Hope Reaches Behind Prison Walls in Odessa

All Spring, Summer and Fall we’ve been having street concerts, telling desperate people that there is hope and future in the name of Jesus. It was great to see the younger generation involved in street evangelism by passing out flyers, witnessing to people and giving their testimonies in the microphone.

In spring, I was contacted by a British Christian charity. I was asked how we can help people of Ukraine if they send us money. I said, “We can arrange food packages for the needy, invite them to our services, preach to them, call to repentance and give them food bags.” They liked the idea so it became one more way of evangelism through which more than 100 people heard the Gospel, many responded to the altar call and a few started to come to church.

We are involved in the prison ministry as well. One of our brothers got access to the prison so he conducts weekly services for convicts and challenges them to repent and believe God for miracles, healings and freedom from habits.

On behalf of my family and our church I want to express deep gratitude to our Fellowship. First, many of you 29 have been praying for us and for Ukraine. So we feel safe and protected and we can continue ministering here.

Secondly, some churches supported us financially. That was timely both in spring when many businesses closed, the economy went down, some people lost their jobs, and others had salary cuts. It’s timely now in the winter, at the time of long power cuts and high prices for electricity, gas and heating.

And thirdly, from May until now we’ve had a great privilege to have pastors from all over the world preach for us online and live, seeing our congregation. Due to different time zones, some US pastors preached for us at three and four a.m. and soon after that went to their own church services. We really appreciate their sacrifice.

As a result, people get saved, get baptized with the Holy Spirit, receive words of knowledge and God heals the sick. In one service 10 people got encouraging personal words from the Lord. Some were amazingly accurate.

For example, before one service started, one person complained to me about his desperate situation. Then an evangelist described to him his situation with his own words. It was so accurate that he thought that I told the evangelist about his problems. But as soon as he thought so, the evangelist said, don’t think that the pastor told me about you. God told me that and He says that he will help you. Then he realized that it was God.

Some people whom we didn’t see for a long time start to come back to church and begin to make right decisions.

Please pray for revival in Odessa.