These are truly unprecedented times as war rages in Eastern Europe. We had the unique privilege to be joined by a member of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur community in Ukraine. Andrew Denysov, founder and CEO of TechVision Global, joins us on the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Podcast to share with us his story, how entrepreneurs play a key role in times of turmoil, and how we as the body of Christ can stand strong in the face of evil and uncertainty.

Episode Transcript

Rusty Rueff: Welcome back, everyone to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. These are truly unprecedented times. The world fought together against a global pandemic just a few short months ago. Yet it would seem as though that bond of unity has evaporated as a war now rages on in Eastern Europe. Today, we have the unique privilege to be joined by a member of the Faith Driven Entrepreneur community in Ukraine. Andrew Denisov is the founder and CEO of Tech Vision Global, a US based software consulting and development company with development teams in Ukraine. He also runs an automotive import business importing cars from the United States into Ukraine. He serves as the managing leader and preacher of the local church in Lviv, and he is an active member and one of our global Faith Driven Entrepreneur groups and a Faith Driven Entrepreneur live watch party host. Andrew joins us today to share with us his story, how entrepreneurs play a key role in times of turmoil, and how we as the body of Christ can stand strong even in the face of evil and uncertainty. Let's listen in.

Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast. We've never done this before. I say all the time that we've got a special edition and Faith Driven Entrepreneur podcast, and I believe that every time I've said that, that is true. And yet this is even truer than it's been in the past because this is the first time we've ever had an interview with somebody in the midst of a war who's on the ground in Ukraine. A great friend of the movement, guy named Andrew Dennis off, who hosted an FDE watch party back last fall, who's visited with Kimberly and I here at our house in California and who we consider to be a friend and just a great partner in the movement and somebody we've been thinking about and praying about and who's with us live on fond. Before we bring Andrew in, I'm joined by my co-host William Norvell. William, good morning.

Rusty Rueff: Hey, good morning. Good morning. Yeah, it's so great to have Andrew. And yeah, it's kind of a special edition of trying to figure out what entrepreneurs can learn and here and how we could potentially help what God's doing in your life and the Ukrainian people.

Henry Kaestner: So, Andrew, we're going to get a bunch of things going to talk about your background, what you're doing, what life is like when you're not in the middle of war. But the question is, bring it on. All of our hearts right now is what's it like there? I mean, we've never had an entrepreneur on the program that's in the middle of a war zone and just give us an idea about what's going on. And I know the last night we're going to do this recording, but it was interrupted by an air raid, so we didn't. What's it like? What's going on?

Andrew Denysov: Good morning, gentlemen, and I'm so honored and humbled to be invited to this podcast because I am a listener of this awesome resource that I use every time and looking for every to the U.S. So, so and on January 22nd, I turn to certify and I was never, never imagined how it could be in the world. Because every time I read a lot about the world in the books and stories and played video games by the worst but never felt under my skin was that. So today is the ninth day of the war. Sometimes we forget about the name of the day. So today's Friday and probably the second Friday in my life, I forgot to say the magic phrase Happy Friday, you know, because it's difficult to say that this is happy for us. And yeah, talking about it from epicenter of the war, you know, it's kind of very mixed feelings and emotions and something that actually I have never felt in my life before. And every day, it's something that you need to plan like. OK, so what's new can be today? And like you just said Henry, that we're actually supposed to record this episode yesterday, but we couldn't because we plan our days like our days consist of two parts from morning to evening and from evening till morning. So day and night, and we have to listen to the news to understand what's going on right now and what do we have planned tomorrow? So I'm actually in Ukraine right now, and I live in the awesome city called Slava al-Dabbagh, which is the western part of Ukraine, which is actually located like 38 40 miles from the border of Poland, which is NATO's area, right? And basically, we're far from the front line, but at the same time, we are in the country. That was where it is right now. Yeah, so it's sad. And how's that here? We're in the war. We have lots of restrictions. For example, all Ukrainian males from within the age of 18 to 60 are not eligible to leave the country. Only women and children, for example. You know, my wife, Orla, she's a very brave girl, and she said, I want to live the I want. I have seen it firsthand. Just, yeah,

