Yuliya Nikolaychuk, “CCX Ukraine Provided Big Opportunities and Broadened My Outlook”

Yuliya Nikolaychuk worked as Executive Director of CCX Ukraine for 4 years. In this interview, she described what changes have taken place in the organization and in her personal life during this time. As a woman leader, she was able to work with partners, churches, and universities, and create a dream team. She also shared her thoughts on how to effectively communicate the Good News to young people and to work with students.

     

 

Yuliya, you have been involved with the ministry of CCX Ukraine for seventeen years. How did it begin and why did you want to join this organization?

When I was a first-year student at Zhytomyr Ivan Franko Pedagogical University, I received an invitation to a meeting. It was a Bible study group. A month later I repented and followed Christ and started to go to church. Since 2003, I became an active student leader in CCX Ukraine, leading an evangelistic Bible study group at my dormitory. After graduation from the university in 2006, I wanted to work for the organization very much, but there was a financial crisis in Ukraine at that time. Only a year later, Bob Grahmann, at that time the Director of CCX, invited me to work in the Crimea and create a chapter there. So I worked at CCX Ukraine for twelve years: first, I was a student, then a staff worker; after a few years I got promoted to a Regional Coordinator and for the last four years I served as the Executive Director.

Why Crimea? You are from Zhytomyr region, aren’t you?

At that time there was a need for missionaries in Crimea and so I went there. To move to Crimea was really far from home and, frankly speaking, my first year in Simferopol was very difficult. My first problem was the Russian-speaking population. I spoke Ukrainian and constantly heard different comments and requests to speak Russian. Second, there were many Muslims in Crimea; I was not trained in this work. Third, my group was quite small, but I tried to be faithful and led Bible study even when only one student showed up for the meeting. Fourth, I had to move to a different apartment six times during one year.

How did you end up in Kyiv?

I wasn't going to run away from there. It’s in my character to like to overcome difficulties. But I had a dream that led me to believe that I was ready to move to any city. Then I spoke to the management and asked if I might be useful somewhere else. It was easy for me to pick up and go, so it was not a problem for me to move to a new region. 

Back then, there was an economic crisis in Kyiv, which is a strategic city, and the CCX ministry in Kharkiv was closing at that moment. So all staff workers from Kharkiv were transferred to Crimea, and I was sent to the capital. This rotation took place in 2008. Since then I have been in Kyiv and it gave me a big impetus to develop myself. In Kyiv I felt more like myself.

     

 

What difficulties did you encounter in Kyiv?

I remember being told – people thought I came from Simferopol, but in actually I came from a small village - “You came from the provinces and you want to succeed in Kyiv in youth ministry. You are not on the same page with them; you do not know what kind of youth you are going to deal with. They are fashionable and like to show off. You will not cope with them; nothing will work out for you..." When I hear someone talk like that, it makes me so cheerful. I say, "Okay, you think that it won't work, but let's try!" In two years, I was able to establish a chapter at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, just as I dreamed. We had fifteen student leaders and held different activities at two dormitories on a daily basis. Many non-believing students showed up every time. Those were evangelistic groups, where we read the Bible, played various games, had informal meetings, did cool projects, etc. Students stepped out of their comfort zone. It was an unforgettable time.

Was your main task in Kyiv then to find Christian students, and raise leaders who would start CCX chapters at their universities?

It was my responsibility at that time to find Christian students at Shevchenko National University and Kyiv Polytechnic University, pass onto them the vision of CCX Ukraine, and teach them to lead small groups. I met a couple of guys at Kyiv Polytechnic University who were already trying to do that but something just didn't work. When we met, I shared my vision and we started new groups very quickly. They simply lacked someone with an objective view, a person who would direct their passion in the right direction, minimizing their fears and internal theological discussions. We started with a night tour around the city, then conducted a poll, organized some projects at the dormitory and university level, held weekly Bible study groups, and so on. We formed a very strong team of believers and therefore attracted many other students. Students from Iran who studied at Kyiv Polytechnic University as well as students from other universities joined our chapter. As a result, one student repented and then began a new CCX chapter at her university.

 

      

 

Which of your ideas and innovations were implemented during your work as a student staff worker?

