The remarkable story of how God prepared thirteen Ukrainian villages for the Gospel—and prepared us to reach them.
Nearly twenty years ago, we purchased an acre of land in the small Ukrainian village of Velykyi Lazy, just north of Uzhhorod. It was simply an investment, and for almost two decades, nothing happened with it. We had no plans to build a community there, much less plant a church.
Today, that once-unused acre has become a place where families displaced by war are rebuilding their lives, young people are discovering Jesus Christ, and a new congregation is taking root in a region of thirteen villages with approximately 15,000 residents and no previous local Christ-centered church.
Looking back over this extraordinary journey, we can see something we never recognized at the time. God was preparing the villages to receive the Gospel long before we knew they needed a church. And just as remarkably, He was preparing us, our partners, and our resources to bring the Gospel to them.
This is the story of One Community Church.
Nearly twenty years after we purchased this land as an investment, the Velykyi Lazy IDP Community now provides permanent homes for families displaced by war. The two-story Clubhouse on the right is becoming the home of One Community Church, reaching thirteen villages with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
A War Changes Everything
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, thousands of frightened families fled toward the western borders, hoping to find safety in Europe or America. Through our Transform Uzhhorod Alliance, we established ten temporary shelters operated by local churches. During the first six months of the war, approximately 45,000 displaced Ukrainians passed through these centers, usually staying only a night or two before continuing their journeys.
But as the war continued, something unexpected happened. Families discovered that Uzhhorod, tucked into Ukraine’s far south-western corner, was relatively safe. Many mothers faced a heartbreaking decision. Their husbands could not leave Ukraine because they were of military conscription age, and continuing westward would mean separating their families. Rather than leave their husbands behind, many chose to remain in the Uzhhorod region.
Suddenly, our ministry faced an entirely new challenge. Mattresses on church floors might provide refuge for a night or two, but they were no solution for families needing a place to rebuild their lives. We needed to move beyond emergency relief and begin providing longer-term housing.
During the first six months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, approximately 7,500 displaced Ukrainians found temporary refuge in ten church-operated shelters. Families slept on mattresses on the floor, grateful for safety but needing something more permanent as the war continued.
That was when the acre of land purchased nearly twenty years earlier suddenly took on an entirely new purpose.
With the prayers and financial support of our ministry partners, we began developing the Velykyi Lazy IDP Community, constructing seven Tiny Homes and eventually a ten-family apartment building to provide permanent housing for families displaced by war. We also constructed a two-story Clubhouse where residents could gather for fellowship, community activities, and celebrations.
But as the community began taking shape, we realized something important was missing.
A Community Needs More Than Houses
One of the reasons our ten emergency shelters had been so effective was the involvement of local churches. They provided more than food, beds, and temporary refuge. They offered prayer, pastoral care, friendship, and the love of Jesus Christ to families experiencing some of the most traumatic moments of their lives.
We wanted that same spiritual foundation for the families making their new homes in Velykyi Lazy.
Naturally, we began looking for a local church that could partner with us in serving these families. What we discovered surprised us. There was no Christ-centered church in Velykyi Lazy, nor in any of the twelve surrounding villages. Approximately 15,000 people lived in this region without a local congregation.
As we prayed about this need, we began sensing that God was calling us to do something we had never originally envisioned. Rather than simply finding an existing congregation to serve our displaced families, perhaps He was calling us to help plant a new church.
Through the Transform Uzhhorod Alliance, we partnered with Pastor Viacheslav Nedzelskyi and New Hope Evangelical Church in Uzhhorod to begin developing what would become One Community Church.
And remarkably, God had already provided the beginnings of a place for the congregation to meet. The second floor of our Clubhouse, originally designed for community gatherings, could easily become a worship hall.
We had purchased the land, begun constructing homes, and built a gathering place before we even recognized that God was preparing us to plant a church!
But having a vision for a church and gaining acceptance in the surrounding villages were two very different challenges.
