Hope mushrooms in a dead-end town

Ukraine | Debbie Meroff

“God wants the heaven that comes into people’s hearts to overflow to others around them,” states Australian Wayne Zschech, who has worked in Ukraine since 1993. Around three in 10 people in this country live in desperate poverty, and Wayne explains that the little country town near Kiev that he moved to 12 years ago was a “dead end”.

“People were jobless, with no hope for the future. After four years we had enough people to register a church—10. But when our pastor went back to Australia, I had to become one of things I never wanted to be, a pastor! I looked into the eyes of my congregation and they were all unemployed and all in desperate need. So we started a very simple Bible School and along with that, bio-diesel and mushroom-growing projects to generate jobs.

“It got dirty. It got real. Words mean nothing here in Ukraine. It takes putting faith into action, day in, day out, so that finally they see our words do mean something: that we won’t change—and neither will God. We are here for church planting and that involves changing lives on the inside and seeing faith projected into the community. Any money we make with the businesses goes back to creating more jobs and reinvesting in the community.”

Please pray for Wayne and his family and others who are seeing churches planted in Ukraine, using Business 4 Transformation. Ask God to help them find investors to link with Ukrainian entrepreneurs to maximise community development.

Credit: Debbie Meroff
© 2012 Debbie Meroff