanies him on mission trips, moved to Roanoke from Knoxville, Tenn., nine years ago. They maintained a counseling practice sponsored by Greene Memorial for several years.
Ray Mayberry was on a psychiatric hospital staff before his retirement from American practice 15 months ago.
He previously had done short-term medical mission work in Africa, South America and the Caribbean.
When in Kiev, Mayberry learns basic Russian and lives with a family involved in the city's rich music life.
During his visits, Mayberry teaches daily in a medical school and works in a clinic with the "warm, friendly people" of Kiev.
by CNB