To
faithfully witness to the transformational power of the Gospel in the
post-Soviet and post-Christian context of Ukraine by planting a healthy church
with a well-formed Christian and Reformed world and life view which will in
turn encourage the development of other healthy churches that engage in
transformational ministry so that they are faithful witnesses of the gospel
and are actively making disciples of all nations.
Our Vision
We
see healthy congregations emerging through church planting and leadership
training as well as in partnership with existing Reformed congregations in
Ukraine in order to bring healing and transformation to lives and communities
throughout Ukraine and beyond her borders in the post-Soviet countries of
Eastern Europe so that more and more people hear the gospel and lives and
communities are transformed.
Our History
In 1998 we came to
Ukraine to work with the missionaries of the Reformed Church of Carpathian
Ukraine, an ethnically Hungarian church. The 13 missionaries had
recently completed a 3 year mission school. The goal of the school was
to prepare these ethnic Hungarians to minister among Ukrainians since
they already knew the culture but not all of the missionaries knew Ukrainian
well enough to work in a Ukrainian mission setting. The church asked
George to find mission settings for the missionaries capable of working in
Ukrainian and to mentor them. The other missionaries began ministries
to Gypsies and in hospitals.
As the 13 local
missionaries became more established in their work we began to devote more
time to our own outreach work in the town of Mukachevo, where we live.
We started with a weekly Bible study which grew until the attendees were
asking to form a congregation. In the spring of 2004 the Christian
Reformed Church of Mukachevo was registered. Currently there are 15
members and about 30 people attending on Sundays. Most of our time
is devoted to this church plant.
Sarah was instrumental
in starting a private language school which offers English courses to help
young people obtain better jobs and broaden their opportunities. She has
been involved in teaching English courses and English teaching methodology
courses for teachers. Sarah also helped start prenatal classes which
help prepare expectant parents for the birth of their child.
the
de Vuyst Pages
