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.

Raising leaders

You have probably heard about this vision from me before- Campus Crusade for Christ is globally united around this- Gospel for every student, Movement on every Campus, Leaders for every nation. 

In this letter, I want to focus on the third part of this statement: Raising leaders who will continue to fulfill the Great Commission. 

Investing in people and helping them build spiritual movements is a part of our DNA and it begins at the first stages of our Campus ministries going all the way to the national level. Here is what my team has been doing in this area: 

1. We teach the students from their first baby steps in faith to grow spiritually and take initiative in helping others learn about Jesus and grow as well. It takes time to learn how to be a good discipler but you have to start making disciples right away. Our team was working this past year on the renovated system of multiplication to help students invest in others. We wanted to improve the existing system based on the current realities and needs of our students. It will be a step-by-step pathway, helping each student who wants to multiply to identify the spiritual level of their disciples and their role in the process of growth. Please pray for us to finish this spiritual multiplication pathway this year. We will work on the site to make all the resources and materials digital and easy to reach for all students. 

Here is the diagram that we will build on (each block will have detailed practical steps and ideas) taken from the example in the life of Jesus: 

2. We call the student leaders to dedicate their lives to the Lord and the Great Commission after they graduate. Some of them are called by God to be full-time missionaries with CRU, others we call to continue what they are taught during school years at their future work place. Last year we came up with an idea to call our Winter Bible Conferences- Infinity. At this event we unwrap the idea of being laborers for the Lord no matter where they are. Please pray for the Infinity Conference this year. Around 400 students from Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe will participate. Pray for wisdom for our team in preparing this massive event (location, funds, registration, program design) 

3. We call our staff to take leadership roles and lead the teams. As you heard from me before- we have 7 staff teams in Ukraine that my team oversees. Starting from this semester we have two more girls who entered the role of an Associate Team Leader. They are young but full of faith and they showed leadership skills and capacity in their ministry work. We believe that young people are very capable and the Bible is also teaching us that God has been using young people for His purposes a lot! 

Maria and Tina

Both Tina and Maria became Christians through the Campus ministry in Lviv. Maria has been on staff in Lviv for 4 years. This year she will lead the team along with Dima Volkov. Tina moved to Kharkiv two years ago to start a ministry there and this year she will lead the team with Sergey Pevnev. We are very blessed to see how God is bringing young workers in our ministries despite the turmoil that our county is going through. He definitely has something special in His plans for Ukraine. I will be helping Maria personally in her role. Please pray for Tina and Maria as they learn how to lead staff and be servant leaders, with good heart and skilled hands. 

Thank you for supporting me in this work of raising spiritual leaders for Ukraine.

News from Speak Out 2018

“Christ in you, the hope of glory, whom we proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; whereunto I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.” 

This verse was from the book of Colossians that we studied during our Speak Out’18 was inspiring our students and staff to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus and to invite students in discipleship process, growing in perfection in Christ themselves and helping others grow. 

Speak Outs are truly amazing projects. They help us reach such goals as: 

1. Provide a training base for our volunteers, they study the Scripture together, learn about the basis of building spiritual movements in their campuses and practice they faith in action through working with those who don’t know the Lord yet. 

2. Giving around 100 students a chance to hear the Gospel through learning English with native speakers. I personally met three students who were campers last year and this year they were volunteering, translating, sharing their testimonies and showing an example what God can do in a life a person in just one year. 

These students came to know the Lord after SpeakOut 17 

 Kostya, Vika, Ulyana (these are only the ones I met, but I am sure there’s more) 

3. Impacting the city on many levels: give hundreds of people a chance to hear the Gospel through personal conversation, work with families of soldiers that fight on the East and needy families, visiting orphanages, arranging soccer tournaments, partnering with local media and youth leaders, spreading the word about our work for students. We tried to be careful with what we say about Christianity when we were speaking with local newspaper reporters but we managed to tell them that we believe that we can influence our country and changes are possible if God changes the hearts of students from the inside out. 

At the local newspaper office

I also witnessed a miracle at Speak Out. We had an evangelism time using the photo test. Darina came up to me and asked if she can learn this method because she’s already a Christian and loves sharing her faith. About two minutes later one lady came up to the photos and was looking at them cautiously. We asked her if she wanted to go through the test but she made it clear that she couldn’t hear nor speak. At that very moment Darina started using sign language saying that she can translate our conversation. Many years ago when she was a teenager she took courses of sign language at church. So there we were, three of us talking in Russian and in sign language talking about the love of God. Ludmila (that lady’s name) knew very little about Jesus. She was meant to hear about Lord’s love and forgiveness that night. There are no coincidences with God, it was His Perfect plan and His perfect timing. 

Here are some numbers that we give the Lord thanks for: 

800 people heard the Gospel, 9 people wanted to accept Jesus, 60 kids were visited in the orphanage, 10 teams participated in the soccer tournament, 130 families were visited and given food packages, 112 people agreed to meet personally for the second time to hear more about God. 

We created a unique place that we called HubPalatka where people could come, have coffee and hang out and talk. Out students and staff loved this place and it was always full of people. 

