CCX Ukraine Missionary activity outside our country has become a good sign that we are mature and have enough to minister to others. First there were trips to CCX Georgia. Then, at the end of October, 2015 CCX Ukraine team of students served in Daugavpils, Latvia, and helped their local IFES movement LKSB (CCX Latvia) to hold Mission Week. Apart from helping our Latvian fellow ministers we wanted our students to get stronger as a team, grow in Spirit and have this important missionary experience in a different culture. Five CCX students, one staff member and one trainee took part in this trip. Every one of them had to raise 4000 UAH for the trip independently.
The Christian student group in Daugavpils is small and the ministry is supported mainly by staff member ministers and volunteers. It was the third Mission Week in Latvia and the first one in this town. That is why our Latvian colleagues had a dire need for assistance from our Ukrainian team.
Latvian students happened to be quite open to the Gospel though the majority of them consider themselves Catholic, being raised in Catholic backgrounds. It was rather weird to meet some pantheists and atheists among Catholic students. This speaks about indeterminacy of students and their deep roots in Latvian religious tradition.
Another discovery was that, unlike Ukraine, university authorities were quite open to holding Mission Week. They didn’t allow us to have all our events on the campus grounds but let us spread ads and banners for coming events. Every evening there was a special program with invited musicians, drama sketches, witnesses, speakers and informal communication right in the lecture halls!
Our team was fully involved in the event, from the morning team-building and handing out the flyers till evening programs. While in the planning stage Ukrainian team members also shared their experience with Mission Weeks in Ukraine. Every day about 50 students came to the event from various denominations, from atheists and formal Catholics to Muslims. At the end of the Mission Week a couple of Muslims promised to read the New Testament and come to Ukraine in winter. The Ukrainian team was a perfect example of leader-servant and the Latvian team mentioned that repeatedly. The Mission Week itself helped LKSB with building partnerships with local Protestant churches. Because of the partnership between Latvia and Ukraine, a team from LKSB will come to Kyiv to take part in our experience in holding Mission Week. We have started discussing joint summer camps.
Despite previously participating in such projects in Ukraine, our team learned a lot and students got inspired for the vision of global mission.
“Thanks a lot to Ukrainian team, especially Marina, who led this team! You made this week; you were the core of the ministry! Thank you! We could totally rely on you”, Lena, Mission Week coordinator in Daugavpils, LKSB member.
“This missionary trip opened my potential in working with a team, creative evangelism, communicating with people from another culture. It destroyed the myth that people from another country believe differently. In reality students there have the same questions about God. This trip helped me gain experience with an interdenominational work which is important for one of my ventures”, Slavik, CCX volunteer in Irpin.
“The missionary trip to Latvia had such an impact on me! Before the trip I was afraid to evangelize. I didn’t know how to start, how to have a conversation with unbelievers, how to answer hard questions about Christianity. The missionary trip gave me great experience that I am using in my university and to encourage others to evangelize”, Yulia, CCX student, Grinchenka University.