Church life is alive and well in many of the villages around Cherkassy. Having spent 5 days visiting several villages, progress was evident in many of them. Seven years ago the village of Yasnozirya had one elderly believer, and had just acquired a derelict house in which to commence a church. On Ascension Day this year I spoke to a group of 14 people from the village, including a lady for whom it was her first visit, and which also included a local councillor who brought greetings and spoke warmly of the church’s influence and activities.
Four years ago when I visited the church at Lebadyn the people were chopping down trees and digging foundations prior to erecting a new worship center. Lebadyn now has a very impressive building seating around 100, and with a “cry room” for mothers and babies, which enables them to see and hear what is happening in the church, and with plans for a library, kitchen and accommodation for visiting teams. New believers are still being added to the churches – one church will soon be baptizing 7 candidates, and another has 3 people waiting to be baptized. All the churches visited were engaged in reaching out to their communities and all had a vision for extending their premises in order to do more evangelism with better facilities. A major focus for all the churches is to provide activities for young people, as there is very little in the way of sporting or recreational activities in the villages, and the churches put a lot of energy and manpower into children’s’ and young peoples’ camps in the summer.
While the people are very enthusiastic, most are hampered by lack of equipment and finances. One church needs the roof repaired, 2 need fencing around their buildings as they are open to villagers wandering in and taking building materials which are lying around, and 2 or 3 wish to extend their existing premises. Many pastors only have a bicycle, and if pastors do have a car, their vehicles are often untrustworthy and not really safe.
While it is important that Hope Now continues to help with finance for many of these projects, the pastors and people would also value personal visits of church teams to help lead a camp, to teach crafts, and to give encouragement by sharing in fellowship and interest. If any churches in the USA feel they could “twin” with a village church and would like more details, please let me know via the Atlanta office – I know it would be a great blessing on both sides.
It is now several years since Hope Now handed over the various
ministries in Cape Town into local hands. However, Hope Now has
maintained responsibility for some of the former residents of Rainbow
House.