Henry Kaestner: larger stories and more. I guess with what we have, maybe we went there, right? She was I have a loving hundred and forty pound Newfoundland dog who thought that only was a pretty thing he'd ever seen and decided that he was going to tackle her. And I will never forget where you learn a lot about somebody, his heart and character and their response within that, you know, two or three seconds of being knocked to the pavement. A man, she was so gracious that we were so poor and she's meant she's awesome.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah, that was a funny story. And we reckon the star is whether there are lots of smiles on their faces, you know? And yeah, so yeah, she's very brave girl. And we were lucky to have two kids, six and nine, and she says that, Hey, I won't go anywhere without you. She can do that any time. But OK, so we had as interpreters, we had negotiation before and almost every day, and we made a decision that if we feel, think and hear that the worst case scenario is coming, she will go, No, she will leave the country, right? What I mean, the worst case scenario? This is answering your question, Henry. So in we we are like more or less in peace right now. So no mystery and yet in the city. But it was in the region. No shelling occurred here in this city, but we said yet we said so far, but we hope it will never come right. So we're doing right now. We're focused on a few directions of every day. So first of all, we wake up every day and we pray that the prayer life like never before. We pray and think about Pray God for the peace in our hearts and minds because, like I said, lots of mixed feelings and thoughts right now. The second is where, you know, we're texting to our dear ones. That's always good. Call. Nice checking the emails and you're so understanding what's going on right now because, for example, how I found out about the war. It's interesting story goes that on February twenty fourth, I try to wake up at like 6:30 a.m. and try to not use the cell phone when I sleep during the night, not check the cell phone. But last few weeks, I had to do that because of this like. Tension that we had in the air in the news, you know? Yeah, and I received lots of messages from my friends, from states because you guys really one to three steps in front of us going into the news you hear about what's going on about the Russia conflict. And so there was just until that morning, your night that was just list of notifications, messages. But when I picked up the phone at five a.m., just woke up to drink of water, I realized that something happened. You know, she goes, I decided to check her Facebook and no sleep after that moment. So I saw the messages, lots of videos and messages that the war had started. So now we focused on that, you know, check the news about what happened for the past night because most of Shalane actually is going on right now during the night, for example, like you may read this morning that the biggest nuclear factory in Europe was under attack this night. And so now we have lots of news. Are they controlled by like troops, Russian troops or they're controlled by Ukraine? And so no real news so far. We have lots of refugees. We have a huge stream of refugees from front line, just thousands of thousands every year. And we, as Christians, we have hearts to help them as a when we say I was going to say in. No, we donate lots of money to, you know, bring some, you know, like food, hygiene products, everything social, humanitarian help aid for them. So on, so on. Because I'm just,

Rusty Rueff: yeah, I want to pause there. Can you maybe walk us through a little bit of that? So, you know, for for people that obviously have not lived through something like what is happening in the eastern side, how our people move? Like when you say refugees like Coop, who's coming, who's allowed to leave, how are people maybe just explain the whole situation for the east, the West, your friends over there, maybe who you've talked to, what they're going through, maybe take us into that a little bit more for those of us that can't quite empathize with what that is.

Andrew Denysov: Of course. Well, thank you for this, because, you know, sorry, guys. Lots of information. We're here for the last days, so people that are coming from Kiev, from Kharkiv, from those said Kiev is the capital of Ukraine and this is the main target, right? So the population of Kiev, for example, while like millions, five, four million people, so all they could do, they were just running from missiles, from troops. Those who could do that just pick up the backpack with some, I don't know, like cell phone, they refuse some clothing and just jump to the car if they could or train the tech. So there are like normal good people that were planning their next days, you know, but now they left everything, just everything. We're lucky that banking system still works in Ukraine. I mean, in those cities where everything okay, right now, electricity more or less, OK, that, but it changes every time, every day. So this is the type of people. So there are different. There are lots of them and they're just, you know, try to survive. That's it.

