It was about 9:30 a.m. on a Monday in late August. The park in Krinichki, Ukraine, was empty except for a lone goat tied to a swing set. A 12-member team of Alabama Baptist missions volunteers had just arrived to help facilitate a children’s Bible camp in the park. The day before, they had prayer walked around the small town, situated in east central Ukraine’s oblast, or state, of Dnipropetrovsk. After getting settled, the group made a quick trip around town to invite children to the event and within the hour, 50 children had arrived.
Like others on the team, Annette Davis, a member of Coosada Baptist Church in Elmore Baptist Association, was struck by God’s provision in that moment. Davis, on her first missions trip, said, “On a trip like this, you have a lot of people praying for you and you actually see an immediate answer to those prayers.”
Over the course of four days, the camp attracted more than 80 children. Each day began with an opening session, which incorporated music, games and stories led by Ukrainians. Then the children rotated through activities including crafts, Bible story time and recreation led by the Alabama team with assistance from Ukrainian interpreters, plus a music session led by Ukrainians.
In the afternoons, the team painted playground equipment and fences in the park, raked leaves, mowed the grass and picked up trash. This visible expression of love caught the eye of townspeople, and drew several of the children back to lend a helping hand.
The team, headed up by Ken May, Montgomery Baptist Association director of missions, was made up of volunteers from eight Alabama Baptist churches, including five from Montgomery Association, and one each from Autauga, Elmore and Columbia Baptist associations. “Since this partnership effort began,” said May, “I’ve been encouraging churches to realize they don’t have to put together a team of 10 to 12 from their church, but they can partner with other churches to come together and compose a team, and that’s what we’ve done in this occasion.”
The team worked with Mike Ray, International Mission Board (IMB) strategy coordinator for the IMB’s East Central Region of Ukraine.
According to Ray, the camp and refurbishing project were strategic elements of a multipronged effort to plant a Baptist church and begin a children’s ministry in Krinichki, a county seat town of about 6,000. In July, a team of volunteers from Mississippi held a medical clinic in the town, and the day after the Bible camp ended a three-day evangelistic crusade was held in the park.
“The bottom line is that we’re trying to partner with Ukrainians in a way that will facilitate and nurture what they’re doing here to draw people to Christ and into a church start situation,” Ray said.
And Krinichki already has something big going for it — the mayor, Volodia Dominyuk, is a Christian and a member of a Baptist church in a nearby town. He’s also the church planter who is faced with the huge task of starting the town’s first Baptist church.
“We need your prayers for Volodia because church planting is hard to do, especially in a place where there’s never been one, nobody’s asking for one and nobody particularly wants one,” Ray said. “You’re starting from scratch.”
For Cliff Stever, pastor of Montgomery Association’s Yarbrough Street Baptist Church, the opportunity to impact people a continent away has opened his eyes to needs at home. While pulling weeds on the playground, he remarked, “What’s really sad is as a pastor of a church in Montgomery, Ala., I’m here in Ukraine doing this and I haven’t even done it at home yet, but that’s going to change.”
This was the first missions trip experience for Steve and Jenean Sprayberry, members of Eastern Hills Baptist Church, Montgomery, in Montgomery Association, but they hope it won’t be their last.
“God has taught me that if I’m obedient to Him, He can use me even in a country where I might not know but three words,” Jenean Sprayberry said.
This project was one of 15 scheduled for Ukraine in 2008. For information on 2009 projects, contact the State Board of Missions at 1-800-264-1225, Ext. 239. To learn more about Ray’s ministry in Ukraine, visit www.reachukraine.org.
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