Ukraine has been transformed by the preaching of the Gospel. Since the days when communism fell, and Ukraine came free from the Soviet Union in 1991, the nation has turned from atheism to embracing Christianity. But Ukraine is now in a battle for the hearts and minds of its own citizens. Since 2014, a war has been fought along its eastern borders with Russian-backed separatists. Thousands have died. Even more are displaced. Hopelessness has returned. Politicians and military powers are either unable or unwilling to solve the conflict, but there is a God in heaven who answers prayer!
For 26 years, David has evangelised extensively in Ukraine, preaching the Gospel with signs and wonders following. He would regularly visit the areas which are now off-limits due to the war. 29-30 September 2018, David returned, and ministered in four different churches around Kiev.
Working with the first charismatic church in Kiev (Living Word) with 100 brand new converts, David was the first evangelist to take the Dynamo Stadium in 1992 and again in 1993 for citywide evangelism. It is said the power came down in such a great outpouring, it changed the spiritual atmosphere over the whole nation! Miracles began to happen freely wherever the Gospel was preached! David was again in this church, not just looking back, but, according to Philippians 3:13-14, forgetting the past, pressing forward towards the mark of the prize that is the high calling of God in Christ Jesus! God has greater things for Ukraine!
Also, on this visit, David preached the Gospel in the famous Messianic Congregation of Rabbi Boris. As a young man, in the great summer and autumn of 1993, he was part of David’s team, evangelising for 3 months in Siberia, the land of exile and punishment, then another month across Ukraine. His congregation have become known in many countries for the power of their prayer; it was the intercessors of this church who undergirded our preparations with prayer for the very first National Day of Prayer for Ukraine in 2016 - when nobody believed it would be possible to bring together all denominations to call on God on behalf of the nation. But it happened! And greater is yet to come!
David also ministered in the first Pentecostal Church in Kiev during this visit. Starting with a small group of persecuted believers in 1958, it became a registered church under communism in 1974. Hidden behind a garden fence in a leafy district close to where we have our office, this miraculous church has given birth to so many of the men who gave birth to the revival in Ukraine! Out of this one church in the 1990s came 30 new churches, beginning with that first charismatic church, Living Word. Sometimes being left with only 20 members, this church has filled up again and again, and still today gives birth to new flourishing churches! What a dynamic!
Finally, David was the invited evangelist to celebrate 25 years of Salvation Church in a great open-air public celebration attended by an estimated crowd of 5000 people - 300 joined the church the next day at a follow-up meeting. This church also was born out of the first Pentecostal Church. Their work is in one of the densest dormitory populations of Kiev - supported by the Mayor of the district and his administration - because the drug addicts and homeless are saved, crime has fallen, and the streets have been cleaned up both literally and spiritually by the effectiveness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Only God can deliver Ukraine from the war on the east, the ungodly secular pressures from the EU on the west, and its own internal corruption. But God will use Ukrainian people to be His demonstration to the world that Jesus is alive and He’s coming back for those who serve Him!
