2016 Summer Mission of Love to Ukraine - Report

    07.01.16 | MIssions by Beth Valentine

    Report: 2016 Summer Mission of Love to Ukraine

    Dates: July 1 – July 10, 2016

    Team: Beth & Ron Louder (First UMC, Hershey)
    Kay Baxter, Chris Cartwright, Rachel Irvin, Jan Rexrode,
    Bob & Joyce Snyder, Mike & Judy Thrasher (Trinity UMC, Hummelstown)

    Fundraising: We received a total of $11, 520 in donations from our partners in mission and our home churches.  This money was for ministry expenses and outreach projects in Ukraine.  We also received $1949 in donations from Trinity (including $393 from a Hoss’s fundraiser) to help offset team travel expenses.

    Raising Hope, Inc.: Our hosts and mission partners were Ruslan and Archie Tkachuk of “Raising Hope, Inc.”. Besides facilitating mission teams and providing outreach ministries in the Vinnitsa oblast of Ukraine, Archie and Ruslan Tkachuk have a family ministry, which is the heart of Raising Hope.  They have been foster parents to 18 children since their marriage in 2004.  Their home currently includes 2 biological daughters, 5 foster daughters, and 2 foster sons.  The team stayed in the Tkachuk home in Nemiya Village near Mohyliv-Podilskiy, Ukraine.  This is in south-central Ukraine on the border with Moldova. Archie and Ruslan provided in-country transportation, meals, translation, and facilitated just about anything you could think of!  For more information on Raising Hope, please refer to their brochure or visit their web site: www.raisinghopeukraine.com.

    Bible Camp: Our main mission project was helping to run a Bible Camp (day camp, similar to VBS) from Monday, July 4 to Thursday, July 7. 

    Location: This was the first Bible Camp ever help in the village of Kozliv!  Kozliv is a remote village an hour’s drive from Mohyliv and has a population of around 700.  It is the birthplace of Ruslan Tkachuk and is where his mother still resides. The only church in Kozliv is a house church of about 60 people, including Ruslan’s mother, Valya.  This is a church plant of a nearby Pentecostal church.  There is one school in the village, teaching elementary through high school.  The director allowed us to use the building and grounds for our Bible Camp. 

    Participants: We were told there were around 70 school age children in the village, so we budgeted for that amount and were hopeful, but never thought we’d have that kind of turnout.  God sure wowed us!  We had 71 kids the first day, despite rainy weather in the morning.  That number increased every day.  We ended the week with 79!   The children’s ages ranged from 6 to 17!  Most came from families that are not believers.

    Teachers: We were very glad to have many partners helping run this camp.  It was a special blessing to work with a variety of denominations (Methodist, Pentecostal, Baptist, charismatic) and nationalities (Australian, Dutch, Ukrainian, American, Moldovan).  We even had 3 young German men who considered themselves agnostic, but helped out with camp! (more on them later).  We had help from the local house church, plus 3 young women from the Pentecostal Church Union (Conference).  We were grateful that missionaries from YWAM (Youth With A Mission) took the lead with the teenage group.  Our biggest help came from Anya Jaltir and her husband Ion.  Anya is a young Ukrainian woman with a gift for children’s ministry, especially puppet ministry.  She worked for many years with O.M. (Operation Mobilization).  Although we were prepared with VBS material (Veggie Tales – The Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything – “Calling All Heroes”), we needed MUCH help to make it usable for non-English speaking kids.  Anya worked out all the details necessary, providing us with simple skits, songs, and other activities.  Her expertise was invaluable!  We can’t thank her enough!

    Theme: “Calling All Heroes”; How God can make anyone a hero, using examples of heroes from the Bible.  The team dressed as pirates (who found out about true treasures and true heroes) and the kids loved that.  The verse for the week was Philippians 4:13 “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”.

    Activities: The camp ran from 10:00 a.m. to 2:30 p.m.  It included a large group gathering at the beginning and the end with music and skits, small age-group gatherings for Bible lessons, and stations for crafts, sports/games, lunch, and other activities.  We also sent the kids home with an ice cream or popsicle each day!

