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| Interview - Gudukhin Yevgeniy |  |
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Q: How do you write lyrics for your songs? Yevgeniy: I take my songs just from life. To write a song it is sufficient to come out of your house, look around attentively, and write down what you see. When I see people who fight over a plastic bag from a garbage heap, 14-year-old girls who sell themselves for 2-3 dollars to passing truck drivers, children who beg for money at the train station, handicapped people who became slaves to the mafia and risk their lives to beg for money on the cross-roads, I can't help writing songs. If you never did it, try standing near the morgue for half a day, listen to people's conversations in trains and at railway stations, visit an orphanage, a venereal clinic, a couple of special regime prisons or prisons for teenage girls -- and you will immediately write songs about what life is without God. But this is a specific category of songs. In general, I have "David's heart." Songs of praise and worship to God are born in me when I walk along our Ukrainian steppe, watch a sunset or storm at the sea. When I walk with my son, I love watching different animals at the zoo or the pet market for hours. You know, especially when I talk to my small son Nick, God very often tells me, "Sonny, I love you in the same way, I rejoice together with you, and my heart cries when you are disobedient!" Then I raise my head to heaven and praise his holy name, worship him and try to return to him at least a little bit of his pure love. Q: Where do your concerts take place? Yevgeniy: At stadiums, cultural halls and sports stadiums, open stages, in churches, prisons, night clubs, village clubs, markets, etc. I especially like to give concerts and evangelize in ordinary yards, I call such a program "The Gospel with home delivery." Q: What is music for you? Yevgeniy: Music is a means to glorify God, to render praise and worship only to him. It is an opportunity through touching the strings of the human heart to bring man to a realization of his sinful nature and the necessity to be born of the Spirit of God, so that his dead spirit would be raised for eternal life. Music is merely a gift from God. Q: Could you tell us about your creative way before you met the Lord? When did you start writing songs? Yevgeniy: I studied percussion at a music school. When I was 13, I earned money by means of music. I played at dances in the city of Mariupol, there was a time when I shepherded sheep in the morning and played at dances in the village club. When later I entered a railroad vocational school, I participated in work of various music collectives, played with two groups (in one of which I was a leader), danced in a folk dance ensemble, played at the theater circle, played double-bass in a string orchestra and small drum in a wind orchestra, was training in judo, carting, athletics, and swimming. Almost every day I also made a 150 kilometers trip from Yasinovataya to Mariupol where I played at the Theater of Song and at a restaurant. I slept several hours a day, mostly in the second cabin of the electric locomotive when I was coming back home from Mariupol. My railroad education was the biggest mistake in my life. My parents were very gifted people, but they never saw a musician in me, and never helped me develop my creativity. That is why I was working on an electric locomotive only for the time of my degree practice, because I preferred music. But because our higher school had a restaurant, I worked there at nights. As you understand, along with that job came vodka, drugs, drunk fights, girls, venereal diseases, prison cells, etc. In 1987, I got married for the first time; that marriage lasted for exactly 23 days. The same year in November I was called to serve in the military. In the army, music helped me a lot. For the first half a year, I served in the north of Kazakhstan, in the city of Aktyubinsk. The study center where we lived was a terrible place. I expected nothing good from hunger and night training. But there my old friends, guitar and drums, helped me. In 1988, I was transferred to Moscow, into a platoon of intimidating and angry Chechens. My guitar and my diplomatic talent rescued me again. In the army, I started writing my first songs. The world where I lived simply pushed me to creativity. Every day I saw fearful tortures of people, depravity, hard drinking, and treachery. There I wrote my first songs. In 1989, I was demobilized. From the army I brought half a ton of equipment, and it all started again: bars, vodka, and easy women. I expected nothing but death. I realized that I was a slave, a chronic alcoholic and a man doomed to be alone. At that time, I was the youngest ensemble leader and worked at a new and fashionable bar, but every day my money brought me closer to the fire of hell. Q: How did you meet Jesus? Yevgeniy: In 1991, one of my friends left for Sochi to work at a cool bar. In half a year, some of our common acquintances came from there and told me that Sergey got insane. As they said, he wanted to leave for the States and in order to do so stopped drinking, changed his life, and became a believer. When I heard about it, I wished to change my life even if not to go the States. And a miracle happened in my life. When I was at the peak of despair, when I almost ended up in jail because of trickster girls, when my collective was going through hard times in all respects, when for the first time in my life I met a good girl, but her mother prohibited her from meeting me, when I was lying next to my lavatory pan with bile running out of my mouth because of alcohol poisoning, - namely at this moment Jesus came to me, right to the bar. The smoke-filled hall vanished, and I saw thousands of people raising up to the Lord. After a while I met my friend who brought me the Good News of salvation in Christ. He won me for Christ with no words. There was the light of love coming out of his eyes, his face was shining like an angel's face. That May night I gave my life to Jesus and I asked him to forgive me my sins. My life has changed in a miraculous way. God has forgiven me all of my sins and has given me power to overcome them. My hand has thrown a pack of cigarettes to the trash can, my alcohol addiction has gone, and the light has come into my relationships with the "weaker sex." The mother of my girl who was ashamed of my work at the restaurant stopped standing in the way of our dates. Me and Natasha started attending an evangelical church, and in three months she also made a decision to follow the Lord. We got married in September 1991. On the 30th of November, 1991 we were baptized and buried our old Adam and Eve in the Sea of