Eurasia Snapshots – Transforming Our
World: In Christ-Like Christ-For Christ – Eurasia Region of the Global Church
of the Nazarene – Thursday, 28 November 2013
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Kyiv youth join Vinnitsa church in
community outreach
In early November, 12 young people from
Kyiv, Ukraine, boarded a train for Vinnitsa, a smaller city four hours away.
Besides the fact that the trip was a wonderful team building and networking
opportunity for the youth, the main purpose was to share in the ministry of
their sister congregation in Vinnitsa as they minister to low-income families
in their region.
The Kyiv team and the team from Vinnitsa,
a total of 17 people, split into two vans, which were loaded with bags of
groceries, clothes and banana bread loaves for the six families they would be
visiting. The families they visited were glad to welcome guests and have a
moment to pause and talk to them.
“What we saw was terrible,” shared Tanya
Nikolaychuk, one of the Kyiv Sunday school leaders. “It was not even that
families were poor, I’ve seen worse in Kyiv. However, the situation here was
worsened by the fact that parents did not care for their children at all. When
we came, all bundled up because it was cold, there was a two-year-old running
around practically naked.”
After the group returned from the trip,
one of the team members, Philip Masyuk, said "It's not a matter of money
that keeps them in that poverty; it's a lack of love that keeps them from
adequately caring for each other and their children."
The local ministry leaders receive lists
from the social workers in the region of families in need of help. One of the
main intentions the Vinnitsa team has for this ministry is to work with the
children. They are the future (or, actually, present) of the nation and if they
see now that what they know as “normal” life is not all, it can be, and there
are people who care about them, Ukraine has a chance of surviving. Not only
that, but, even more importantly, these kids will find out God loves them, even
if their earthly parents did not demonstrate His kind of love to them.
"While I'm glad we were able to take
them things they needed, it is not enough to give them food or clothes. We have
to learn how to be present to them; to invest in relationship with them in a
way that brings about real transformation,” said Anya Osipovych, a young adult
from Kyiv First.
Deeply impacted by the experience, the
Kyiv First Church of the Nazarene youth has a desire to start a similar
ministry in Kyiv, serving those who live close to the new church building so it
is possible to invite the families to church afterwards.
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Mailing address:
Eurasia Regional Office
Postfach 1217
8207 Schaffhausen
Switzerland
Telephone: +49-7734-93050
Fax: +49-7734-9305-50
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