    Funds: We purchased T-shirts, craft items, some sport equipment, general camp supplies, food for hot lunches, photos prints of each child, and ice cream treats for an average of 75 children and 25 adult helpers daily for 4 days.  The total cost of camp was $2800.  We made donations to the school for use of the facilities, the 3 ladies who cooked for us, and to the churches and YWAM for helping.  Those donations totaled $1200.

    Elderly Assistance: Our team also had a desire to help the elderly in the village of Kozliv.  Life is extremely hard there.  Most homes have no indoor plumbing, wood must be chopped for heating, and water must be obtained from a well, sometimes a distance from the house.  We were able to provide support to the women of the house church in their outreach to needy elderly in the village.  On 2 afternoons after Bible camp, we went to the home of Pazha.   She is 96 years old, lives alone, and has no remaining family.  We whitewashed her plaster home, painted the door and window frames, scraped rust off her metal fence, and painted the fence.  She was extremely grateful!  Our funds were used to purchase 10 bags of food staples (flour, rice, barley, sugar, oil, tea, etc.) and hygiene items (soap, toothpaste, shampoo).  We also bought special gifts, such as teakettles and mugs, to accompany the food packages.  It cost $200 total for food, hygiene items, and gifts for 10 people.  We were able to personally deliver bags to 3 homes.  The house church will deliver the remaining bags.  Since village homes are tiny and our team was large (15 people total), it was difficult to visit folks.  We still managed to learn a little bit about them (through Ruslan translating) and shared a song or 2, some hugs, and lots of smiles and blessings.  We designated $500 of funds left at the end to be used for ongoing outreach by the church to the elderly in Kozliv. 

    Church of the Risen Christ: On Sunday, July 3, the team worshipped at this non-denominational church in Mohyliv attended by Archie and Ruslan.  It is a vibrant church, worshipping together for approximately 15 years, and very active in local outreach.  All church offering goes to their ministries and outreach.  Pastor Igor receives his income from a sign making company he runs in a back room of the church.  Pastor Igor helped with team transportation from the airport.  He brought several children from church to the Bible Camp in Kozliv every day.  Mike Thrasher helped install plumbing fixtures in the church bathroom on Wednesday.  We provided $350 for the bathroom renovations.  We also made a donation of $500 to the church with funds left at the end of the trip.

    “The Boys”: Despite already having a full house with 9 children, Archie and Ruslan welcomed our team of 10 plus 4 additional guests.  One guest was Max, Archie’s 18-year-old nephew from Tennessee.  The other 3 were “the German boys”.  Majoring in both English and German, Ruslan worked as an au pair in Germany his last year of college.  One of his former young charges, Robin, is now 17.  He came to visit Ruslan along with 2 friends, 17-year-old Lucas and 23-year-old Kevin.  We weren’t sure how these extra visitors would affect our team dynamics and plans.  Of course, God always has better plans than we could ever dream!  Although none of the boys came to Ukraine as professing Christians, they willingly joined our team and helped with both Bible Camp and outreach to the elderly.  Archie and Ruslan reported that Max and Robin both told them they felt changed by the experience.  Our team was especially touched by our interaction with Kevin.  One evening, as we sat around the table after dinner, Kevin joined us.  Ruslan asked us to share our faith stories.  Kevin remarked that he while he doesn’t hold a very good opinion of organized religion, he has noted that we “shared something special” as a group.  He also stated that since arriving at Archie and Ruslan’s, he felt something he hasn’t really experienced before – he felt “at home”.  We all continued to dialog with Kevin throughout the week and are remaining in contact through e-mail and Facebook.  Our prayer is that Christ’s love will melt all of his fears and protestations and that Kevin will truly “be home” in Christ. 

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    Other donations: We had an overwhelming response to our fundraising requests and are so grateful to our Partners in Mission.  Not only were we able to do everything just described, we also were able to make other donations as follows:

    • $1000 for a fall Bible Camp at the Cerebral Palsy (C.P.) Center in Bila Tserkva
    • $1500 for the salary of a fulltime Bible teacher at the C.P. Center
    • $200 to “Christians for Israel” for their outreach to Jews in Mohyliv
    • $1000 to “Raising Hope, Inc.” for discretionary funds
    • $2500 “seed money” toward purchase of a new van for the Tkachuk’s
    • $369 “seed money” for a future mission team