On June 14, 2021, our brother and co-worker in God’s field, Sergey Mykolayovych Omelyanchuk, has gone to be with the Lord.

Revelation 14:13 reads, “And I heard a voice from heaven, saying, Blessed are they that die in the faith of the Lord. “Yes,” says the Spirit,” now they will rest from their labors, and their deeds will go after them.”

In short, we would say about him that He loved the Lord, the Church, and the work of evangelism…

He was one of the first ministers who moved from his homeland to the Far East in order to take the Gospel to the unbelievers there. For the sake of the ministry, he had to overcome a lot of challenges and difficulties in the midst of Perestroika period.

The Christians of Prymorskiy region, remember Sergiy as a loving pastor, always open to anyone who would turn to him for help – he always tried his best to serve others with all his understanding and strength. He always served people, communicated with them in the church and at home. Sometimes, he would fall asleep squatting down near the landline phone…

The work he started in the Far East is continued by other ministers up to this very day. But Sergiy is with his Lord, whose name he brought to the peoples of Primorye and Yakutia…

 

The Path of life

Sergey Omelyanchuk was born on January 2, 1960, in the village of Shchedrogor, Ratnivskyi district, Volyn region, into a family of believers, and was the fifth out of six boys. Even at this complicated time, the Christian fellowship would often take place in their home.

Sergiy repented at the age of 17, in 1977. One of the ministers secretly baptized him in the river at night, in a nearby village. At this point, Sergey knew that he would soon be drafted into the army and he clearly understood that he needed to have an inner strength so as not to lose heart. He had gone through many challenges in the army – God was testing his faith. There were persecutions for Christ, beatings, and numerous days in solitary confinement. Although Sergey’s health has been failing, his faith remained unflinching.

On September 9, 1984, he married his beloved girl, Tatiana. In October 1985, they moved to Brest, where Sergey served as a preacher in the church at Vulka. God blessed them with a son, Pavel, and two daughters, Alla and Julia.

In May 1991, Sergiy has been called by God to the ministry of evangelism.

Dedication to Ministry

Here is what Sergey writes about his dedication to ministry, “I was born into a Christian family and I had the privilege to read a lot of books about missionaries. So, I was very jealous of some of them in a good sense. Especially, I envied of those who had an opportunity to preach in a new place where no one has ever preached before. I also have become interested in mission work because my wife’s sister was a missionary in Yakutia. Through the letters, we prayed, sympathized, and rejoiced with her in all that was happening in the mission field. When my wife and I have noticed the shortage of laborers in the mission fields, we sincerely prayed daily to the Lord, “Please send out the workers for your harvest!” I once asked my wife’s opinion about whom God sends to do this kind of work. The answer was, of course, that He sends those who are prepared to work in His field. Then I asked her if she had ever thought that the Lord wanted to use us in this ministry, and she replied, “At this point, I don’t think so. We have small children. There are three of them. The older 4.5 years and the younger 3 years only. In addition, we’re expecting a four-bedroom apartment. God also cares for the well-being of His children!” However, the joint prayers of believers for the missionaries made us more and more dissatisfied with our situation. Deep down in our hearts, we were already struggling to make up our minds towards going to work in a mission field, but another voice kept whispering into our ears that other believers were busy with improving their lives and still remained Christians. This struggle lasted for six months, until we learned that there would be a second missionary conference in Kyiv. We were very eager to go there. And I decided for myself that this conference would be a decisive one as I had some doubts in my mind. If I am needed to God for mission work, He will do everything to pave the way for me to be at this conference. Although I received the answer from the mission agency that there were no more available spots, God solved this issue in different way. Our church received two invitations from the mission to the conference, and at the last moment I was offered in the church to go to the conference. So, I accepted it as a positive response from God. Once I shared about my heart for the mission in the church, I was denied right off the bat. They said that there is a lot of work in Belarus. What’s the point of going somewhere else?