We are grateful that God is giving us so much freedom now to impact our country while we still can. We worked hard and we trust Him to multiply what we have done and grow all the seeds that were planted. 

And here is the final video of Speak out 2018, enjoy=)

Ukraine is a blessing to other nations

“Praise the Lord, all nations! Exalt him, all peoples! For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!”

                                                                Psalms 117

This is our dream: to see people from every country and every nation hear about Christ, follow Him and choose to invest in the movement of spiritual multiplication. We want Ukraine to be a blessing for other nations, sending teams for short and long mission trips. In this letter we want to share how God has been using three Expeditions teams of staff and students that went for a month of April to Poland and Belarus.

This is how God answered our prayers and three teams:

· 2256 students were engaged in the conversation on the street

· 270 students were approached via social media

· 929 students heard the idea of spiritual multiplication

· 32 students heard the Gospel

· 20 Christian students came to vision events where they heard about spiritual movements

· 85 Christian students were personally challenged to take a responsibility for their campus

· 8 students agreed to continue building a movement on their campus

Our teams

KRAKOW TEAM

WARSAW TEAM 

This is what our teams were doing during the trip:

- Searched for students whose hearts God has already prepared for the ministry and gave them vision for their campus

-Shared their faith

-Organized vision events where they shared the idea of the spiritual movement and how to start it on their campus

-Challenged students to take responsibility for their campus, pray and share their faith.

-Invited potential key volunteers for Evangelism meetings and trained them how to share their faith.

A story from Krakow  

Dasha comes from a Christian home and she became a Christian at the summer camp when she was a teenager. She is a very active, social and easy-going girl. I found her on social media and we agreed to meet. She shared her testimony, shared about her ministry that she was involved in when she lived in Ukraine and said she would like to serve God in Krakow. After a short conversation, I challenged her to become a key volunteer in the ministry. She wrote down the names of her friends and classmates who she was willing to share her faith with this week. We told her about new methods of Evangelism that she could use. It was amazing to hear in one week how brave she was sharing the Gospel with her friends. During the Expedition we found other Christian students who also accepted the challenge and Dasha agreed to be the leader of the student team. 

A story from Minsk

The first week of Expedition we were looking for potential key volunteers on social media and around universities in Minsk. From the first days God blessed us and allowed us to meet Christian students who were interested in ministry. On the first day of such exploring we found the student Roman. He was the last student who we approach that day and actually we came up to ask him how to get to the metro. We decided not to waste an opportunity and asked him if he knew any Christian students. He himself ended up being a Christian. He came to our vision night and to the training for Evangelism and went to share his faith with us.

A story from Warsaw

One day when we were looking for key volunteers at the University of Warsaw, Tonia was alone and overcoming her fear approached the girl sitting alone on the bench. Tonia explained who she was and who she was looking for. Veronica, the student, said that she was interested and she herself thought about her unbelieving friends and tried to tell them about God. After talking for a while, the girls agreed to meet that week and discuss how Veronika could share her faith with her friends. Early in the morning, in a few days, Tonia and Yulya met Veronica in a cafe near the university. When we began to talk about students’ need, Veronica said: “Yes, it’s a burden of my heart, people are lost without God!” At our request to tell about her dream of how God can change other people through her, what God can do in the world, Veronika shared and then drew a picture on paper: the globe – the whole world, people who raise their hands – all the people glorifying Jesus! We read Matthew 28: 18-20 and 2 Tim 2: 2, we talked about the importance of going and making disciples of all the nations, and Veronica reacted to this with a wonderful understanding and awareness of her role in this! Then she wrote down quickly the names of unbelieving friends, whom she wants to share the Gospel with. She also wrote the names of believers with whom she would share her vision. When it was time to say goodbye, Veronica said: “We will keep in touch through the FB and I will tell you what steps I made!”

And here is feedback from our missionaries:

Vova, student from Lviv: "This trip has already affected me and will affect my ministry in Lviv. It helped my personal growth. Even if there is no result in numbers, there is definitely a fruit in the heart. I have learned a lot from other people. I would go again in a year. "

Lyuba, a student from Lviv: "God works in the hearts of students. He has already started His work long time ago, we just join Him and see the changes that He brings. I am extremely grateful to God for being able to be a part of this missionary trip. God changed some things in my heart and used me as His instrument, and most of all, I'm glad that I was able to know more about God and His faithfulnes during this Expedition trip. And I was able to witness the miracles that were happening around us. "

Ulyana,  from Ivano-Frankivsk: "It is a pleasure to be used by God in another country where there are certain spiritual challenges. I loved Expedition because I love the risk. Expedition is an extreme time, when you have to practice a complete dependence on God, when you can get an experience that you can pass on to others. "

Vlad, from Kharkov: "This trip has influenced me very much! On the Expedition trip, I saw that God used me when I left my comfort zone, when I did what I did not want to was or was afread of doing. Also I got a lot of experience in different methods of evangelism, building relationships on a team, I saw where I need to grow and what God had to change in me. "

Please continue to pray for all the students who were challenged to start a movement on their universities. Pray that they keep gathering for a prayer, keep being trained in evangelism and embrace the vision of spiritual multiplication. Pray for spiritual awakening among the students of Poland and Belarus.