Try as he might, the conversation stayed stuck on the best way to kill Russians. 

Valdas Vaitkevi?ius looked around at the seventy other Lithuanians attending the training camp. Men, women, young, old—their faces set in hard lines as they listened to the instructors. 

“Not like that!” barked a young officer, grabbing the rifle from his hands and repositioning it roughly. 

You are the same age as my daughter, Valdas thought. Is this how you speak to your elders?

But the officer was not interested in being polite. He was preparing civilians for war.

It was an impossible situation. Valdas had tried explaining that he was the pastor of an MB church in Šiauli?. Since 2022, his church had been housing Ukrainian refugee families, many of whom were now leaving Lithuania because of the very real threat of a Russian invasion. When Valdas offered his services as a chaplain, the trainers had scoffed. “We have here electricians, mechanics, bakers, doctors,” they said. “Now we have a pastor. So what? You will all learn to shoot.”

What am I doing here? 

It had come as a surprise to him when he had recently been told that his church was designated as a muster building for their neighborhood. In case of an invasion, it would serve not only as a place of refuge, but as an outpost for tactical defense. As the pastor of the church, he had to be prepared, they told him. He must swear his allegiance to his country.

Ironically, Valdas was reminded of the oath he had been forced to swear to the Soviet Union army in 1986. Back then, even at the rank of lieutenant of artillery, he never had to shoot anyone—the Soviet military deployed him twice, and twice sent him back home. Valdas was eager  to publicly renounce that oath, and to affirm his loyalty to Lithuania. He wanted to be useful to his country, hoping that he would be allowed to do so as a spiritual advisor. And so, he had volunteered to attend this ten-day boot camp.

A wave of sadness swept over him. Why call it a camp?

His church had just finished running their own camps—two summer camps, each attended by over 100 children and youth. One camp was for children and teens from socially disadvantaged and wounded families, including children who did not even know their parents or whose mothers had abandoned them. That camp had been difficult for Valdas but, in the end, he rejoiced that one of those teens accepted Jesus, and celebrated the seventeen children and four teenagers in the other camp who became believers.

The twenty camp leaders—former campers themselves—had worked tirelessly to facilitate children’s activities that were fun as well as meaningful. They wanted the camp to be a safe place to play, a time for kids to let down their defenses, a chance to learn about God.

Camp should not be about learning the most efficient way to kill.

During meals and in the barracks, Valdas did his best to share his faith and to encourage others to turn to Jesus. Some listened, others shrugged. “Why?” they asked. “What happens, happens. Everything is in the hands of God.”

Everything, except that gun. That, my friend, is in your hands.

Valdas looked down at his own hands. Would he do it? Could he shoot a Russian soldier, even in defense of others?

The sound of fighter jets made him look up. It was not a new noise; having a NATO base nearby meant that there was daily air traffic, as jets from Germany and France and England flew overhead. Reminders of war were inescapable; every TV and radio station was regularly interrupted to broadcast news from Ukraine. Every day, every hour, in the morning, in the evening—they were constantly being forced to think the unthinkable. 

In church, people begged him not to mention the war. Please, please, talk about something else. Valdas would prepare himself each week to put aside his own fears, and minister to the fears of his congregants. It was exhausting. Thinking about war, or forcing himself to not think about war—both were equally exhausting. The burden of the forty-kilo pack he was now carrying was nothing, compared to that.

Another jet. Valdas and the other trainees looked up. “NATO is big,” one said confidently. Another shot back, blackly, “Russia is bigger.” Valdas closed his eyes in silent prayer.

God is biggest.