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Outreach Story

Revival Baptist Church
Luts'k, Ukraine

7-21 April , 2006

What a great and very busy two weeks in Luts'k! Our team from EC Libertyville was great at being flexible and open to all opportunities to serve in the Luts'k community.

The first Saturday we were in town there was a youth congress at the Baptist church in the center of town. Sasha (Pastor of Revival Baptist Church and regional director for youth) had me give my testimony and share about the computer courses we would be holding the next two weeks at one of the sessions with about 500 in attendance. The team from Libertyville arrived later that day, so we drove back out to L'viv. Lets just say driving on Ukrainian highways is an "interesting" experience... A one hour drive on good roads becomes three hours on Ukrainian roads... In one village we saw a car driving on the sidewalk to avoid some of the huge potholes...


Luts'k Castle Fortress

During the first week we had computer classes mornings and evenings and the second week we had three classes per day with an afternoon session added. The students ranged in age from 6 to 70 with around 60 people in attendance between all 5 of the sessions. For the younger students we changed the curriculum a bit and added time for a break with "Simon Says" and some "Silly Walks". All classes had a "Chapel Talk" with a Gospel message and testimonies from the team out of Chicago. We had 4 translators with Sasha (The pastor of the church) and Ivan ( a worker from Bible Mission Ukraine) adding two more able translators to the mix. After most classes we also had a time of tea and cookies where we could interact with the students on a personal level.


Jeff leading a Chapel Talk

Both Sundays we participated in the church service at Revival Baptist and gave our personal testimonies. We also participated in a Thursday evening communion service on "Good Thursday" the night before we left. The local church celebrated Easter on the Orthodox Easter weekend, a week later than we do in America and Western Europe.

The first Thursday afternoon we spent time at a village Grade School where one of our translators teaches English. It was lots of fun with the students welcoming us with cookie necklaces. They put on a short play of "Sleeping Beauty" in English for us, too! We were all able to share our testimonies openly as we told the students a little about ourselves. We played some Simon Says because most of the students were younger. Then they took us to their Gym and we played some volleyball against their girl's team first (ages 12 to 17). They soundly beat us and then we played the boys... We didn't do any better, but it was lots of fun. The school staff had prepared us a special lunch of Vereniki. I've already received an e-mail from Elena (our translator who is the English teacher at the school) that the students are asking if we will come back next year. It was their first time to see real live Americans... :^)


Sleeping Beauty and her Prince

We had an opportunity the second week to speak to University students in Luts'k. They were a combination of English students and computer students. We shared about ourselves and how we use computers in our jobs. I was able to share both about my experience with Nike and also with EuroTeam in Germany. Some of us from the team gave a more detailed testimony of our lives in Christ. There was also an open question and answer time with the students.


Our Team with Some of the Students

We are so thankful for all the opportunities we had to share our faith and spend time with the people in and around Luts'k, both in computer classes and more!