Updates from Kyiv and Ostrog

Time flies so fast. It’s been already two months since we started working with students and so far we have been able to have a few successful outreaches all over Ukraine. Our country is divided into different zones (green, yellow, orange and red) and the total quarantine restrictions come to the city only when it's in the red zone. Most of our ministry locations were either in yellow or orange, so we were able to gather students and have a lot of one on one meetings too. 

I have been enjoying investing in Ira and Luba from Ostrog immensely. They are both very capable and dedicated to God girls. Both of them disciple other student leaders too. There’s a big lively group а Christian students in that tiny little town in Ukraine but they are trusting God to do a lot through them! This year each student volunteer has a goal to engage a new student in the discipleship process and involve them in the spiritual movement. I am leading a group for Ira and Luba about discipleship each week. 

Along with investing in students, we keep working on training our churches to start reaching out a younger generation. Three Sundays in the row one of the churches in Kyiv went through the training how to start a WHO AM I project that we use as an outreach to help teenagers and students have a deep dialogue about their worldview and life purpose. 

Please pray: 

1. For the ministry among the students of Ostrog. And May God answer the desire of their hearts to each have a new disciple this year. 

2. For my discipleship of Ira and Luba. It’s both a blessing and a challenge to mentor over distance. I need a lot of wisdom and discernment to invest in them not being around them a lot 

3. For our health. Johnny has been diagnosed in Ukraine with an autoimmune disease connected to his thyroid inflammation. He has not been feeling well. Please pray that he gets better and the medication he is taking helps. I also had some blood test done and need to be on a more strict diet for a little while 

Serving the Lord in Corona times

I was extremely happy to start our new semester in August. Global quarantine brought us a lot of corrections and changes, but it also took us to a new level of trust, adaptation, and growth in finding new digital ways of working with people. 

 

Here are some news and highlights of my new beginnings in ministry

1. Two teams that I serve on 

This is a new team that I joined part time. It’s called Campus Link Team. This team works with our student volunteers all around Ukraine where there is no staff presence and all movements are built exclusively by students. This team has an enormous impact to reach Ukraine for Christ because we will never have enough staff to send to each city, but through partnership and training church youth we are able to build movements of evangelism and discipleship countrywide. At this point we have around 120 volunteers from 15 smaller cities in Ukraine.

I am taking a picture=)

I continue to be a part of a national student ministry team. We oversee 7 local teams of staff and I will keep coaching our Associate staff leaders and help them in their roles. 

Please pray that the Lord would give у wisdom and strength to navigate my schedule and priorities in balancing two ministries. 

2. Training camp for student leaders 

In the end of August we held a training camp for the student leaders, teaching them the basics of ministry. We had around 40 students (not everyone could come during to quarantine restrictions and limitations). Such camps are very important for our ministry because they give our volunteers a bigger picture of the scope of the ministry they participate in, they build relationship among like hearted servants of Christ, encouraging and learning from each other, and it also gives us an opportunity to get them all together, teach them and equip them for the new ministry year. 

I was leading a seminar about discipleship, sharing the Great Commission from the Lord to make disciples and also giving them practical ideas how they can start their own ministry of discipleship and what tools they can use. 

Please pray for the LINK ministry, that we would be able to launch new ministries in new cities of Ukraine and help the existing ones to grow and prosper. 

3. New field ministry 

Volunteers from Ostrog

This year I will disciple a few girls from the city of Ostrog. It’s a smaller city in the northwest of Ukraine. They have around 30 students involved in the ministry and they have been growing fast. 

Ira and Luba are to my right and left

Please pray for Ira and Luba – the girls I am going to disciple – so they grow spiritually and practically in skills of leading the movement and invest in other girls from Ostrog 

 

A funny coincidence is that my brother Kirill is going to study at the same city at the technical school. 

My prayer that he would get involved in the ministry too and make more friends and come to know the Lord. 

Thank you for keeping my ministry in prayers and for supporting me so faithfully!

Spring update

 1. Personal reflections 

“Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with him.” Daniel 2:20-22 

This verse has a special meaning for me these days. It reminds me that: 

- God is the Only who deserves all praise 

- He is in control of all things (happening or not happening in my life) 

- He has His perfect timing for everything. 

- He establishes and provides for me to fulfill His calling for me. 

- He reveals His plans to us when He thinks it is a proper time (meaning some things I will not understand and it’s ok=) 

2. My life and ministry plans for the near future. 

 I have entered a new season of my life, being married, seeking what the Lord wants me to do, and what is His will for us as a couple now. Johnny and I got married May 1st and I hope most of you were able to witness the beginning of our family. We have been praying about what our life direction should be now. Some things we proactively did (we applied for my green card and submitted immigration papers) and some things Lord has brought to us without us even considering it (because of quarantine Johnny is now able to live and work from Ukraine). Johnny likes working at Flightaware, he sees it as a blessing and his mission field with his coworkers. He loves airplanes and business intelligence and this job offers all he needs. I want to continue my missionary work with CRU. I want to be used by God to raise young Christian leaders to help build the movements among the students. It’s my passion and what I believe the Lord wants me to do. I am staying with CRU in Ukraine but I am changing my status to an associate staff because in Ukraine there’s a priority and a value for couples to be both in ministry, so when your spouse isn’t – you have to change your status. 

