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May 20, 2022

Ideas for Summer Ministry with Ukrainians

1. Carnival Day

This is a one-day event you can host in cooperation with a church and city hall, a local school, or a refugee center, to meet the Ukrainian community in your area.
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2. Three-Day Amazing Race Competition

This is a small-group competition in the form of evangelistic outreach that lasts three days completing tasks around your city.
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3. Three-Day Sports Festival/Clinic

Three-day sports clinics are 3-hour morning practices with afternoons filled with small group activities to help churches build relationships with Ukrainians in their community.
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4. Three-Day Tourist Bus/Van Trips

This is a 3-day tourist integration program for Ukrainians to participate with the local youth group in three days of visiting tourist/cultural/fun locations in your region, selected to help Ukrainian youth adapt to their new surroundings.
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5. Camp: Day Camps for 10-13 year-olds

This is a fun summer evangelistic day camp for younger Ukrainian teenagers and kids from the local church specifically between the ages of 10 and 13.
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6. Camp: Invite Ukrainians Into What You Are Already Doing

Your local church is already doing youth ministry this summer. Why not invite a handful of Ukrainian youth into those programs?
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7. Hiking/Camping Trip

A hiking or camping trip offers a great way to get to know a smaller group of people while also experiencing God, nature, and teamwork.
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8. Ukrainian Camps for the Ukrainian Diaspora

These camps equip Ukrainian churches and Ukrainian communities to host summer evangelistic camps where 90-100% of the camp’s nationality is Ukrainian.
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Discipleship, Events, Help Ukraine

Dawn Is Coming. All Is Well; I Will Rejoice.

It’s 2:51 am on March 7th when I wake to the sound of an air-raid siren via the “Air Alert!” app on my phone. For these last four-plus years serving in Ukraine, this is far from unusual, except that this time, it’s during the final night of our Josiah Venture Ukraine team’s 3-day Springfest event. The 530 participants—most of them teenagers—are under our watch and care. Since rebooting this annual fest in 2023, a year after the start of the full-scale war in Ukraine, there hadn’t been a single siren during the event itself. This year was different. When a siren sounds in Ukraine, it does not necessarily mean that danger is imminent. With modern technology, we can check our phones to understand the threat to which the siren warns. As I begin to scan my screen, I remind myself that our team had picked a facility for Springfest deep in the Carpathian mountains, so surely there is no reason for concern. I read that cruise missiles and attack drones are heading southwest towards a city with a name I don’t recognize. I copy it into Google Maps and quickly realize that this city is in the same region, or county, in which our event is being held. I hold my breath as I tap the “directions” button and feel a tinge of relief in my gut when I realize the city is over 200km (±125 miles) to the east. But what if the missiles aren’t targeting that city? What if they and the drones keep heading west? This is but a small taste of the thoughts and emotions that flooded my heart and head during the 1 hour and 21 minutes of tracking this particular attack on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure in the middle of the night. Russia attacks Ukraine every single day without exception. Of course, the scale varies. But not a night goes by without a siren sounding somewhere in the country. By the grace of God, there were no casualties from this specific attack in the region we were in, and the threat did not escalate to the point of needing to wake Springfest attendees to seek shelter. Our team was sleep-deprived, but as darkness turned to dawn, we could turn our attention back to the heart of our event. Our JV Ukraine team started Springfest in 2011 (back then, it was Winterfest!) to provide a touch point for churches between summer camps. The event has grown from a few dozen attendees to 530 this year, in partnership with 32 Ukrainian churches from all across the country. The current mission of Springfest is to provide a platform for Ukrainian youth leaders to build deeper relationships with their young people, both believers and non-believers. Amidst all the fun of meeting new people, playing sports or board games, creating through crafts, learning in master classes, having a blast at a themed night-party, or just hanging out with friends, we work to provide a safe environment for non-Christians to hear the gospel from the stage and have open discussion with their peers and leaders during small groups. We pray that Springfest is a spark for non-believers to have gospel conversations with their leaders that lead to repentance and belief in Jesus, while also providing a space for believers to grow in their relationship with Christ. One of the best parts of Springfest is getting messages from leaders in the days following the event and hearing stories of how God moved in the hearts of young people. For example, a leader named Anton, who, along with 3 other leaders, brought 16 non-believing teenagers with him to the event, said that Springfest was “the last hammer hit” for one of his guys to repent and follow Jesus. Another leader, Yevhen, said he was up till 3 am one night with his small group of guys, having deep conversations about questions they had about Christianity. “All such meetings gradually bring a young person closer to God,” Yevhen told us. “This festival, in my opinion, raised everyone to a new level of relationship with God.” Pray with us that these types of gospel conversations and professions of faith continue in the coming weeks! Stories of God moving in the hearts of youth and using faithful leaders to embody his Kingdom on earth always encourage us and provide endurance amidst the challenges that the war brings to daily life and ministry. I wouldn’t wish on anyone the task of creating contingency plans for cruise missiles while organizing an event where young people can simply be. It’s a place where they can step away from the terrible normal numbness of getting used to living in war and receive the love of God through his loving church. As we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus remains our morning star in the darkest nights. We will continue to look to him in all things, as we, with grateful hearts, have the privilege of partnering with him and his movement in Ukraine. To him be the glory forever! Amen.
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Evangelism, Online Ministry

