Roman Vecherkivskij is SGA’s Regional Coordinator in Ukraine. He shared the following report about the challenges of the war, but also the blessings of God.
Thank God, despite the war in Ukraine, many people still desire ministry through the Word, even more because of the times we live in. Evangelism is progressing and the planting of new groups with new people is developing. It has become obvious that despite the absence of large evangelistic campaigns and the closure of many projects because of circumstances, we still can use the opportunity given as people come to church. That is exactly what has happened in the last seven months. The war stimulates us to find new ideas on how to organize the work, reaching unbelievers more effectively. Every humanitarian project becomes a very good instrument that helps evangelists to bring people together and to preach the Gospel to them.
Roman outlined that street evangelism, in the form of outdoor evangelistic meetings and humanitarian food distribution, is an effective instrument once again. After such events, new Bible study groups have been formed of unbelievers, comprised of not only needy displaced people, but locals as well.
He described how a new church group commenced in his area before the war. Unfortunately, the war robbed them of 70% of the leadership team, but God provided fifty new people, 90% of whom are non-believers, who attend every meeting, even though aid is not distributed. Â
Pastor Igor Bandura recently reported that an estimated 20,000 more people have started to attend church and over 3,000 new converts have been baptized.
Pray that this spiritual growth will continue, and that the Lord’s people will be enabled to minister to the growing number of seekers.