What’s the best hope for Transcarpathia, an area of Ukraine near the Hungarian border with a primarily Hungarian population, to come to know Jesus Christ?
Alabama Baptists, of course. At least that’s what William Withers believes.
“God is going to use Alabama Baptists,” said Withers, who, along with wife Wynna, recently returned from Ukraine after serving there for three years with the International Mission Board’s Masters Program (see story, this page).
Although they spent the first two years in the city and oblast (equivalent to an American state) of Odessa, the Witherses spent their last year in Transcarpathia after seeing that the need for Christian work was great. Between 2004 and 2009, only two Southern Baptist teams had been to this area to do missions.
But it was a meeting with Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM), and Reggie Quimby, director of the SBOM office of global missions, in March 2009 that gave the couple hope for Transcarpathia.
Although Alabama Baptists began a partnership with Ukrainian Baptists in 2006, this was the first time they had gone to this part of Ukraine.
Efforts had been focused on all except this extreme western portion of the country with a variety of missions projects taking place in cities like Kiev, Rivne, Poltava and Lviv. Hundreds of Alabama Baptists have ministered in Ukraine since the partnership began.
But Lance and Quimby found Transcarpathia to be a new area for Alabama Baptists to touch. During their initial vision trip to the area, they built relationships with students at the area university and encouraged Southern Baptist representatives serving there.
“It all started coming together, and the more we talked about it, the greater need we saw,” Quimby said.
Scotty Goldman, an associate in the global missions office, led the first team of Alabama Baptists to Transcarpathia in September 2009. And so far in 2010, there have been two trips to the area: one taken by pastors and directors of missions from around the state and the other taken by St. Clair Baptist Association. Three trips are in the works for 2011, and an extension of the Ukraine partnership until 2013 will be recommended to messengers to the Alabama Baptist State Convention annual meeting in November.
But because of Alabama’s connection to Southern Baptist representative Tim Akers (an Alabama Baptist), who serves in Transcarpathia, Goldman hopes there will be ongoing work in the area even past 2013.
For information, call the office of global missions at 1-800-264-1225.
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