At the conference, Jarl Pasti spoke about the beginning of his mission service, and I saw how similar it was to my story. Both they and we were praying for the same thing that God would send workers to His field. God sent him, and I realized that He is planning to send us, too. And we began to pray that the Lord would reveal where He wanted to use us. We agreed to go anywhere. In 1991, on Easter, God gave me a dream about the missionary, Misha Trubchik, who addressed the audience at the youth service with the question, “In Vladivostok, there is a great need for evangelism, how many of you are ready to work in this place?” Then, he looked at me and said, “Brother, I see in your eyes a willingness to work in this area… Through this, I was empowered by God to venture to go to work. The next day, at work, I wrote a resignation note.

 

At the Edge of the Earth

At first, Sergei Nikolaevich found himself among the Evenks. Just at that time in Yakutia, a woman, who worked in the field of culture, repented. For the Evenks, they have to bring a cultural program once every three months, and this woman offered to bring them the movie called Jesus and the Bibles. And the local minister decided to use this opportunity, but there was no one who could go there. So, they decided to send Sergei there for three months before going to Vladivostok. He agreed. And upon arrival in Neryungri, he was sent by helicopter 600 km deep into the taiga with food, literature and a film. He visited 6 different groups of Evenks who nomadize with reindeer. When a helicopter arrived, it would take him to a new location. The first group had great trials. Attacks from the shaman, so that Sergei would sacrifice to their gods, but God gave him strength to resist. Sergei had so much pressure that he thought sometimes he may never come back again from there. He himself preached and showed the film Jesus to the Evenki. That’s how his “missionary baptism” took place.

Then he lived in Vladivostok for a year and a half but his family remained in Brest as there was no money to rent an apartment in Vladivostok. Only on December 5, the following year, they were able to move to him.

From 1989 to 1992, Sergei studied at the Minsk Bible Institute, travelling every time to the Minsk for the session from Vladivostok.

In May of 1991, Sergei has become a member of our mission.

In 1994, Sergei Omelyanchuk was ordained to pastoral ministry in Vladivostok to serve in the church New Life that he had planted with God’s help. Even 20 years later, Sergei’s family still keep up a very warm relationship with people from this church and they still remember him as a beloved pastor.

Sergei Nikolaevich was the deputy head of the Primorsky Association of Missionary Churches of Evangelical Christians (PAMCEC).

From 1995 to 2000, he studied at the Kiev Seminary and received a Master’s degree in Theology.

During this time, the New Life church was registered and the first missionary conference was held in Vladivostok. The young church supports and prays for missionary work throughout the Primorsky Territory.

In Vladivostok, meetings of pastors and missionaries are held monthly. The church continues to grow – children’s Christmas evangelism is carried out, and an exhibition of reproductions of paintings by world famous artists on the theme “The Life of Jesus Christ” is presented at the local museum.

In 2001, a large interchurch men’s conference was held, which brought together 200 people. The prayer need for the Omelyanchuk’s family remains the same that is to obtain a residence permit. Every time they apply for a residence permit, they are denied and are needed to renew their registration every 3 months, so this was the case for two years. For six months, the family lives without registration, waiting until the end of an academic year. In addition, they need to go to Brest to get new passports, but they have no money for the trip. On top all of that, they are very anxious about his parents, since Sergei has received the news that his elderly father and mother are very sick.

In the summer, the church holds the first youth camps. Sergei is worried about how to launch the training of church members under the program “Spiritual Formation,” and at the same time, he continues to look for a church building. At this point, he gets very excited that brothers from the mission in Rivne were able to visit with them. Gradually, foreign missionaries also begin to visit Russia.

Sergei thanks God that he has great support from his wife and children in his ministry. The eldest son and daughter are already helping in Sunday school. His wife worries and prays with him for all the needs in the ministry, takes an active part in the life of the church and the Association. In the summer, the church holds the first youth camps.

Yet, in the summer of 2002, the family ends up in Belarus. Sergei writes, “In a miraculous way, God paved the way to my parents. God gave us the opportunity to see the father during our lifetime. He had a desire and prayed to God for the opportunity to see me and then die when I would be at home. So, God, by His mercy, fulfilled his desires. My whole family was able to attend the funeral. And mom was taken to her youngest son to live at his place.”