We both see a huge benefit in investing in people and serving people so we have been trying to have my friends over and build relationship as a couple and serve them by making delicious meals as nobody could go anywhere during quarantine. 

3. “Things you have heard me say… entrust to reliable people….” 

I want to introduce you to Ira Nedelcheva. Ira became a believer when I was a new staff in Odessa. She wanted to serve God fulltime after she graduated university and she was transferred to Dnepr to work with college students there. In the last three years she has been leading that ministry along with Zhenya. I have been discipling Ira last three years and enjoyed investing in such a capable staff girl immensely. Ira has many gifts, she is very strong in analytical and strategic thinking, she has brought up a lot of strong Christian girls and discipled them. We have challenged Ira to take my role and join our leadership team and she accepted it. In summer Ira will be moving to Kyiv and joining our team. 

4. Leadership Project 

This May we finished a project that was designed to help our staff to grow in their leadership skills and be introduced to working on the national level with representatives of other ministries. I was leading that project and was so blessed to observe them apply what they learn in their local teams. It worked just perfect to finish this training this spring because it was done online and the team could work and study remotely during the quarantine. 

5. News “from the fields”. 

A few students came to know the Lord this spring during the quarantine time. We encourage them to start learning how to share their faith and the only way they could do it now is online! So we have our own “spiritual zoomers”=), students who do evangelism and discipleship online through zoom and have not tried it yet in real life. It’s another encouragement from God that His plans to save are unshakable. 

Here is a student from Kharkiv university. Her name is Eva. She has been meeting personally with our staff girl Tina and she accepted Christ this spring. Tina trained her in her first baby Christian steps of growth and Eva started sharing her faith with other students! 

6. My prayer needs and requests. 

 - I wanted to ask you to pray for Johnny and I to find our ways to serve people together as a family, may the Lord send people our way who we can encourage to get to know Him closer. We are praying for open doors and people that Christ has prepared for us. 

 - And I would like to ask you to pray and consider helping Ira Nedelcheva with her transition to Kyiv. Life in the capital is a lot more expensive and she is lacking support for her rent and expenses now. Here is her page with CRU https://give.cru.org/2850030

You can give her a onetime gift or start supporting her monthly if you are led by God. Even a small amount will help! 

 Thank you so much for being a part of what God is doing in my life. 

S

Winter Update

1. Two changed lives 

There are incredible moments when God makes it possible to be involved in His work in other people. I would like to share with you 2 stories of two students from Dnepr, the city that I oversee and coach leaders at. 

 Left to right on this photo - Sergey and a student volunteer Danik. 

Sergey is 21 years old, a student at the Mining University in Dnepr. He has no parents; he lives on his own. 

Sergey came to Campus Dnepr outreach for the first time to participate at the training about emotional intelligence in the fall of 2019. Danik invited Sergey to meet one on one after the gathering and at each meeting shared the Gospel with him, invited him to more events. This winter Sergey decided to repent and let Christ into his life. We rejoice with the whole Dnepr team and Thank God for another changed life. 

Here is Olya, her disciple Masha, and Masha’s disciple Sofia, who repented in summer. 

Olya has been actively serving students in Dnepr for 4 years. She realized that after graduation (she graduates this year) God calls her to go to a full time field ministry of evangelism and discipleship. She was very encouraged to see how the principle from 2 Tim2:2 worked in her life – pass it on to those who are capable of teaching others. Those girls are really getting it. Olya will join CRU as a staff in May. 

2. Infinity – YOUR LIFE AS A MISSION 

In the beginning of February we have organized a conference for our students and for different church representatives. We were able to gather around 350 participant. The goal of this conference was to continue encouraging people to see their life as a mission field to spread the Good News and make disciples of all nations. 

You can watch the video about the conference here: 

3. Raising young leaders 

Last month we attended the summit for local leaders of student ministries. There were 14 representatives from our ministry.

The girls you see on the picture – are our current associate team leaders in Ukraine. They are brave and capable God’s daughters who HE has entrusted with a lot of responsibility and a huge blessing to be used for His glory. I love then dearly and I am very blessed to be able to serve them and invest in them and help them in their roles and walk with God. One of them potentially will take my role in the next semester. 

PLEASE PRAY 

1. For our ministries with students these days. As we have entered the quarantine - all of our Evangelism and discipleship meetings have to happen online. We are working on creative tools and methods to make it happen. I know God can use such circumstance to reach those who would not be reachable under normal conditions. 

2. Pray for Johnny and I. So we can have a normal wedding (not online=) in May; that we are able to get a visa for him and he can continue to live in Kiev and work remotely from here. That my documents for travelling to the US will not take two years but I will get them faster. 

3. For the new Associate team leader to take my role from the next semester. May the Lord calls and prepares the heart of the one He has chosen for this ministry 

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!