Henry Kaestner: So they get in the car and they head west and they show up and the Vive. Am I pronouncing that right anywhere close? That's correct. The Vive, and they're showing up. And are they showing up at churches? I guess they're looking to friends first. Yeah. Tell us more.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah. So they try to find anyone, any contacts in the western part of Ukraine, west of Ukraine. Vive OK, let's call it on the West. They know if they don't know, they tried to call anyone and they are OK to find shelter anywhere. And I want to tell you, German, that, you know, we have a whole lot of sadness here, fear. But there's one really positive thing that I noticed. Ukrainian nation Ukrainian people now are united like never before. Like never before. We're focused on one thing the victory and bright future. To get this goal, we realized that we have to win. Because technically, we're in the war would be in the last eight years. Now it's a real war. So killing people, killing children, you know, sending missiles to hospitals. So that's why we are united. And now anyone had to have connections to get it, to get people. Churches, schools, gyms, offices of the all companies we recombine to. We transformed to shelters, to hotels to gather people, give them food, give them places to sleep, rest, shower and help them with anything we can. The Partizan people of those strategies, they decided to leave the country to Poland, Hungary, Romania, Moldova like neighbor countries. But of course, again, only women and children eligible to do that. So we tried to motivate all males to stand up and fight for us with us. So that's why some of the activities that we do right now, we support army anything they need. We ask our foreign friends to send us. I don't even know that words in English, military words in English. You know, to besides the word weapon or something like that, you know, just to help. Yeah. So supplies the glass, right? Yeah. Any supplies, even clothing, military clothing, etc. So and we're good with this. I mean, really, I feel like the world helps us, you know, especially the United States helps us with this humanitarian aid. We're a good more or less here. But those front lines, they are in the terrible situation right now. Even if they have some money, they cannot purchase anything, anywhere. They're, you know, stores destroyed, everything destroyed. So we organized columns and cars, big trucks of humanitarian aid with food just to get in there and give them just, you know, food. You mean so terrible pictures and videos. And they are real. They are real. Lots of my friends just came there and terrible stories. I mean, they were dream all their life boat house. And finally, they build. They purchased the house. They lived there for a year. And that's.

Henry Kaestner: So these are friends, so tell us more about these are people that, you know, in Kiev, other entrepreneurs or business owners and also just I think that some number of us have gotten an understanding about where Ukraine is geographically. We know it's nice to Belarus and it's nice to to Russia. But give us a sense of kind of the size and scope. And then there's some amount. And in the Ukraine around Kiev that are maybe Russian speaking and then some of them out there, Ukraine has been. Help us understand kind of the the general makeup of the country ethnically language wise, what the experiences of Ukrainian nationalism in Kiev, in the east versus the West help us understand some of that.

Andrew Denysov: This is a very good and deep question. I'll try to be very short on this, but clear so historically, actually, Ukraine consists of Ukrainian and Russian speaking population, right? And western Ukraine, where I live, we strictly mostly speak in Ukrainian, but the center and especially the eastern part of Ukraine, they speak in Russian. So we don't like the mix of people. You know, they they like in past they were Russians, but now move to Ukraine and vice versa. So every time we had like words and phrases like we're brothers, country brothers, people right until February 24th, 2022, because brothers don't kill each other. So talking about, for example, language landscape, we're a very loyal and most of them are very loyal to the Russian. But it's not about like language, it's about like vision for the country. Right? So we want to build our country. Our vision, political and entrepreneurial vision is going to be very integrated with with Europe, with the states, you know, with Naito, with the European Union. But unfortunately, pro-Russians, they don't want it. They know that the USSR still alive, but under the name of Russian Federation. So there's just only one way for prosperity and for success, for bright future. So that's why we every time have this like not head to head, but sometimes it hats, right? But this like tension, I would say right now it's making it real right now. So are you with that? OK? Are you with a normal world or are you with aggressors? That's it. Because, you know, taken from the interpreter perspective, I actually have a dream, you know, because like, we had a conversation, Henry, when it came to you, we were in an awesome barbecue and talking that, you know, young Ukrainian generation like mine. Or so we'd like to build the country with integrated with the world like, you know, creating technologies, you know, creating workplaces, help people and grow entrepreneurship. This is what actually we feel the real freedom, passion, energy. But unfortunately, you know, the Russian side like, OK, we want to control you. And this is not good. So Kiev is a capitalist Ukraine. It's like, you know, half of the population is still speaking. The Russian half of the population speaks Ukrainian, but they mostly, you know, very pro-Ukrainian. But all the revolutions exactly happened there. Why? Because they know they are on the edge of two parts of Ukraine. So probably that's why, because of I'm afraid to tell you this phrase, but they'll tell in a few seconds. But I'll tell you now that's why we have this situation in the east of Ukraine, because a big part of it tribulation that wanted to stay with Russia.

Henry Kaestner: So there had been some level of internal rivalry between some folks that are in Ukraine proper, but speak Russian. That's right. And then the Ukrainian population that speaks Ukrainian natively, that's on the west side. How is that in your experience now that Kiev is really a dynamic city and you probably know it from Faith driven entrepreneurs and Kiev that are native Russian speakers? How are they processing this or are they welcoming it and thinking this is great going to be part of a greater Russia? And this is the motherland. And this is, you know, back in 1980 on the shores of the Jinapor River, this is where the Russian heartland was founded, and this is just kind of our manifest destiny. Or are your Russian speaking friends that are faith driven entrepreneurs in Kiev? Are they just a part? Help us to understand what that looks like. Yeah.

