From House to House
In an obscure village sandwiched between Ukraine and Moldova there is an obscure gypsy couple that has opened their home and their hearts to neighbors and relatives. They have thus become heroes in the roll call of God. Uri and Oksana live in a 2-room house with their 2 (soon to be 3) children, but their house is more than sufficient to be used of God.
The family lives in one room and the other has been transformed into a church. On a given Sunday there may be nineteen or more family members and neighbors who come to this little haven to hear words of hope. Most are like Uri, making maybe $2 a day for menial labor. Though poor in the things of this world, they are rich with the greatest treasure they could possibly posses–Jesus Christ.
The home church is the backbone of a church-planting movement. Scripture supports this in Acts 2 when it speaks of believers going from house to house to break bread and fellowship together, and again in Romans 16 when Paul sends greetings to the church that met at the home of Pricilla and Aquila. It should come as no surprise as missionaries labor in the cities and villages that have no Christian witness or evangelical church that the believers would naturally gather together in their homes to fellowship and worship together.
As more and more small house-churches begin, so does the Church Planting Movement that spontaneously reproduces churches wherever believers are willing to open their homes to share the truth of the Gospel. This phenomenon is occurring all over Central and Eastern Europe just as it is in this small Ukrainian village of Vellekey Mekailovka.
Nine of Uri’s brothers attend. All but one has confessed Christ–being freed from a background of alcoholism passed on to them from their parents. There are also a young teenage girl who loves to sing, a woman in her 50′s and an elderly gentlman in the goup. The crowd is mixed and never very large but the spirit is sweet. Even when the pastor is delayed by an hour or more, the worship spontaneously begins with testimony and praise of how God has worked in the midst of these peasant children of God. They are not going to waste their precious time together. Some travel miles in horse-drawn carts through freezing temperatures to share in the fellowship of other believers. Just as in Acts, after the worship there is a meal prepared by Oksana for all who will stay. The sweet fellowship continues until late in the day.
This little church is pastored by a young Ukrainian man who has been sponsored by the Mississippi Baptists. The Mississippi Baptists have partnered with Southern Ukraine for the past three years to send volunteers and work together with missionaries in winning this country to Christ. They support nine church planters who have planted nine churches and are seeking to establish more churches in the areas surrounding those initial plants. God is using this partnership and these young home missionaries to make His name known.
Vellekey Mekailovka is just one small village. There are thousands more like it with no evangelical witness at all–no house church–YET! In Ukraine, 2300 people die every day with only eleven of those knowing Christ. Only the Lord can change that statistic and he has begun in a small village with a poor family and willing hearts to do just that!
View the photo essay of “From House to House.”
Posted Feb 4, 2002