An Unexpected Cancellation Opens the First Door
The people in the villages surrounding Velykyi Lazy view Christ-centered churches with suspicion as members of a sect or cult. We knew that establishing relationships with local authorities would be essential, but we had little reason to assume they would welcome a church-planting initiative.
Yet God had already begun preparing the way through something that, at the time, seemed completely unrelated to church planting.
A few years into the war, we were hosting a visiting volunteer who provided free eyeglasses after conducting simple eye-chart examinations. When one of our scheduled locations unexpectedly canceled, we suddenly needed another place where he could serve.
A member of our Transform Uzhhorod Alliance mentioned that many displaced families were living in Velykyi Lazy. We approached the village elders, who welcomed the opportunity, and spent a day providing free eyeglasses to displaced families and other impoverished residents.
It was an act of Christian compassion that combined practical assistance with sharing the Gospel. The eye examinations used a vision chart featuring John 3:16 in Ukrainian, and every person who came through the clinic received a Ukrainian Bible. While meeting a very real physical need, we were also introducing villagers to the message of God’s love through Jesus Christ.
A free eyeglasses clinic in Velykyi Lazy provided much-needed assistance to impoverished villagers and displaced families. This simple act of compassion would establish relationships that later opened unexpected doors for One Community Church.
But that day accomplished something we did not immediately recognize. It established a positive relationship with the village leadership.
Later, after we sensed God’s call to plant a church, we decided that a youth summer festival would be a good way to begin reaching the community. We needed permission from the village elders, and we were uncertain how they would respond to a church-planting outreach.
To our amazement, they did far more than grant permission.
They personally brought us to the village school and introduced us to its principal, suggesting that the school would be an ideal location for the festival!
Consider the significance of that moment. In a region where followers of Jesus were often regarded with suspicion, the village authorities were actively helping us organize an outreach to introduce young people to Jesus Christ.
Looking back, we can see how Christ had been preparing the way all along. What seemed like an unfortunate cancellation was actually an opportunity He had provided to bring us into Velykyi Lazy. Through a simple act of compassion, He enabled us to build trust with village leaders who might otherwise have been reluctant to welcome a church. Long before we recognized the opportunity, Christ was already opening the door for the Gospel to reach thirteen villages.
A School Principal Opens Thirteen Villages
When we met with the school principal, we explained that our vision extended beyond Velykyi Lazy. We wanted to reach children and families in all twelve surrounding villages as well.
The principal had an idea that was far better than anything we had imagined.
His school served the children from all thirteen communities, with buses bringing students from the surrounding villages to the campus each school day. Rather than organizing a summer festival and hoping children could travel to attend, he offered to let us hold the event during a regular school day.
He would cancel classes so the students could participate!
We could hardly believe what we were hearing. First, the village elders had welcomed an Christian outreach and introduced us to the school. Now the principal was offering to bring together students from thirteen villages and give us an entire school day to minister to them.
We had been praying for an opportunity to reach one village. God had just opened a door to thirteen!
But another piece of His plan still needed to come together. We needed someone who could lead this outreach and develop the relationships necessary for an ongoing ministry.
And once again, God was already preparing the answer.
God Prepares the Right Leader
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Alexander Voitenko, whom everyone calls Sasha, and his wife, Natalia, had been involved in youth ministry at their church in Fastiv, near Kyiv. When the war came, they became internally displaced persons themselves, eventually making their way to western Ukraine with their children.
Through our partnership with Pastor Viacheslav Nedzelskyi and New Hope Evangelical Church, Sasha became connected with the vision for One Community Church.
Sasha brought more than experience in youth ministry. He had a remarkable personal testimony. As a young man, he had struggled with drug addiction before experiencing the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Having found freedom and a new purpose for his life, he devoted himself to helping other young people discover that same hope.
His own experiences made him uniquely suited for the ministry unfolding in Velykyi Lazy. He understood what it meant to have his life disrupted by war, and he knew firsthand how Jesus Christ could transform a troubled young person’s future.
