Ukraine Trip Update

Traveling to Ukraine is an amazing experience.  We have so many friends there and our time is a time of reconnection, encouragement and celebration.  Traveling during a war adds challenges with travel and concerns over missile and drone attacks.  We often get asked, “Aren’t you scared traveling to Ukraine during the war?”  It is hard to feel scared when our friends must live with the impacts of war daily.  We can handle two weeks of dealing with air raids and inconveniences.  The hardest part of the trip is trying to recap all that we have experienced and tell the story in a way for others to get a little feel for the experiences we have had.  When I try to recap, I try to come up with words or phrases that capture a part of our experience and organize our recap that way rather than just a day-by-day recap of our adventures.  So here we go:

Next Steps

Over the past 6 years of our ministry, we have spent much of our time doing conferences with pastors and their wives.  These have been great opportunities for us to get to know these pastors and their spouses and invest in them and their development.  We have taught with four basic themes: To Dream, To Define, To Develop and To Do.  As we have worked with these leaders, we have seen them grow and seen the impact of what they have learned in their churches and ministries. 

One of the biggest things that we have seen an impact on is their ability to dream God-sized dreams and begin working to make their dreams a reality.  One of the dreams that was spawned in our trainings was the vision of reaching 100,000 people for Jesus by starting 1000 new churches with 7000 new leaders by 2036.  Truly a God-sized dream.  We have been part of helping to train some of those new leaders, but it is a bigger task than what we can do.  So, on this trip we heard about the next steps to make this dream a reality.  They are starting a leader school to help identify and prepare leaders across Ukraine for the 7000 new leaders needed, and a Church Planting Academy that will be part of training the 1000 new pastors needed to plant these churches.  They will hold these academies in cities across Ukraine.  This fall when we return, they will start their first academy and much of the training will be part of what we have been teaching these past 6 years.  It is so exciting to see a dream begin to accomplish with the actions of those you have invested in.

Strengthening Relationships

One of the joys of each trip is the time we can spend strengthening relationships with people we have worked with over the years.  We get to see friends from previous visits and learn about how God is working in their lives and what has been happening in their churches.  We have seen some of these pastors grow into bigger roles within the Baptist Union and now are leading other pastors and expanding their impact. Even though we do not see these friends very often, when we can reconnect, it feels like we have been together all the time.  Unfortunately, there is never enough time to see everyone we would like to but we are thankful for opportunities like the Cherkasy Pastor’s conference that we were able to attend and speak at that allowed us to see and talk to many friends this trip.

Visiting Churches

One of the highlights of every trip is the time we can spend visiting churches of the pastors that we have worked with at our events.  On this trip we were able to visit 6 churches in Odessa, one in Zolotonosha and one in Kyiv.  It is so fun to meet the pastors in their churches and to hear their vision for their church and to talk about the challenges they face and the things that they are working on.  It is one thing to talk about these things in a gathering, but it brings it all to life when you sit in their church and see their actual reality that they are working with.  You see the neighborhoods, their facilities and meet some of their teams.  These pastors have big dreams, and it is fun to be a part of helping them in a small way accomplish their dream.

Next Generation

Over the past couple of years, we have become more involved in the youth ministries of Ukraine.  We were able to speak at a Children’s Ministries leaders training in a new region for us Chernihiv.  Beth was able to speak, and I had an opportunity to share my book as a resource to help families.  We distributed 120 books for small groups in churches across the region.  We also had the opportunity to share at a parent meeting in Odessa where we answered questions about my parenting book and give copies of my book to parents.

We also had the privilege of attending a Youth leaders training event.  We got to spend time with the leaders of Youth Ministries for the Baptist Union and hear his dreams; ministry plans and ways that we could help him train up new leaders for youth ministries.  One of his goals is to create a League of Leaders training that will be offered at cities across Ukraine to train up new leaders working in youth ministries.  When we return in the fall we are planning to do training sessions for the leaders of each of the groups.

Family

One of the reasons that we keep going back to Ukraine is that it is like family for us.  We have developed relationships with so many people it feels like we are returning home with each trip and reconnecting with our family members.  One of those relationships is our partner Vasily Furta and his family.  This trip we had more time than normal to spend at his home and be with his wife Alla and their children.  We had great meals together and time to walk to the market for a treat and play games together.

We also feel like family when we get to spend time at the offices of the Baptist Union and reconnect with many of the leaders at the daily Bible reading and prayer and visiting with them in their offices.

I hope this update has given you a little feel of our experiences over that past two weeks.  We are thankful for all of your prayers and for following us along on our Instagram and facebook posts.  We felt your prayers and we know that God had his hand of protection over us.  This summer we will continue to look for partners and churches in the US who would like to be part of building a relationship with a church and pastor in Ukraine.  This war is hard time for Ukraine and the pastors we work with.  They could use additional prayer support and new relationships to encourage and support them in their ministries.

If you or your church would like to talk about what this would look like, please reach out to me a rick.post@potentialendeavors.com