Andrew Denysov: Very good question, Henry. So I'll give you the answer on the example of my business partner. So he's from Crimea, the Crimea. He's actually originally from Korea, his parents from Crimea. You know, this is actually pretty similar, been with Kiev. So he was speaking the Russian whole entire his life. He knew Ukraine, and because they had news in Ukraine and, you know, everything like in Ukrainian on their official, but they spoke Russian. So it's very delicate edged between Russian Ukrainian language because there are lots of Russian speaking Ukrainians, but they support Ukraine. So here's an example of that. He actually won in 2014. You know, Russia came to Crimea. They were trying to fight for like a year, but they realized that, OK, so we would just have to leave this place. So they moved to leave the city where they have never been before. They just jumped into two cars and moved here, and they started to learn Ukrainian. Sometimes, you know, when they're in the family, they still speak in Russian. Sometimes you forget it like, OK, I need to speak to Ukraine or something like that. But you know, it's not about now language. It was not about the language, but it was about the vision for the country. You know, that is fascinating.

Henry Kaestner: That's helpful. What you're saying right there is that, look, there is this concept of a vision about integration with the West. There's as you said before, it's kind of a hope and a future and that it's not as much around linguistic barriers. It's around what kind of future do we want to see? Do we want to see one integration in the West into technology, into the marketplace? Or do we want to kind of go back to the way things were when there is this global USSR type of thing? And that you're saying that's not necessarily completely just linguistic, it's just OK, have a hopeful democracy and those that do not.

Rusty Rueff: And I don't want to speak for 45 million people. But when you've lived there, do you feel like there's an overwhelming one way or the other? You know, is the country split or is there? Hey, you know, 90 percent of people want to pursue one and 10 percent want to pursue the other. Just how how does that country, how does the country feel along that line? I hear that line. I'm curious, how do you do you do you have five friends and four agree one way and another agrees another way? You know, it's kind of a political conversation. You know, we have these obviously in the states all the time where it's like, Hey, I don't I don't think that's the right path. I think that's the right path. Right? How is that conversation? Go with your friend groups and your church and things like that?

Andrew Denysov: Well, you mean now or before February 24th?

Rusty Rueff: I'd be curious to hear both. Right? Yeah. Was it was it one way? And now this is totally switched it or yeah, I think because they're both ten days, it's crazy.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah, because now our life, our lives divided before and after February 24th. So before, I mean, we're different. You know, we wrote for the different political groups, different, you know, candidates to presidents. And you know, we spoke different languages. And like I said, I can easily switch to Russian and for on my surname, actually my grandpa, he's is from Belarus, by the way. And I have Belarussian roots, so even the ending of my surname. Oh, really, it's very like from Russian. So that's why I'm very open to that. But you know, this is a very good question. Well, because the language, the linguistic, you know, that difference is kind of one of the main trigger right now. One of the main trigger right now, especially when it comes to West Ukraine. And there were lots of rumors that, for example, Ukrainian speaking Ukrainians know they hate Russians. No, no, no. That's not true. Again, that's about division. So now we're united and we speak to each other, the language that we know, but we look to the fruits of actions of the vision. So if you speak Russian and Ukrainian, that's fine. But you know what's interesting? Lots of before February 24th. Russian speaking Ukrainians start to speak Ukrainian to be united because they realized that language is one of the most important triggers right now. So difficult question, but it's just evolving right now. You know, so that's I like about the churches. For example, we have preachers that could and can now come here and preach in Russian. Or, you know, talk in Russian, and that's fine, and that's OK because we speak on the language of Holy Spirit. Talking about the business, we're never diverse. Oh, if you a Russian speaking, I will not hire you. No, no, no, no. That's not. We have engineers around Ukraine and we speak in chat in my bilingual Ukrainian and Russian. And that's OK because we speak on the language of high, top notch service delivery for our clients. Tell us a little

Henry Kaestner: bit about what the businesses you have.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah. So one of the business I have is a tech company and probably I had the car dealership business, but I think it's di because just there's nothing in the world. So you had a car

Henry Kaestner: that you had a car dealership business until 10 days ago?