Azov. And then you started singing for the Lord and became a Christian musician? Yevgeniy: Soon after that we started working at Mission "Opportunity" where my wife was a secretary and I was a missionary. We were doing various kinds of work. I received my first visions when me and my brother sawed wood for old people with saw model "Druzhba-2." Then there were the first outreaches to the city of Aktau, in Kazakhstan, to the prison for tuberculosis patients and to children's prisons. God is always faithful to his words. At the time of my repentance, he told me, "Son I forgive you and give you the gift of evangelism. You will sow the seed into human souls, and they will grow, and you will see the wonderful fruit!" After what God has done for me on the cross at Golgotha, after the forgiveness that he has given me, I want to do nothing but tell the world about his life and forgiveness. At the end of 1992, we started a new church where I was a worship leader and later a coordinator of home groups in one of the regions of Mariupol. At that time I started writing songs for the Lord, but my first album was only produced four years later. God started working with me. If your heart is not broken you cannot serve him. I needed to work somewhere and care for my family. Once I made a radical decision. God showed me that music is the idol which hurt our relationships. I said, "Jesus, for the sake of you and our relationship, never in my life will I touch instruments." After that I cried like a baby whose favorite toy was taken away, but God did his work: my heart was overflown with joy and peace, and I felt the Father's love and tenderness even more deeply. Life went on, I served the Lord and worked in many places. At that time there were no albums, popularity, stages, and stadiums. We worked at a farm not far from Mariupol where I milked cows. Kvitka and Chernushka, who by the way gave exactly a liter more milk than other cows. We grew black laying hens, geese, pigs, rabbits, and goats. Then I sold fish at a market place. God kept on shaping my nature and my character. In 1995, I started working as a driver, having asked God to give me a servant's heart. I tried very hard, my car was always clean, and I constantly prayed for my bosses. They mocked me, but I kept on praying. At that time I received only a million coupons a month while my chief's secretary received five million. The pressure on me became harder and harder, and the only thing I could do was appeal to God. One day a black "Volga" stopped by our office. The mayor came out of it and fired my chief. A new chief was appointed, and he said, "Man I don't know why, but I like you. You will be my driver." And there I was, sitting in a new car with a salary five times higher than it used to be. But my trials and afflictions continued. Then the Lord spoke to me that he saw that music had stopped being my god, and I started to play music for Christ again. At that time, in 1995, three of my songs were included into a collection of songs called "Balsam." God entrusted me to preach to the strong of this world. Together with my new chief I visited various businessmen, firms, banks, enterprises. and secret offices. For many of them I was the last who preached, for they got killed, inprisoned, etc. I used to spin the steering-wheel for 18-20 hours in a row, and God continued to work with my inner man. One Sunday my church and I held in Mariupol a benefit for handicapped children. And once when I came to pick up my chief to go to the executive committee, I was met by the head of the department for youth affairs of the biggest region of Mariupol, and unexpectedly he invited me to work with the executive committee. I understood that the Lord once again wanted me to do his work there. I received an office of my own and God entrusted me to work with people. My church and other churches were praying for me and attentively watching me. It is impossible to describe the things that were happening there. I will describe just several episodes. By the mayor's order, old communist quarters were renovated, and there we did evangelistic outreaches and showed the "Jesus" movie! Right from the executive committee, they were bringing me hot coffee, grapes, and sandwiches right there. God gave me wisdom in my work with "hard" children and teenagers, I was in charge of culture in the whole region. I saw God's glory every day and every moment. In the beginning of 1996, I produced my first album "Forgive" and heard God's calling to become his minister full time. Since that time, I visited more than 200 cities, towns, and villages of the former USSR with evangelistic music outreaches, gave several thousand services and saw how the vision that God had given me in a smoky restaurant became reality. I have travelled all over Ukraine, have been to Kazakhstan, Moldova, many parts of Russia (except for the Far East). There is no more joy for a man than the realization of who uses you and for whose glory you have given all of your life. Q: Could you tell us about your friends? Yevgeniy: I am very grateful to God for my friends. I have many of them, and I value them very much for the fact that they are. It is said in the Scripture that we should serve each other with tenderness, and that is why I always want to give part of myself for them. These are Volodya Limarenko, Lena Klyots, Kostya Kosyachkov, Sergey Briksa, Sasha Anisov, Askold Kvyatkovsky, Oleg Bogomaz, Gleb Spivakov, the groups "Spaseniye" ("Salvation"), "Nabat" ("Alarm Bell"), and "Dver" ("The Door"), pastor Alexander Yuchkovsky, and many, many others. My closest friend is my wife Natashenka. We have come through many good and bad things together. Different things happen in life, but since we have our common friend Jesus in our lives we endure everything and learn to win. Recently we met a new friend, the Holy Spirit, and now everything started to change in our life. The closer we are to him, the more beautiful and blessed our life becomes. Who am I without God? A fallen sinner who has no future, but when he comes into our lives, everything changes. A heavenly home and the Father's eternal love are waiting for me. And in this life the Kingdom of God is within me, and it gives me peace and joy, love and assurance. Q: What are your plans for the future? Yevgeniy: My plan for the future is to keep on working with God evangelizing the CIS. Presently me and my family live in Kiev. I travel around the country a lot, working on new music projects, and looking for opportunities to record video clips. I am a member of the "Word of Faith" church in Kiev, pastored by Sunday Adelaja. Generally, I am an interdenominational minister and serve in various churches of different denominations.
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