Sasha and Natalia eventually moved with their children into one of the Tiny Homes in our IDP Community.
Think about the beautiful way God was bringing everything together. We had built the community to provide homes for displaced families. Now one of those families was becoming central to the ministry that would bring the Gospel to the surrounding villages.
God was not simply providing a youth leader. He was bringing a family whose experiences, gifts, and calling fit perfectly into the work He was preparing.
A Festival Becomes an Extraordinary Opportunity
On November 4, 2024, the opportunity provided by the school principal finally became reality.
More than one hundred students gathered during the school day for a festival featuring sports, activities, and a message of hope. Regular classes were canceled so the young people could participate.
Sasha shared his personal testimony of how Jesus Christ had delivered him from drug addiction and transformed his life. His story connected with the students because he was not simply offering religious advice. He was describing a life that had genuinely been changed by Jesus.
The ministry team gathered outside the Velykyi Lazy school during the November 4, 2024, youth festival. What began as a single outreach became the foundation for ongoing relationships with students from thirteen surrounding villages.
But perhaps the most remarkable response came from the school principal himself.
At the end of the festival, he invited us into his office and made another extraordinary offer. He would provide Sasha with a room in the school where students could come for personal advice and encouragement. He also opened the school’s sports facilities, including the gymnasium and football field, for our ministry to use whenever needed.
We had asked God to open a door for a single youth festival. Instead, He had provided ongoing access to students from thirteen villages!
The principal was not merely tolerating our Christian outreach. He was actively helping us reach the young people under his care.
And God was not finished opening doors.
The Government Helps Equip the Ministry
During the following year, Sasha continued preparing for the church-planting work ahead. He took specialized courses in church planting while using the office provided by the principal to build relationships with students. He listened to their concerns, offered advice, and gradually became a trusted mentor to young people who needed someone willing to invest in their lives.
Then another remarkable opportunity emerged.
The regional government selected Sasha to lead its youth sports program.
This was far more than an honorary appointment. The position provided him with a salary and sports equipment, along with opportunities to organize activities throughout the region.
Sports activities provided opportunities to build relationships with children and families throughout the region. With equipment and financial support from the regional government, Sasha was able to expand his outreach across all thirteen villages and into Uzhhorod.
Consider what God had now provided. The village elders had introduced us to the school. The principal had opened the doors to students from thirteen villages. And now the government was providing both resources and financial support that enabled Sasha to develop relationships with young people across those same communities!
Sasha began organizing sports programs throughout all thirteen villages, as well as in the regional capital of Uzhhorod. Through these activities, he became increasingly familiar to students, parents, and local leaders. The relationships that began at the school festival were growing into a network of trust throughout the region.
At the same time, his church-planting courses were equipping him for the spiritual work that would follow.
God was preparing Sasha to become a church planter while providing practical opportunities, equipment, and financial resources to reach the very villages where we hoped to establish a church.
By the following summer, those preparations were ready to bear fruit.
Thirteen Villages. Thirteen Weeks. One Extraordinary Summer.
Sasha developed an ambitious plan for the summer of 2025: thirteen villages in thirteen weeks.
Each week, Sasha and his team spent six days in one village, conducting a Christian day camp filled with games, sports, friendships, and opportunities to share the message of Jesus Christ. Rather than moving from village to village after a single event, they invested six consecutive days building relationships with the children and their families. Then they packed up and moved to the next community, continuing this remarkable outreach for thirteen weeks until all thirteen villages had been reached.
Children join in worship during the final weeklong Christian day camp in Velykyi Lazy in the summer of 2025. Over thirteen weeks, Sasha and his team brought the Gospel to more than 650 children across thirteen villages.
The results were extraordinary.
By the end of the summer, our ministry reports documented more than 650 children participating in the camps. Many were hearing the Gospel in a meaningful way for the first time.
At the final camp in Velykyi Lazy, 120 children gathered for a week of activities and Bible teaching. One of the most moving moments came when children who had never previously sung Christian worship songs enthusiastically lifted their voices in praise to God.