Andrew Denysov: Yeah, we purchased American cars in America, in the United States, like broken cars, shipped them to Ukraine, repaired them and sell them here. There was a small margin and I think that our small margin and because I love cars and, you know, it was a good business. But now it doesn't work

Henry Kaestner: quick, have real quick diversion. Now a moment of levity and inmates report from a war zone. I had a good friend of mine in Finland who did the same thing, and he was fascinated and loved, and many of his friends loved Camaros in Iraq and Corvettes and things like that. The problem was that in Finland, there's a very big import duty on sports cars, but there was no import duty on pickup trucks. So he had a business right in port, the cameras in and he turned them into pickup trucks. So the front would be a Camaro or an Iraq or a Corvette, and the back would be a flatbed pickup truck, like we said, the El Camino Real. You know, that was back in the 1970s, so I'm kind of betraying my age here a little bit. But I remember a business like that that I thought was interesting driving around the streets in Finland and seeing these converted cameras into pickup trucks. OK, back to our originally scheduled program reporting from the war zone in Leviev. Continue on. So you're saying that this import type of business is probably now threatened

Andrew Denysov: because of the seaports in Odessa? I mean, it doesn't ship anything. And yet that's why we purchase broken cars in the states because there were super low import fee. And we have really smart people that actually can repair the cars, and it would look like new, you know, like really, really good Teslas. You no big trucks, etc. but by about another guy,

Henry Kaestner: that's a great example because you hear this because they're hitting a lot of the cities right along the Black Sea, and you're giving a good illustration about why access to the ports is really, really important.

Andrew Denysov: Really, really important. Talking about another tech business, which is my primary business and the business that actually and my passion connects to that I love it because Ukraine, for the last twenty five, 30 years, Ukraine, everything was like a really good pool of talents in tech and software in math and physics. So that's why the industry is also engineering in this super high. And, you know, we always thought that no force majeure actually can freight us, which is what we need when in our brains, internet connection laptops, electricity. That's it. For example, when COVID hit, where? OK, so we just lost our offices and we work from home. So nothing broke our high tech measures on the stability for our clients. Why? Because we simply all lost more than to the case where remote vendor for our clients, mostly United States, the United States, is the biggest client for all companies right in Ukraine, Europe as well. Of course, Middle East. Yeah, like this through their actions. And another thing is because of the good tax system, what do we have in Ukraine always had? That's why lots of smart people, they just talked to engineers and they provided a really good coach. And this industry was and still is, I hope, very good. Probably you heard about it recently. Yeah, we're well known Prime Minister of Digital Transformation in Ukraine. This is a guy who was thirty one year old and he's a vice prime minister in Ukraine, and he's doing an amazing job, amazing work in our just digitalizing the Ukraine. So this is who we are. We love to create. We're very entrepreneurial. We is it to learn best to learn everything. We understand that we know like we don't need other languages, just English. For example, when I was kids, my dad said, Hey, no other language, just English. You have to learn. I said, Daddy, why I want to play soccer on the street, you know, et cetera. I don't want to waste my precious time on learning English. If you speak English, you will speak with whole world. Daddy, thank you so much for this advice. I mean, software like business is something that still alive and works, and I want to even tell you more, brother, that exactly. Tech companies are providing the biggest donations if it's my internal donations to United States Army, to refugees and the taxpayers.

Henry Kaestner: So maybe I'm being too presumptuous here. But a way to support Ukraine in this time is realizing that millions of Ukrainians who are well-educated in math and science and are good on the tech side are great candidates to be able to help the marketplace because as you're helping them, they are involved with local minister. Well, maybe I'm just putting too many words in your mouth, but I think you're getting something really important here. Ukraine has an increasingly tech proficient marketplace providing skills and services to a global economy as they are becoming more and more successful as you are. Others like you, including yourself, are able to invest in the challenges that you see in Ukraine that are right in your backyard. Yes. Is it too presumptuous for us to ask our audience just to be thoughtful about? Are there opportunities to hire Ukrainian businesses at this time there in the knowledge economy? And maybe that's a way to help Ukraine in a really desperate time? Or is it sound like to pro-Ukrainian? I'm turning this into a sales pitch for Ukrainian technology companies. And maybe that's OK.

Andrew Denysov: I want to quote Henry Kissinger on my link in Facebook. You know, the attempts by Ukrainians. I one this is one of the best sell speech I ever heard about Ukraine. Brother, there's a win, actually. Let me start you off from waiting for Ukraine. I'm Ukrainian. So yes, that's just one hundred percent each word. What you said? It's true. True, true. And why? Because we smart. We are hard workers and we'll do our best to provide the best service. But at the same time, at the same time. And yes, and of course, we're very entrepreneurial and creative, so we love technology. For example, you probably heard about unicorns like Grammarly and Ukrainian company. You probably heard about tech. You heard about, like Snapchat, it's American. But now, of course, technology was created in Ukraine and the Odessa, one of the companies and stuff like that. So we are very creative so we can create some really cool technologies. But at the same time, because of the economies gap Ukrainian emergent, there is another vein, for example, for American business, because the prices here are cheaper at the same time, providing a really good service. So that's totally Win-Win.

