Beginning of the ministry year

In this letter, I wanted to let you know what God has been doing through my ministry among the students these last two months. 

1. Student Retreat in Lviv. 

Lviv is one of the cities that my team leader, Tolik, and I oversee. In the end of August I attended their student retreat where they had about 35 students who are actively involved in this ministry building spiritual movements on their campuses. This is one of the biggest ministries in Ukraine and it was so encouraging to be among them, see their faith and be a part of their fellowship. For me it is a testimony of God’s sovereign will and His special blessings. They are not doing anything extraordinary to see this fruit (other teams do very similar thing but not as fruitful). They prayed and invested in the right people, challenged students to take a responsibility and God in His loving kindness allowed them to see spiritual multiplication among the students of two major universities in Lviv, National and Polytech. 

I was training a small group of those students how to start a personal ministry of discipleship and I was so so encouraged to hear that all of them see the importance of discipleship, someone invested in them when they were still baby Christians and they want to do this to someone else 

2. Conference “Don’t waste your life” 

As our strategic step – we are trying to attend largest Christian conferences promoting our tools and visions of Evangelism and discipleship. At this conference (about 1300 Christians from all over Ukraine), we were able to pass the vision of sharing the Gospel in a modern and relevant way. For two days in a row, we would hold trainings and workshops how to use THEFOUR (Gospel presentation bracelet), Perspective Cards (conversation about worldview) and Soularium (photo test) to engage people in spiritual conversations. 

3. Thanksgiving Day on Maydan (Central Square in Kiev) 

 This is the third official Thanksgiving Day that we are celebrating this way, as a large gathering of all Christians in the heart of Kiev. It is a historic event because just a few decades ago faith in God was persecuted. A lot of Christian organizations were presenting their ministries, churches had worship and short sermons on stage, our students and staff were there sharing the Gospel with people and meeting other brothers and sisters who were interested in partnering with us. It is a big testimony of God’s goodness to Ukraine. 

My mom also came to Kyiv for that event with her church and I was able to spend a good time with her. We actually had a very meaningful conversation about our family past (which is also a testimony because some things of our family we have never talked about and only now starting to reveal) 

4. Women’s meeting with Kyiv Center team 

I was invited to be a guest speaker at the women’s meeting for Christian and non-Christian girls and speak on the topic of Identity in Christ vs finding identity in human love and relationship. I was able to share my testimony with the girls and encourage them to invest in their relationship with God first. I told them that relationship with guys don’t define who they are, but their position as God’s daughters and their desire to serve Him and do His will – that’s what matters! In the light of the recent development in my personal life and relationship I have now – it was very fresh, evident and applicable. 

Please pray for my ministry in November and December 

1. In the end of October I will attend a special spiritual retreat in Asissi, Italy. It’s a place where a famous person, St. Francis of Asissi (founder of the Catholic Order of Franciscans) served in 12th century. It will be a time of refresh/prayer and just time in God’s presence/ Pray God would renew my soul and draw me closer to Him. 

2. Next two months my team will be doing many team visits. We will travel all around Ukraine, visiting our ministries in all locations, spending time with staff and students, encourage and give direction to them. Pray that God would use us in a mighty way and help us survive physically and emotionally. 

Thank you for being in this ministry with me and playing a big role in it.

The largest event of this summer - SpeakOut 2019

We have been getting ready for this project for the whole year: prayed over the city, looked for churches to partner with us, knocked on the doors of many universities to hold English lessons, searched for connections with city authorities and prayed again. 

This year SpeakOut took place in Poltava, central part of Ukraine. We have been praying for and setting these goals: 

-Train our volunteers in evangelism and discipleship; 

-Partner with local youth and encourage them to minister to 
students; 

-Influence and serve the city through proclaiming the Good News; 

-Launch a student spiritual movement in Poltava.

1. Studying the book of Ecclesiastes and epistle of Paul to Philippians we raised the topic of joy and happiness that come from knowing the Lord and serving Him. Joy in discipleship was the main topic of this project.