But Sasha understood that reaching children for one week was only the beginning.
He had developed a deliberate strategy to reach entire families.
Each day, as parents and older siblings dropped off and collected their children, Sasha and his team took time to get to know them. They listened to their concerns, developed friendships, and built relationships that could continue long after the camps ended.
By the end of the summer, Sasha had established contacts with parents and older siblings throughout the thirteen villages.
Those relationships would become the foundation for the next stage of One Community Church.
From Children’s Camps to Family Discipleship
With the summer camps completed, Sasha began launching ongoing ministries that could build upon the relationships his team had developed.
A youth ministry began gathering teenagers and young adults for fellowship, Bible study, and discipleship. The first youth gathering attracted thirty young people. Weekly children’s clubs soon followed, allowing younger children to continue learning about Jesus beyond their summer camp experience.
Meanwhile, Marina and I began organizing monthly parenting seminars to develop relationships with the parents Sasha had met during the camps.
Our first meeting was held in the main park of Velykyi Lazy, where six sets of parents joined us for a barbecue, fellowship, and conversations about the challenges of raising children. Rather than simply organizing a formal lecture, we wanted to create an environment where parents could develop friendships while discovering practical parenting principles rooted in biblical wisdom.
Our first parenting seminar in the Velykyi Lazy village park brought local families together for fellowship, a barbecue, and conversations about raising children. One of the parents attending would soon open another unexpected door for the growing ministry.
One of the parents attending that first meeting happened to be the regional Minister of Culture.
And once again, God opened another unexpected door.
She offered us the use of Ploteni Palace, a beautiful historic building in Velykyi Lazy, for our future meetings. The palace had once hosted private musical performances associated with the great composers Johannes Brahms and Franz Liszt. Now, that same historic setting was becoming a gathering place where parents could learn how to strengthen their families through biblical principles.
Our second meeting brought together seven parents, and the relationships continued developing.
Looking back, the progression was remarkable. A youth festival had opened the school. The school had provided opportunities for mentoring and sports. Those relationships had led to summer camps throughout thirteen villages. The camps had introduced us to parents and older siblings. And now a parent attending our first seminar had opened another community facility for ongoing ministry.
God was providing each new opportunity through relationships established during the previous one.
A Church Begins Outgrowing Its Living Room
While these ministries were developing throughout the villages, something equally exciting was happening back at the Velykyi Lazy IDP Community.
A small group began gathering in the living room of Sasha’s Tiny Home to study the Bible, pray, and grow together in their faith.
One Community Church began gathering in the living room of Sasha’s Tiny Home, where growing numbers of young people soon filled every available seat. The congregation was taking shape even before its future meeting hall was ready.
As more young people joined, the group continued growing until approximately twenty-five were crowding into a living room never designed for that many people.
It was a wonderful problem to have!
One Community Church was beginning to outgrow its meeting space before the church building was even finished.
Fortunately, God had already provided the Clubhouse as part of our original community development plan. While the second-floor worship hall remained unfinished, we began working to make other parts of the building usable for the growing congregation.
The first major breakthrough came through STUD Frame Homes; a construction business developed through our Rebuild Ukraine initiative. Its partners volunteered their labor to complete the Clubhouse office as a gift of gratitude for the partnership that had helped establish their business.
The completed office gave the church a larger gathering space and provided a room where emerging church leaders could receive training.
But even that space soon became too small.
Then, in May 2026, another unexpected blessing arrived.
A visiting team from Christ Fellowship in West Chicago, Illinois, and Christian Fellowship in Columbia, Missouri, came to Ukraine to encourage the leaders of our community alliances. During their visit, we discovered that a budgeting mistake had caused us to overcharge the team by several thousand dollars.
Naturally, we offered to return the money.
Instead, the team made an extraordinary decision. They asked us to give it to One Community Church!
What could have been an embarrassing mistake became another example of God’s provision.