Henry Kaestner: So tell us a little bit about, you know, this is a time of need in the country. And one of my favorite experiences ever with Faith driven entrepreneurs was going with Ruben Culture., director of international strategy to Romania, where there is just an incredible number of Faith Driven Entrepreneur groups. It's just incredibly encouraging. So we spent an entire week going around at different cities in Romania and visiting with them. One of the highlights was a retreat that a number of Faith driven entrepreneurs put together in Transylvania, and there were 35 of them, maybe 27 28 Romanians and seven or eight or nine Moldovans. And during the entire day, they talked about the different ministries they like to support locally, and it completely changed my paradigm of having thought about this. We hear about Romanian orphanages, and the presumption is that all the money comes from the West. In this case, these are local entrepreneurs rolling up their sleeves, getting involved in these orphanages, many of them sitting on the boards of some of these organizations and giving generously to them. And then as they talked about the different organizations they like, then they went around. At the end, you could go ahead and pile on. The other faith driven entrepreneurs that were already given other ones that they were championing would say, Hey, I love that presentation. I want to count us down for 2000 euros for that as well. Yes, it was just kind of this neat, vibrant generosity initiative among Faith driven entrepreneurs in Romania. You see anything like that happen in the Ukraine or is there a local generosity initiative? Talk about that.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah, yeah. You know, I'll tell you another quick story from my experience of my life. OK, so here's the point. There are two types of generation in Ukraine. Like I call that my generation. They were like grown up after the Soviet Union and another like my parents' generation who were grown up and actually, you know, like in Soviet Union, right? So my parents' generation, because they grow up, their data mentality was like, you know, you have to go to school university, you'll get the job from the government for 100 percent and you'll be provided the job housing and all will be OK. Not you won't be prosperous. You know, you won't believe the rich, the rich, you know, like super freedom, life, etc. But you'll be provided my generation. For example, on the very first day of when I came to the university, the very old but very wise professor told me, I remember that that was in two thousand four. He told me that. When you graduate, when you finish this year or in five years, all of you will be unemployed and we were like, What are you talking about? That was 2004, like unemployed. But my mom and my dad told me that you have to go to university because to get a good job. They were right and they are like, world right. But the world has changed. And that professor was right. So when I graduated, I was struggling to find a job. That's why the only one way you could do is start your business. And two years before I graduated, I had a chance to come to the United States for some of my life. That was the students exchange program called Work in Travel USA. And like I said, I just was at work where in the United States, Gulf Shores, Alabama and Orange Beach. Yes, we lived in culture

Henry Kaestner: that match up like, we're doing this video interview right now, and I see the skyline of Manhattan behind you and the Brooklyn Bridge, and I see Steve Jobs in the Chicago Cubs baseball, the Gulf Shores Alabama match what you had thought the United States was always about. And I say this partly in jest because I know of William's love of his home state of Alabama.

Andrew Denysov: Really, really.

Rusty Rueff: I'm not going to derail us into a conversation about Alabama, but this makes me very happy.

Andrew Denysov: Yeah, brothers. I didn't know anything about states, about Alabama before. That's because we got the job offer from Johnny Rockets the most rocket Iraq. The hamburgers. We were dancing servers. I won one of the best dances server ever in their entire history.

Henry Kaestner: You were a dancing server at Johnny Rockets.

Andrew Denysov: Yes, sir. Yes.

Rusty Rueff: Oh, I wish we did a video. So what is

Henry Kaestner: it? What does that entail? I mean, what? What do you do? I mean,

Andrew Denysov: every 30 minutes, the visitors could order the song and they knew actually there were bands and servers and we had a few songs and it was really the really cool song Brothers. I think I've lost that video somewhere on. You may have

Henry Kaestner: to find and put it in the shadows. So this dinner,

Rusty Rueff: we need to go. We need theater Alabama style. That's what it sounds like. Sounds like Henry's never been to a Johnny Rockets Amen revenge on Iraq, but we can celebrate.

Henry Kaestner: Yes, last time in Alabama.

