When he left, it felt like a piece of our planet was broken off, and floated away into space.
Alas, his ship arrived earlier than we expected, and we couldn’t stop it.  Nor were our ropes strong enough to pull it back through the winds of eternity. Reflecting on the joy embracing him as he reached the other shore brings peace. But the mystery ocean that lies between is a burden we have to carry on with.
His face was never on Charisma magazine, and you can’t even find him if you Google him. He was an undercover hero you don’t hear about on the news. And he was a healing evangelist, a pastor of many churches he personally planted, and he liked teasing me by feeding me with bizarre Ukrainian food he knew I didn’t like. He was my father in-law.

He grew up in the communist Soviet Union, where he was taught his whole life of God’s non-existence. He would mock people who asked him where he would go after death and laugh as he told them “well, of course I’ll go to hell.”
It all started when he was on his way to church. His motives were not as pious as most church-goers, however.
He had one thing in mind, and that was to get his hands on the pastor and knock him senseless.
His older daughter had lost her mind. And he was sure it was the church’s fault.
She had become a Christian, and through a complicated delivery of her first child, and some grotesque malpractice from a doctor, she lost her mind.
When he arrived at our church, bent on getting his hands on the pastor, he was ambushed by a Holy Ghost-filled woman who talked to him. I don’t know what she did to him, but he changed his mind about the pastor, and started following Jesus.
When he got home, now with several hours of experience of being a Christian, and a piece of paper where he jotted down some prayers for casting out demons, he started praying for his daughter who had “lost her mind”. Never prayed before in his life.
It was the real deal, and the demons started manifesting. And they came out. She was delivered, and back in her right mind.
Perhaps our seminaries and bible schools could learn some lessons from Yuri’s ministry training.

The one-step program to quitting smoking and drinking

His younger daughter Tanya (now my wife) came home from school one day and found her father laying on his bed like the fallen statue of Lenin, staring at the ceiling. “Be quite” her mother explained, “he’s quitting smoking.”
Before that day, he would go through several packs of cigarettes per day, and he had a very bad drinking problem. Tanya remembers times when her and her mom and sister had nothing else to do but roam around outside at night, waiting out an occasional case of her dads drunken rampages. After that day, he never smoked again, and he was completely delivered from drinking.
Years of bondage to drinking and unsuccessful attempts to quit smoking were bulldozed down as the Holy Spirit rolled into Yuriy’s life like a bowling ball.

Healings, miracles and transformed lives

It wasn’t long before he started reading about healing, and miracles, and somehow he knew this was for him. He started witnessing to neighbors and people on the street. And healing people.
He worked his way through their five-story apartment building praying for healing, and witnessing to people about this gospel of love and power. Consequently, after two months from the day he was converted from a fighting, drinking, smoking atheist to a full blown healing evangelist, he had a home group going in their apartment. Their home group consisted mostly of old friends, many of whom were ex-alcoholics. He had a knack for getting whole families saved, just as he and his wife Luba were saved together.
Long before he received the gift of tongues, he had seen God heal a woman from cancer through his hands. The gift of speaking in tongues came a long time later. In the meanwhile he was ministering with a great gift of healing as he shared the gospel with people. While the theologians are hashing that one out, we’ll move on with the story.

The circuit preachers/pastors

Eventually Yuriy along with his friend Boris Kuraksin became village circuit preachers/pastors. They both had an extraordinary gift of healing and miracles. Like Paul and Barnabas, they traveled long and wide around the Kharkov region planting churches in villages and towns, healing people and preaching the gospel. They lived and breathed village ministry, laboring relentlessly most days of the week.
Yuriy and Boris, starting their new careers as apostles in their golden years, both had a tenacious determination to die with their boots on.
When Yuriy’s health started to deteriorate rapidly, and he had dark circles under his eyes to show it, he would have his wife put makeup on him, so he could come to to church to preach without looking so deathly.
He was like a walking dead man. But he wouldn’t give up.
Nothing could stop him.

Legacy 

On November 30 Yuriy Borisovich Kobets went to be with the Lord.

This intriguingly took place exactly seven days after Boris Kuraksin went to be with the Lord.

The message came over Skype at three o’clock in the morning California time.  My brain felt like a command prompt on an old computer with someone typing in random commands that don’t mean anything.  It just wouldn’t compute.  It wasn’t our first attempt raising the dead, but it was the first time we tried it over Skype.  We don’t agree with death taking someone before their time, but we’ve settled in our hearts also to never hold God hostage to our unanswered questions.

His example of sold-out, radical commitment to using every drop of strength, talent, and opportunity he had to share the gospel and expand God’s Kingdom was astounding.

Suck it up, and fight the good fight.

Next time you feel under-qualified, or sorry for yourself, just remember Yuriy. He didn’t have much to work with by the time he started, but he made an impact on the course of history that will keep resonating throughout the planet through the disciples he raised, and the power and love of the gospel he released.
Many stories keep trickling in of individuals who are spiritual children and grandchildren of Yuriy. Stories of people, just as impressive and radical as Yuriy was.

If all of us sat down and weighed out our assets; the gifts, the opportunities, the talents, the resources we’ve been entrusted with, and we used them like Yuriy did for the spreading of God’s Kingdom, I reckon we could change the world.

“I have fought the good fight, I have kept the faith; there is now laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day; and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing.”  2 Timothy 4:7-8

We miss you papa Yuriy!  Your legacy will live on.