Those funds enabled us to tile the Clubhouse’s first-floor fellowship area and complete the necessary plumbing and electrical work to make it usable.
The newly tiled first-floor fellowship area of the Clubhouse, with the completed church office visible in the background. An unexpected gift from visiting ministry partners helped make this larger gathering space available for One Community Church.
The walls and ceiling are still unfinished, but the congregation now has a much larger space where it can gather.
And the growth has continued. The original small group has developed to the point that its leaders are preparing to divide it into two groups, creating opportunities for more intimate discipleship and the development of additional leaders.
What began in a Tiny Home living room is taking its first steps toward multiplication.
God Was Preparing the Harvest—and the Harvesters
When we look back over this remarkable journey, we are overwhelmed by how Christ brought together events that initially seemed completely unrelated. An investment made nearly twenty years ago, a devastating war that displaced millions, an unexpected cancellation of an eyeglasses outreach, and the arrival of a displaced family with a passion for youth ministry all became part of a plan we could never have imagined.
At every stage, Christ seemed to have prepared the next opportunity before we even recognized the need. The land became a refuge for displaced families. The compassion shown through our emergency shelters revealed the importance of establishing a local church. An unexpected eyeglasses ministry opened relationships with village leaders, who then introduced us to a school principal willing to welcome a Christian outreach. God provided Sasha, equipped him through church-planting training, and even opened the doors of government to provide the resources needed to reach young people throughout the region.
Each new relationship led to another opportunity. The school opened the way for youth ministry, sports programs led to summer camps across thirteen villages, and those camps introduced us to parents and families who are now discovering biblical principles and Christian community. Meanwhile, the very Clubhouse we had constructed for displaced families was becoming the gathering place for a growing congregation. We could never have orchestrated such an extraordinary sequence of events ourselves.
But perhaps the most remarkable part of this story is that God was working on both sides of the equation. He was preparing the villages to receive the Gospel by opening hearts, building trust, and creating relationships with community leaders. At the same time, He was preparing us to bring the Gospel by providing the land, housing, ministry partnerships, Ukrainian leadership, training, financial resources, and facilities we would need.
The harvest field was being prepared, and so were the harvesters.
The One Community Church planting team gathers for its first meeting in the newly completed Clubhouse office. What began as a ministry to displaced families is developing into a growing Christian community with a vision to reach thirteen Ukrainian villages.
And This Is Only the Beginning
Today, One Community Church is taking root in a region that previously had no local Christ-centered church. Hundreds of children have heard about Jesus through summer camps. Young people are gathering for discipleship. Parents are discovering biblical principles for strengthening their families. And a growing group of believers and seekers is meeting in a Clubhouse that God had placed in our plans long before we realized it would become a church home.
Yet our vision has never been simply to establish a single congregation in Velykyi Lazy.
We long to see a multiplying movement of discipleship throughout all thirteen villages, with Ukrainian believers reaching their neighbors, families being transformed by the Gospel, and new Christian communities emerging wherever God opens doors.
There is still much work ahead. The Clubhouse needs to be completed, including the second-floor worship hall. Additional leaders need training and encouragement. Our youth and children’s ministries need continued support. And thousands of people in these villages have yet to experience the love and hope of Jesus Christ through a local evangelical church.
But when we consider how faithfully God has prepared each step of this journey, we can look toward the future with confidence in Him.
We are deeply grateful to the prayer and financial partners who have walked alongside us throughout this story. Your generosity has helped operate emergency shelters, construct homes for displaced families, develop community facilities, support ministry leadership, and bring the Gospel to hundreds of children and their families.
Through your partnership, God is transforming what began as humanitarian relief into a lasting Christian witness that has the potential to reach an entire region.
Jesus promised, “I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16:18).
Nearly twenty years ago, we thought we were simply purchasing an acre of land.
We had no idea that God was preparing the place where He would begin building His Church.
And what an extraordinary privilege it is to discover that He has invited us—and you—to be part of His plan!
To Christ alone be all the glory!