Our organization provides a lot of freedom to create projects. I was fortunate enough to have an internship at the UCCF in England (CCX in the UK). I lived there for a month, worked with a leader, went to different projects and actually borrowed the Mission Week project, which we have been successfully doing since 2014. We started to hold our first projects in Kyiv and then passed it on to other cities. Now this is a very good project of public evangelism. We introduced a vision and strategy for creating chapters at CCX Ukraine. I also initiated social ministry for orphaned children in Kyiv; Kharkiv and Crimea seized the initiative soon, and we even received some grants.

Please tell us about your achievements during the time of leadership in CCX at the All-Ukrainian level.

When I started as a director, there were sixteen people on the team, and now there are twenty-nine employees, which is almost twice as many. Donations have also doubled, from $79,000 to over $200,000 a year. In Ukraine, it was always harder to collect donations in USD, but we kept on working. As a result, the number of partners doubled: from 146 to 298 and the amount of donations in Ukraine increased from $700 to $20,000. Awareness of CCX Ukraine among students, churches, and other organizations has increased too. A number of reasons affected CCX recognition. In 2016, we hired a PR manager, who developed a strategy and led a professional PR company. We updated our website, did restyling, and printed brand products, which we had never done before. Also, we built many more partnerships. Partnership is my strong point in general, and in recent years, we have been involved in major projects, like Thanksgiving, Fire of Hope, Living Movement, Novomedia Forum, Eastern European Leadership Forum, and Global Leadership Summit. We presented CCX Ukraine at all those platforms, went to churches, gave presentations. Awareness has also grown through the project “Uncover”. This is the Gospel of Luke in the format of a notebook. We printed 20,000 in Russian, 6,400 in Ukrainian, and 5,000 more were distributed for Thanksgiving at our partner's expense. In total, we printed and distributed over 90,000 Uncovers. Our product is a resource that serves the churches. We had a formal collaboration with the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelistic Christian Baptist Churches, and we also had a collaboration with Campus Crusade Ukraine for Christ. We decided to unite with the latter to work with churches, namely to provide training for churches on evangelism among youth and students. It was a good experience of synergy. I also consider it an important achievement that the organization has grown and strengthened itself structurally, a number of policies have been developed: internal and external communication policy, staff policies. What is more, I introduced written monthly reports and regular mandatory meetings with the supervisor (in person or via Skype, if the employee works remotely).

These results are results of your training at the personal professional leadership level ...

I did a lot of leadership training, graduated from two programs at the Ukrainian Catholic University and L’viv Business School, plus a two-year IFES international leadership program. The start of my leadership coincided with the days of the Maidan, when it was expected that we Christians should be more professional in order to change the country. It was not enough to do one's ministry well, but it was necessary to do it at the highest level.

You have supported and created employee training opportunities within the organization.

Under my leadership, new positions such as HR-manager, Project-manager, PR-manager have been introduced in CCX. At present we also have a well-developed and implemented annual program of internship for our new staff. In addition, our employees are constantly studying, passing our trainings, entering seminaries, Ukrainian Catholic University and so on. We provide additional leave, often allocate funds, and seek individual grants to help our staff grow professionally. We encourage each employee to write annual individual development plans. For several years in a row, we paid for English courses so that some of our staff could learn to speak English. I worked a lot on building trust and professionalism in the team. As a result, the team became attractive and others want to join. Currently we have great competition for open positions. I hired twenty-two employees over my four-year leadership period.

       

 

What were the strongest projects implemented during that time?

We have managed to grow in public projects, especially in public evangelism, such as Mission Week and Freshman Week. They attracted thousands of people. The projects took place on the university campuses or were held at the city level (e.g., Street Festival in Kharkiv). We also conducted Mark Drama projects and open lectures. Our strength is a good base of apologists from both Ukraine and Europe, who officially give open lectures on the university campuses. We re-started the Student Council. During the past couple of years, CCX opened its chapter in Mykolaiv and strengthened the existing chapter in Pereyaslav-Khmelnitsky. We have supported and developed ministries in two countries – Georgia and Moldova, arranging missionary trips there and bringing them to study at CCX Ukraine. We have also developed two resources: an evangelistic game called Uncover (The Gospel of John), and the translation of two books into Ukrainian: Personal Evangelism by John Stott and Serving God in Today's Cities by Patrick Johnstone. 

    

 

You worked at the university with professors. CCX Ukraine works a lot at the university campuses. How do you cooperate?

