August 2023
Hello friends, we hope you are having a wonderful summer. We just completed our busiest month of the year, with two birthday’s, Hannah’s graduation, and celebrating our 20-year anniversary. During this month, we will be packing up our girl’s stuff and driving them to Grand Canyon University in Phoenix. It was so hard sending our oldest daughter to college last year, but I cannot imagine how hard it will be to have two girls away at school at the same time. We still have our youngest daughter at home (Brianna is only 14 years old).
In this prayer letter, we continue with our next ministry partner (we are highlighting all of them this year). This month it is my honor to introduce you to pastor Vitaliy Faliy of Good News Church in Kharkiv. We have known this brother for over 20 years, her married us, and we have done much ministry with him through the years. We have engaged in almost every type of our ministry activity in one way or another: English evangelism, theology courses, medical ministry, etc. I have preached in many of his churches and it has been a delight to serve Christ with him and his staff.
When the war broke out in February 2022, our ministry was the first to come to his aid. He mentioned to me in the past that it was our ministry that kept people alive until all the other aid would come from the United Nations and a few larger ministries. We continue to faithfully support them with food, supplies, winter heating units, vehicle repairs, Christmas outreach, and anything else they may need. Here is his testimony below:
FEEDING THOUSAND PER WEEK AND SENDING THREE TONS OF FOOD PER DAY!
“Hello, my name is Vitaliy and I am the founding pastor of Good News Church in Kharkiv, Ukraine. I began the church 30 years ago as a house church with five people. By God’s grace, the church grew to over 100 people by the first year. Over the years, the church has grown to over 2,000+ people and we have had churches that we in 113 different locations, due to our church planting efforts over the years. This included eight gypsy churches, seven Nigerian congregations, and Armenian church, and a Messianic Jewish congregation. God has clearly used us to reach people of diverse backgrounds in Ukraine. Our main campus, where I serve as the senior pastor has 1,500 people, even during this tragic war.
Once the war began, many people fled Ukraine to go back to their home country or fled to a variety of churches across Europe. With the ongoing hostilities with Russia, 43 of our churches remain open, and trying to serve people as much as we can in a very difficult environment. Many locations are without food, water, and electricity. Despite many people fleeing the country, all of our churches have tripled in size, due to many people searching for God, accepting Christ, and being baptized! This war truly revealed the hearts of people coming to Christ and those servants who stayed and stepped up to do amazing ministry. In the midst of tragedy, we have had amazing moments of joy!
Because there are so many people in need, and many people coming and going, my family has chosen to live in a bomb shelter and be with the people since the beginning of the war until now. Yes, that is right, we have lived in a bomb shelter with another 60+ people for about 1.5 years!
Due to the amazing donations of God’s people who partner with ministries like Slavic Christian Ministries, we are able to feed no less than 500 people per day and over 1,500 every Sunday. Every day, we also deliver about three tons of food and supplies to our neighboring churches or villages, so the people can stay alive. It has been our privilege to serve Christ during these troubling times. I want to thank all of you for blessing us and helping us keep the work going in Ukraine. Please remember us in prayer and thank you again for your support; it doesn’t go unnoticed by my family and I and the people we serve. God bless all of you in America and thank you again!” – Vitaliy Faily
I have put many more photos of Good News Church on Slavic Christian Ministries Facebook page. If you would like to donate to our ministry, please go to slavicchristian.org/donate or mail in a check to us at the address above. We are about $20,000 in deficit spending. All gifts are tax deductible and we fully rely on our ministry partners. We do “not” receive funding from any government agencies and most churches haven’t provided any additional one time gifts in 2023, so thank you for remembering us!
God bless you all for your prayers and gifts!!
In Jesus’ love,
Ron
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