The Lord blessed us with a wonderful trip with the Gospel in the western cities of Ukraine. Together with a team of 5 people, we were able to visit Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, as well as the city of Dolyna and the village of Pereginske in Ivano-Frankivsk region with an exhibition of paintings “The Life of Jesus Christ in Works of Art.”
During the week, we had the opportunity to witness people from three regions, each of which was distinguished by its own culture, perception and reaction. In each settlement, we held street evangelism in parks, squares, and main streets and, by God’s grace, saw a positive response of people to the Good News.
We have known that people in the western part of Ukraine are very religious and are influenced by Catholic or Orthodox teachings. However, we were still very surprised that despite knowing some Bible stories and having religious experience, they still do not know God personally. Their hearts are very similar to the heart of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Each time we tried not only to lay out the plot presented in the picture, but also to explain the importance of a personal relationship with Christ, to call on people to be reconciled with God. One woman agreed to pray the prayer of repentance after we explained to her the essence of Christ’s coming for reconciliation with God.
It was also a great blessing to encourage and inspire believers from local churches to share the Gospel with the lost. The brothers and sisters shared the Gospel with unbelievers with great joy. The pastors and ministers were especially inspired by the Gospel message that sounded from their lips on the streets of the cities.
Nikolay Nikitin