Five Minute Bible

Hidden opportunities lurk in every unexpected crisis. When Covid shut down all public meetings in Serbia at the beginning of 2020, Josiah Venture country leader Stojce was cut off from his congregation and his youth ministry. Wracking his brain for a way to continue to shepherd his people, he remembered a video post he had uploaded to Facebook several years earlier. What if he recorded a short video message to his flock every day? With nothing more than an old Samsung phone, Stojce preached a five-minute Bible message and uploaded it onto his page. The next day he preached again, and continued through the week. Since all in-person meetings were canceled, there was space to encourage his people online every single day. Evangelical churches in Serbia are small, and Stojce’s church numbered just over 50 people. The total evangelical population of the country is approximately 5000 believers—a tiny drop in the bucket of a total population of 7 million. You can imagine Stojce’s surprise several weeks later when he discovered that his following on Facebook had grown to over 6000 people—more than the entire number attending evangelical churches! Since Covid had disrupted normal life, people were looking for something to do, and started passing his videos on to their friends. Soon his Facebook page registered 10,000 followers, then 20,000. Every day there was a simple Bible message from just one verse, but somehow his words were resonating with those from traditional Serbian Orthodox backgrounds. By the end of Covid, Stojce had gained 50,000 followers and was preaching to an average of 10,000 people every day! Covid faded away, but Stojce kept going. For six years now he has released a five-minute Bible message five days a week, and now has close to 70,000 followers on Facebook and another 10,000 on TikTok. Even Serbians who have immigrated to Germany and Western Europe are growing through his Bible teaching. Several weeks ago, Stojce was hurrying through the Belgrade airport at 4:00 am to catch an early morning flight when someone touched his shoulder and called out his name. “Stojce, is that really you? I follow you; I watch your messages. Do you have a minute to talk?” Standing in a busy passageway, the man shared how he was addicted to alcohol and pornography when, somehow, by chance, he came across Stojce’s messages. “Your words brought me hope, and when you mentioned you would send a free Bible, I wrote and asked you for one. I started reading it, and then began attending church. God has freed me from my addictions and given me new life. How can I ever thank you for pointing me to the truth!” While much of the online world spreads confusion and noise, God is using five-minute messages to bring eternal truth to tens of thousands in a nation where the gospel is rarely heard. Thank you for making this possible through your gifts and prayers. Dave Patty President, Josiah Venture
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Discipleship, Evangelism, Stories

A New Generation of Missionaries

Dear Friends, “I am sending you.” —Jesus At the end of January, I spent a week with 52 new Josiah Venture missionaries at our winter Academy. Talking with them at meals and in training sessions, I was overwhelmed with the quality and passion of this next generation of missionaries. Let me briefly tell you a few of their stories. Klemen (Slovenia) trusted Christ at 16 years of age when his best friend—the son of JV missionaries—shared the gospel with him on a napkin and challenged him to put his faith in Jesus. With so few evangelical believers in Slovenia, Klemen experienced rejection from his friends and is still the only believer in his extended family. Because of his heart for young people, Klemen studied physical science and became a PE teacher but was so outspoken about his faith that the principal didn’t extend his contract. At that point, our JV staff challenged him to join the team, and he experienced God’s call into full-time ministry. Now, he is helping local churches develop outreach programs to reach the lost. Klemen’s vision? That 30% of Slovenia would become followers of Jesus. Gabriel (Romania) grew up in a Christian home as the son of a pastor. At a youth camp when he was 16, Gabe put his faith in Christ. From that point on, he spent all of his free time serving in church. He experienced God’s call into ministry at 18 and spent the next four years in theological study. However, as is typical in Romania, his church was very traditional and inward-focused. When he began to lead the youth group, there were just five attending—all from Christian families. Then, some members of the JV Romania team began to train Gabe on how to reach the lost using the tool of Fusion, a rock/gospel choir that builds community through music. Soon, the entire culture of the youth group was transformed, and unbelievers were drawn in, inviting more of their friends and coming to faith in Christ. The youth group grew to 100 in a church with just 200 members, and the entire community was impacted. Now Gabe has joined the JV team to equip other churches like his to reach the lost. “I would love for all the churches in Romania to experience this,” he said, “that the church can have an impact on the outside and share the gospel in a relevant way. That would change our country.” Kendra (Ukraine) is a second-generation JV missionary, raised on the mission field. After her graduation from Wheaton college in Illinois, she responded to God’s call to serve in a very challenging location—near the city of Kyiv, Ukraine, in the midst of war. It is a dangerous assignment for a young woman, but Kendra feels privileged to bring the light of Jesus to young people in the midst of physical darkness and great uncertainty. She learned the Ukrainian language in just 6 months, and is now experiencing open doors for ministry across her entire city. God is using her bold faith to draw many to himself. I can’t wait to see what God will do through these committed young missionaries! They can be sent because you stand with them through your prayers and generous support. Thank you. Dave Patty President, Josiah Venture