“The church is for this purpose, to show the way to Christ.”

We recently shared the story of Konstantin and the church he helps lead in Mykolaiv.

The church's place

Konstantin told Jason, during his visit to Mykolaiv,  how the church has been bringing hope to those in their neighbourhood.

“As in peacetime, the church is basically for this purpose: to show the way to Christ - where there is hope. Including now.

There is an expression that war is a new opportunity. For the church, these are really new opportunities. In the last five years in the church, we had three or four people baptised, then in the two years of war we had 30 people baptised and some more are preparing to be baptised.  I think this is not only our statistic; it is the case everywhere.

This is glorious to God. It shows that the church is in its place and continues to serve God in this way.”

Unconditional love

As well as providing clean water every day to the city, last winter the church provided emergency food parcels to hundreds of people. When the city was being heavily attacked, the church opened their basement and invited people in.

Konstantin shared how the church’s unconditional love and provision caught people’s attention.  The open invitation to stay and talk to church members about faith was warmly received by some who came for the aid parcels.

“We collected packages, brought people into the basement, as many as we could fit. And we'd tell them, “Everybody gets a package. But whoever wants to hear about God, stay afterwards and we will tell you about our God.”

People would leave in different numbers. Sometimes half of them left, sometimes only a quarter of them stayed, sometimes only three people stayed. But still, the fact that they weren't “being bought” with packages attracted people. They wondered. They would then came to Sunday services and found Christ.”

What about this Winter?

Last winter, this church, and many others, opened  their doors to people and welcomed them into a warm building, thanks to Innovista supporters. Emergency grants helped churches to take care of their communities’ most pressing needs. For many churches last year, this included a generator.

But after more than two and a half years of war, the needs are changing. Now is the time when many church teams are planning for the winter. . Church leadership teams are asking for Innovista’s help in identifying and overcoming challenges in serving their communities.

Already, Innovista is committed to helping 11 church  teams across Ukraine over the next 12 months: six teams in Odesa, a team in Ivano-Frankivsk, a team in Nizhyn, a team in Lviv and two more teams in Kyiv.

Together, we can walk with these Christian leaders as they face new challenges this winter. We can provide them with the practical support to keep serving those in need.