2. Unique partnership with local churches in Poltava became a huge blessing of SpeakOut 2019. More than 13 churches were involved one way or the other: going through training and going downtown Poltava sharing faith, hosting our volunteers, feeding them and taking care of them, supporting and resourcing our project, and the most important - doing follow up with all the people we met during evangelism...

3.At this project we shared the Gospel 

in personal conversations with 2031 people, 25 
people prayed to receive Christ, 103 students went through three follow up meetings about faith and Christian worldview.

This year I was a part of American camp and we shared the Gospel with campers using strategy of English language. At American camp 115 campers heard the Gospel and 7 prayed to receive Christ. 
We trust these results to the Lord and we are praying that the fruit is even bigger than we can imagine because many seeds were planted and God will grow them. 

Lena, Kate, Lera and Dasha

This is the group of girls that I have been working with personally. My disciple Marina and I shared our testimonies with them and shared the Gospel through Perspective cards. This year I felt especially challenged by my students. All of the girls seemed to be so far away from the Lord: being so materialistic, self-confident, believing in relative truth, being atheist or agnostic, seeking satisfaction and having a modern mentality of living your life to the fullest...

At this picture, you can see their worldview: the line above is what they chose and the bottom line is what I used to share the Gospel with them. 

They believe that:

-God doesn’t exist and even if he does - it’s impossible to know him personally; 

- the nature of man is relative so it’s totally up to you if you want to be good or bad; 

-there’s no meaning of life so just try to live a good life and do good to others because there is no creator and there is no specific purpose for you; 

-Jesus is a legend; 

-and the source of spiritual truth is self-discovery. 

There were moments when I would silently cry to the Lord in the middle of the conversation saying: “Dear God, please help me ask them the right questions to challenge this mess they believe in, give me wisdom to speak the words of life to them. What do I say next to continue this conversation?” 

Please keep praying for Kate, Lera, Lena and Dasha. It was obvious that God has been knocking at the doors of their hearts through difficult life circumstances they’ve been going through but they’re just so blind at this point.

End of the year update

God is at work in Ukraine! I rejoice in the Lord observing His mighty works in and through our movement and I would like to share with you some highlights of God’s work in this ending-up ministry year. 

Partnering with Christian community 

 The war with Russia has united our society in Ukraine. We are encouraged to see how main Christian denominations are willing to cooperate with each other in order to bring hope and Gospel to our struggling nation. Their desire to reach people for Christ revealed their need in relevant and contextualized evangelistic tools. And that’s where our ministry was able to serve the Body of Christ equipping our churches for evangelism. In the last year, 35 churches and around 2000 young brothers and sisters in Christ were trained in how to use the modern version of The Four Spiritual Laws and practiced it with people on the streets. 

Please pray that my team can hold training conferences on Evangelism in each of 25 regions of Ukraine. 

Bright spot in the dark side and Sending 

God blesses our country with a unique time of religious freedom. And we still see people responding positively to the Gospel. When we look at countries around us, like Russia and Belarus, they are known for their strict laws about public evangelism. Poland, Slovakia and Hungary are countries where society becomes more and more secular. Romania and Moldova are drifting toward materialism. And Ukraine is like a spot of God’s light in our geographical area. In the last 5 years 45,000 students heard the Gospel and 35 people joined student ministry in Ukraine as full-time missionaries and we expect to see more in the future. 

Though we can’t say that we have enough workers to reach every one out of 1.5million students in Ukraine but we have a strong conviction from God that we should be a blessing for the nations around us. Many of our staff desire to be short-term or long-term missionaries somewhere outside of Ukraine. And I would like to announce that we are about to send our Ukrainian missionaries abroad. 

Sashko and Marichka are in the process of transition to student ministry in Cru Poland. They are raising financial support for working outside of Ukraine, we are working on legal issues of their employment and hopefully they will move to Poland this fall. We are encouraged by their faith and trust in God! 

Please pray for God’s provision for them and their transition to Poland. 

