Turned upside down (Ukrainians sponsoring Swiss)
Erich Salzmann
Who ever said, that Eastern Europeans will still take ages until they get involved in missions financially, was proven wrong by a local church in Rivne, Ukraine. Their church planting effort in the village of Orshiv was hampered by the lack of sanitary facilities in their little building there. Money and workers were needed to build the needed restrooms, for the children and youth attending various gatherings.
The idea of a benefit concert had already been going around in Tetyana’s (wife of the associate OM field leader) mind. Her husband Erich connected the two things when the need was shared at a budgeting meeting of the church. Tetyana has musical education and so do quite a few church members. Several of them have been playing and singing together in the past and so they decided to revive the old group and the old songs and organise a special concert. Around 100 people gathered for the concert, which was of excellent quality. Not only did the group sing good songs, they also used the opportunity to give testimony of Gods grace in their lives.
At the end of the concert 2000 Ukrainian Hryvnas (about 400 USD) were collected. That is the equivalent of 4 months minimum salaries.
That same night a youth group of 13 Swiss arrived in Rivne for a week of outreaches. They were involved in various sports ministries and visited an orphanage. The last two days of their stay, they went to Orshiv. None of them had ever laid bricks, but under the watchful eyes of a Ukrainian they quickly learned and built the typical Ukrainian outdoor restrooms. Others of the team were busy extending the fence around the perimeter of the ground and still others painted the fence. Erich, OM’s associate field leader got an opportunity to use his former skills as a lumberjack and cut down a big, dangerous section of a tree with his chain saw.
Many people walked past the area in those two days and now basically the whole village knows that Swiss people have been building the toilets at the church house. On Saturday the team also helped in the children’s meeting and met with the local youth in the evening. The pastor of the church in Rivne invited the Swiss group to come back again, adding with a smile: We will sponsor you again!
Please pray that out of the small gatherings of children, youth, and a few adults, a real church would be born in Orshiv.
(More pictures can be found at www.feg-muensingen.ch/jg under the menu “Biuder”, you don’t have to understand Swiss German for doing so! :)
Erich Salzmann
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© 2008
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