Andrew Denysov: But I love it. Yeah, that's super cool. It's it's interesting. But you know me and my wife, although we were planning to come to the United States on June again and this year for a month or so, and we tried to mostly visit to the East Coast, North Carolina, Alabama, Florida, you know, of course, New York City as well. But of course, now we don't know which plane right now, so no more plans are on hold. So that's why we were going to visit Gulf Shores and Orange Beach as well. Because, you know, this is our very first impression of the United States and it was super cool and fresh.

Rusty Rueff: So during that time, you come back to Alabama, you let me know, well, OK. Well, when you go

Henry Kaestner: to North Carolina first, you will never leave.

Andrew Denysov: I don't know. Yeah. Oh my guess, brothers. You make me smile like I. This is the most for the last nine days. Thank you, brothers, for a good movie with you.

Henry Kaestner: It's so great to be with you.

Andrew Denysov: So let me come back to my story. So I had a chance to come to the United States, and 2007 actually was here in the States when I got knocked to my heart in the States. I was dropped there because it was full, because I was four. There was a story that in the end, the third months of my stay in the states, just saving money in the house, you know, etc. And then my friends, they knew that and they just $5k, the biggest money that I ever had in my life and ERG and there was just one month remains until I had to come back to Ukraine and my mom came to Jesus year ago. I mean, in 2006, you know, I said, Hey, I heard about you, Jesus. My mom told me that an issue you just for me, I need like $3K more because my parents actually spent four air tickets, program documents, you know, people, papers, cetera, et cetera. Exist, just give me that. I talked to him and I forget the conversation and I started to work, work hard and two jobs. So when you came back to Ukraine, there was on three hundred bucks more than, I bet, you know, like three K plus three hundred dollars. And actually, when I was talking to Jesus that time, I didn't believe that it will come true. How one important thing I saw 2007. And that was the year when Steve Jobs and Apple announced their very first iPhone, I was working my second job that time was I was housekeeper, so I was cleaning one in that rooms. I looked at the advertisement, Steve Jobs said, Hey, these icons are so cruel that you want to lick them, right? So I remembered that phrase and I was looking at the TV and I said, Oh, wow, what a kind of magic is that holding my old small Nokia Wear audience, you know? And I realized that, hey, these technologies, this is real magic. So that's why I came back from the states to Ukraine that year. I realized that I cannot find a job being the student. On the third year, I realized that I need to try and trip conversion, and I earn some first money and I realized, Wow, it works. So this notion of this business works because I never even heard about word business and urban airship. So I realized that it works and it can make some good money. I can help my parents, my friends, my family know and etc. So we're talking about different crises, so in my life. I had a few crises in 2004, a revolution, first 12, 14 and 13 second revolution. There was like comment. I don't count that as a crisis because now comparing to comment is just not. So talking about entrepreneurship, I realized that entrepreneurship for Ukraine is must be so much my entrepreneurship as a Christian, I'm a result of American missionaries. And when I really I was always pursuing the English courses and one of the stories is actually I get acquainted with a missionary that actually came back after 10 years living in Ukraine to back to Atlanta, Georgia, and his name is Dustin Miller-Meeks the most fantastic man I ever know. So he invested into my spiritual life, and I call him like my spiritual daddy. And we had the conversation last week. So he's actually I'm the product of American Christians, and they actually invest it to me so much. And we help all Americans to create, you know, camps, English courses, etc. And that's why I talk to all Americans. I tell to all my American friends one thing that please don't give us money. Teach us how to generate the money. How to learn entrepreneurship. How to create the value. Because we don't want to take just fish. We want to ask you, teach us fish. And you know how to generate this? Well, not to be the country of donations, but to be the country of generator of some kind of cool value in tech, anything that we have lots of talents. So this is my store. This is my vision. That's why I'm super passionate about being the co-founder of American company. I had to do that. I predicted this. And actually, even for the American markets, better off. And you know, my clients paid to American bank account, you know, dealing with an American company. But still, I'm Ukrainian, and thank God we're living in a very global world. So, you know, I can be in Ukraine, I can be in Europe, I can be in the states anywhere and still doing the business and creating job workplace. I can tell you about the passion about the vision. I could talk a lot, so please stop me.

Rusty Rueff: No, not going to stop you. I just know we're getting close to the hour here in Russian. I have. And forgive me if I don't ask this question properly. How is your hope and how is the hope of the Ukrainian people right now? You're in nine or 10 days. I mean, there are, I guess I'm going to ask this poorly. There are bad outcomes here, potentially from what I can tell and I'm not in it. There are good outcomes. There are medium outcomes. How is your hope and how is your friends and your family thinking about where this will be 10 days from now and 100 days from now? How are you there?