Student-led movement in Lviv 

 This spring we visited our local team in Lviv, the beautiful city in the west of Ukraine. I am impressed by God’s work there. There are two spiritual movements among the students of two universities in Lviv. Every student volunteer in their movement is passionate about personal Evangelism and Discipleship. Some of them have 3-4 generations of discipleship. On the picture you can see one of the Bible study groups for the girls. 

Oleh, a student volunteer from Lviv movement, who became a believer a year ago, says: 

“I love to share the Gospel with people around me - in the gym, at the university, in the park, on public transport. I cannot keep quiet knowing that students around me do not know and do not understand the Gospel. I want to follow the example of Jesus Christ who preached to everyone on His way.” 

In fact, while Oleh is discipled by another student Yarek, he is already going through basic Christian lessons with a couple of guys interested in knowing God personally. He is praying they would become true followers of Christ as he is. 

Pray for Oleh’s spiritual growth and may God use him in a powerful way on his campus. 

I acknowledge that all these things wouldn't be possible if you were not partnering with me for the sake of God's Kingdom.  And I am so thankful for your faithful support and for your prayers for our ministry among the students of Ukraine and beyond so that every student knows at least one true follower of Christ. Thank you!

First winter events

Student Prayer Summit 2019:

In February, students of our movement organized a prayer summit. This is their annual initiative. For two and a half months, they have been planning this event, thinking about how to encourage young people to pray for building spiritual movements on their campus. About 120 students from all over Ukraine came to Lviv to spend one day in communal prayer.

I was encouraged by the fact that students wholeheartedly shared our vision, their hearts are set on close relationship with God (this was the topic of the Summit), Evangelism and Discipleship. We, as staff, could only rejoice watching them.

At the Summit they shared how they get together for a prayer time on their university campus. I was amazed to hear that at Kiev Polytech University they are praying together daily, meeting at 8 am.

Jesus said: “Without Me you can do nothing”. In prayer, we entrusted Him with work among the students of Ukraine.

Meeting with regional youth leaders of the Baptist Union of Ukraine.

Our team continues to partner with the head of the youth ministry from the largest Baptist Union in Ukraine. Our common desire is to see a leader who would be responsible for the student ministry in every region of Ukraine (25 of them). 

Discussion group about student ministry

Together with another student organization, we taught these guys how to start such ministry, how to reach students with the Gospel, and not just invite them to church, but begin the process of discipleship. Unfortunately, in many churches the best thing that happens in youth ministry is evangelism. And nothing follows. We are dreaming that the church will start making disciples again, so that the principle in 2 Tim 2: 2 will be applied by every Christian.

Team Evaluation

This year, our leadership team learns more about the ministry of local teams, using a resource called Ministry 360 Review. We visit the team, participate with them in the ministry activities, team meetings, meet each staff and student leader personally, study the dynamics of ministry, statistics, and strategic plan. This helps us to understand much better what God is doing in this team, and to give them a fairly objective feedback from the outsider. 

Meeting staff in Dnepr

We have already held a 360 review in 6 teams in Ukraine, and only one team from Lviv remained. Evaluating the ministry in the Dnieper, I was encouraged by how much this team prays. They do not see much fruit in repentance among students, but they are so faithful, they pray often, much and sincere. The Lord started bringing Christian students to the movement, and they want to share their faith in their own university. Communicating with students and staff of another team who works with multiple cities in Ukraine (Link team), I was pleased to see that students from Nikolaev, Belaya Tserkov, Ostrog and other cities told how God personally called them to serve. They dreamed of preaching the Gospel to students in their cities and then God introduced them to Campus Ministry.

Meeting with the LINK Team

Please pray for our teams:

In March, almost every team holds English Club, in order to meet new students. Please pray that many students will learn about Christ and receive Him by following Him. 

This year we are experiencing a shortage of staff for leadership roles on some teams. Please pray that the young staff grow and gain experience so that they love God and people and take leadership roles in the near future. 

Pray for the summer project SPEAK OUT 2019, which will be held in Poltava. Now we are trying to get official permission to hold mass events from the city authorities, we are looking for teachers from America and working on the camp program.