In August 2002, Sergei returns to Vladivostok, where there is a lot of work needs to be done by him. Cooperation with Korean brothers and sisters is developing successfully. Sergei is involved in showing the film “Jesus” to unbelievers and conducting groups for those who have expressed a desire to study the Bible. The family is faced with the issue of teaching children. Due to the fact that they are foreign citizens, it is necessary to pay a lot for their education. Sergei attends churches and Bible groups throughout Primorsky Krai. The church education program works pretty well there.  New ministers join the team who then move to the Far East. New churches are being organized.

 

New beginning in Belorussia

In March 2003, the Omelyanchuk’s family returned to Brest, where Sergei immediately became involved in the ministry of the local church Grace: he leads groups, worship services, and preaches in the church.

In 2005, he deals with the registration of local churches, prays that God will make it possible for churches to fulfill the Great Commission.

From the very beginning of the ministry in the church, a clear priority was placed on evangelism and God blesses the church by adding new believers. By grace of God, a Sunday school starts functioning in the church, there is a youth and teenage and music ministry, small groups, a library, conferences are held annually on the topic of evangelism and the fulfillment of the Great Commission. Every year God added those who were being saved to the church. Baptism took place every year, and sometimes twice a year.

In 2016, despite the fact that Sergei was an associate pastor and actively participated in the life of the church, he and his wife decided to devote themselves to further missionary work. He told his son, “I’m bored just preaching. I want to preach the gospel to unbelievers. The spirit of missionary life is languishing in me, I want to do something.” So Sergei begins planting a new church in one of the villages of the Brest region. The family visits the village almost every Sunday to preach to unbelievers, and as a result, people repent. Now Sergei passed this baton to his son Pavel …

In early March 2021, Sergei went to the hospital with the threat of a blood clot, where he was unexpectedly diagnosed with an oncological disease. A week later, he was at home and invited pastors to pray over him for healing with the anointing of oil. After a prayer, an hour later, God healed him, it was an obvious miracle, he became again cheerful and he felt no pain at all, but an ulcer remained in the stomach, and it was hemorrhaging. He had low hemoglobin and was bleeding profusely, and he passed away while sleeping. Basically, he died of blood loss…

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Here are some valuable testimonies and eulogies that sounded at the Sergei’s memorial service.

Tatiana Grigorievna Omelyanchuk:

“God gave me a great privilege to be married to this man. He was a blessing not only for our family, but he knew how to find an approach to all people: to tell someone something important in time. He loved God very much, his favorite song was “You are my God, I have no other” and he tried to do something every moment of his life. He ran, and I ran after him, because he couldn’t just sit back. I thank the Lord for such a rich and blessed life with Sergei!

I want to testify about his healing. God healed him when all the organs were already affected and the doctors said that he would have severe pains and he would die of hunger. In these last days, God completely took away the pains, and he felt only weakness, as he was losing blood and had a low hemoglobin. In fact, he died of the blood loss that was transfused into him, but it did not last. He experienced very light death without any severe pain, he just fell asleep. And this is the grace of God and the power of prayer of many churches.

Yes, God gave him to live such life, but in the last days God healed him of his pains and he testified to many people about it. And his faith also greatly supported me and encouraged me to trust in the Lord. I look at his smile in the photo and I know that he is doing great there now and that what strengthens my hope of meeting him in Heaven.”

Pavel Sergeevich Omelyanchuk

“One of his last words was that no one would doubt that God had touched Him and healed Him. One of the most vivid memories of my father is his love for God. My father taught me to love God, even as a child he taught me to pray…”

Yuriy Vladimirovich Pilipovich:

“I would like to mention one important trait of Sergei’s character – his loyalty to the Lord, to the Church, to people, in service. He has always been a man who is ready to lend a shoulder, help out, go and work together. And not only was he ready, but he did it – he took the load, went and served.” Those who knew him testify about him as a person whose heart has never been cramped and whose small apartment has never been crowded for many people.  Sergei seemed to warm and embrace all people with his warmth and love of Jesus Christ, revealed through him.

May Sergei remains in our memory until the day we see each other again!