Collaboration with a university brings good result if the main purpose is to help, when we come up with specific proposals to develop the university, the educational system and students in general. We usually start with free English clubs, movie clubs, discussion platforms, lectures and so on. When we invite professors from abroad, and apologists with PhD degrees, we enter the university through the "front door". It is best when any project is done with the initiative of the students of a given university, and the organization serves as an additional support that provides resources. We are legally authorized to carry out such projects, but because we are based on Christian values, we are often accused of religious propaganda. Personal relationships play a big role; they need to be built on mutual trust and this experience comes with years of connection. In order for us to be adequately received by universities, we need to have publications in either newspapers or magazines. We specifically worked on this, and now we have Ukrainian and Russian Wikipedia pages.

     

 

What changes did you make, what did you achieve, what skills did you acquire?

When I became a director, several employees told me that I was brighter and more effective in the role of a director than in the role of a student worker. When I became a manager, I realized that that was my cup of tea, I was very comfortable in the new role, and it turned out that I had all necessary skills and even talent for the job. I have grown as a leader and developed many competencies, such as developing partnerships, negotiating, public speaking. I started with ten to twenty people, then spoke before hundreds, and the last speech was in front of the audience of 2,500 people.

Let's go back to what you learned.

I learned English from scratch. I came to work for CCX without any knowledge of English at all, and now, when I'm in the USA, I give thirty presentations per trip, act as a speaker in different European forums, and even gave an interview at BBC radio in England. I also learned to write, started blogging, and now I am writing my own book. CCX Ukraine has provided great opportunities and broadened my outlook and the opportunity for international experience has broken many stereotypes. In addition to personal development, CCX is about impact for me, because I believe that students have great potential and working with them, teaching them, we can influence different areas of the country and society in general. For example, to fight corruption, let’s develop students for politics, economics, and business areas. I believe it is very cool, and I'm happy to be a part of it. 

      

 

What was the hardest part about your work?

The hardest part for me was to dismiss employees. I had a hard time. It is very important for me to build teamwork on trust and unity. That is why I always taught our regional coordinators at our quarterly meetings not just to present their own region and its interest, but to act as a team of leaders, who raise important issues for the whole organization, take genuine concern in CCX on the whole, make decisions and changes, and bring the organization to a new level. The main objective of such a team should be to satisfy the interests of the entire organization, not just their city or region. For me, this is also a great victory. Of course, there were conflicts. It was also difficult to combine the two roles of a servant leader and a boss or public figure.

 

 

What qualities do you think a good leader should possess? 

I think they should combine two styles. The first, servant leadership – to serve both the team and the organization to reach their goals. The second is a public leader, to build a partnership with churches and other large organizations. When they see a strong leader, when they know that this leader is a person of influence, they take the whole organization seriously. However, for the team the leader must be one of their own, accessible, and ready to work together side by side with the team. 

What role was more natural for you?

I am result-oriented, so it was very natural for me to be a public leader. I am good at that. However, maintaining good relationships within a team remained a priority for me, although I was probably better as a public leader. A sign of the importance of team relationships was that we had senior staff meetings on a quarterly basis, monthly Skype calls with each team member, and even a "morning coffee with the director" – a format of meeting, where all employees could come and ask their questions. I started a team retreat – a physical, spiritual and emotional vacation, which took place at Christmas time in the Carpathians. 

 

 

What improvements in the organization would you suggest to the next leader?

It is now time to rebrand the organization to look stylish, contemporary, to speak the youth language, to become more accessible in communication, to be more relevant to the young person's life. The Gospel must be responsive to the needs of today's young people. Although I managed to double the team and budget, it did not increase the number of student leaders. It seems to me that we need to review the methods of working with students. Also, it is worth becoming a pioneer movement that opens chapters in other cities with the help of specifically developed online resource. It would also be very cool to introduce a leadership school. At the university, no one teaches about it practically. I would open such a school at CCX Ukraine. There are ideas to buy a center, turn it into an alternate cafe and training center. When we did a survey among students, we learned that their greatest need is to realize their potential, Everyone thinks of a career path, the possibility of an international exchange, and traveling. So it is logical that we would try to fill those needs. I would recommend considering this and adjusting the work of CCX Ukraine accordingly.

Thanks for the interview and for your great contribution to the development of the organization!

Press Centre of CCX Ukraine