A team of Alabamians visited Ukraine in July 2021 to minister at a church, conduct Vacation Bible School and work at a camp for orphans.
Sponsored by North Shelby Baptist Church in Birmingham, the effort was coordinated and led by Lyn Scarbrough, a member of North Shelby who was making his 26th trip to Ukraine since 1996.
The 14 team members based their ministry from Kharkiv, the second largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1.43 million.
The group was divided into three areas, one that remodeled and expanded a kitchen for the Christmas Church, started some 20 years ago during the Christmas season, and another that led VBS-style programs for children in a park near the church.
A third group helped at the Lifesong Camp in Lyubotin.
Linda Gray, a Southern Baptist missionary in Ukraine for more than 20 years, accompanied the groups to Kharkiv mission sites and churches.
Ministry to youth
Lifesong Camp drew 140 teens and preteens, to a working farm that grows blueberries and strawberries sold in area grocery stores.
Along with daily Bible studies, camp included morning exercises, afternoon recreation, group team-building games and farm work. Sports activities were available in the afternoon along with horseback riding and swimming at the farm lake. Additionally, leaders taught chess and Lego classes, and there were nightly worship services.
Seven prayed to receive Christ as Savior as a result of Lifesong Camp.
Two participants on the Alabama team were Alex Swan and Sarah Mooney, both born in Ukraine and adopted by Alabama families. Alex, who played soccer at the University of Mobile, was adopted by a family in Birmingham at age 16; he had been in a Ukraine orphanage since he was six, when his mother died. He now lives in Arlington, Virginia.
Sarah, adopted soon after she was born by a family in the Mobile area, now is a senior at Fairhope High School.
The team attended two churches in Kharkiv the Sunday after arriving, and, after their ministry activities, went sightseeing in Kharkiv. They also went to Ukraine’s capital city Kyiv, visiting a World War 2 museum and the Chernobyl museum.
Assisting orphanages
Since Scarbrough, an editor at Lindy’s Sports magazines in Birmingham, has begun taking groups to Ukraine they have built playgrounds, done construction at churches, conducted Vacation Bible Schools, led basketball camps, renovated two gymnasiums, provided funds and materials for orphanages and Lifesong Camp, helped build a soccer field and participated in worship services including preaching, singing and giving testimonies.
A graduate of Auburn University, Scarborough also helped start an American football team in Ukraine.
This was the first American mission team to help with Lifesong camp since 2019 due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The next Ukraine mission trip is scheduled the second week of July 2022.
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