Andrew Denysov: OK, so officially, the help is good. Not officially, it's not a good. It's time to look into the broken serious and, you know, looking to this situation like Christian, I realize that everything will be OK because we're going to the eternal life to our heavenly home, right? Looking at a jumper error, I realized that, oh my gosh, we need to build our country from the ground. So general, we try to keep the hope good and brother. Really, there are mixed feelings regarding the help. So if telling you, honestly, we don't know. We didn't know because situation is really bad. I'm positive, actually hold my last and very close. I try to look to the evidence church is very positive. That's why that's why I love to encourage people, inspire people in my life. But now just telling to you all guys and everyone here, listen to this episode and the best podcast ever in the world for entrepreneurs and not just entrepreneurs, but the people who fight to create something creative value and make a difference in this world. I'm telling you, if you hear us, please help Ukraine. And if with anything you need. If you're somewhere in a government, please through your government sources are in business, maybe donate something. But with the trust source, if you can, you know, help with some military stuff, please do that with humanitarian aid. We need that a lot. And when the World War will finish and we really, really asking you, please come here and just meet these people, invest into this business. I realize that it sounds ridiculous investing into the country after the war. I'm sure they will win. That's my hope. Brother, well, my hope we will win. You trend will win. But to help us with, you know, entrepreneurship, how to invest, how to build companies economy, I mean, like, you know, some kind of economic stuff. Money management and English. We need English, we don't need Russia in any lot of the language. I mean, now we need English because this is international language. When computers understand English, because the code is in English, so this is the hope. I really, really hope that we'll come back the hope to the right level because my hope is Jesus. And that's why we tried to help our people around us to keep the hope on him and turn it into the practical direction.

Rusty Rueff: Thank you so much for that, and I know, Andrew, if you have any resources, we'll listen for our listeners and we'll make a post about some of the things I know. Hope International has a fund and some other friends of the community have ways to help, but obviously help us. Listeners have ways to help reach out to us. We'll share it with our audience, so please be with us. Thank you for that. And as you know, we do typically closed with with God's word, and I would love to invite you there. Where does God have you today? Where is he pointing you for some of that hope or clarity or or anger or frustration? I don't know what emotion you're going to scripture with right now, but where my God have you?

Andrew Denysov: Actually, what's interesting, one of my favorite verse that I live right now, when I wake up every day, every morning, this is the release 21 seven that says that those who are victorious will inherit all this. And I will be their God and they will be my children. So, you know, that message from scripture came to my mind even far before the war started. But now it's actually like never before. We understand about what victory this passage is talking about, right? And I'm thrilled. I don't want to, you know, connect to the war or something like that, but I realize that like never before. Then sooner or later, I will die. I will die and learn what will go, so I will be that guy who will be called son and inherit that investments that Jesus invested into my life, into my eternity. And this verse that I would wake up every morning and go to bed with this brother. So this is my hope as well.

Henry Kaestner: Heavenly Father, we lift the banner and the people of Ukraine to you, and we ask for your world to be done and that you would it would be your world that this conflict would end quickly. We asked for particular favor and protection over your community of believers who you acknowledge you as their father and who want to ascribe glory to you and your largest asset. You would glorify yourself through this in a way that doesn't seem obvious right now, but you would know and you'd find us all faithful and obedient those of us listening to this and in North America, that we would answer the call to be involved in some of the relief efforts through different ministries that we know are on the ground, making an impact that we would be an encouragement to those that are still on the ground and in Eastern Europe, especially those, of course, in Ukraine that would find as prayerful that you would answer our prayers and that you would be glorified but micro prayers that you just bless the Denisova family. You protect them on the times when they can't make it down to the basement for the air raid that you'd protect them where they shelter in place and the bathroom that you'd be with faith driven entrepreneurs all throughout the country, you'd be with faith driven entrepreneurs all throughout Russia. That your name would be proclaimed and that the glory wouldn't go to Russia, the glory wouldn't go to Ukraine, the glory would go to you in Jesus name. Amen.

Andrew Denysov: And that brothers, I want to tell you, thank you so much for this podcast because you shed that light into the darkness of this world. I truly believe because the combination of entrepreneurship and Christian Faith driven entrepreneurs is something. This is something. And I truly believe that when the world gets darker, the light shines brighter. So keep shining and let's shine together.

Henry Kaestner: God bless you, brother. Awesome, MIT.