Creation and Clothing for the Ukraine!

Jay Horn, former AiG Director of Seminars and Outreach, now serving as a missionary with MASTER Provisions, gave AiG the following report of his “creation evangelism” activities during a recent short-term mission trip to Ukraine:

MP helps churches in Ukraine reach the lost by operating second-hand stores where locals can purchase clothing at very low prices and hear the Gospel.

These second-hand shops each have a Christian bookstore to supply materials to help new converts grow spiritually. Through this means, the local church has been helped to win thousands to Christ and empower those converts with faith-building materials and Bibles in their own language (including Creation Evangelism for the New Millennium and The Answers Book from AiG).

During the last two weeks of March, our team visited five cities (Brovary, Kakhovka, Kherson, Simferopol and Belogorsk) to observe the distribution of clothing and to evangelize when possible.

I was privileged to speak on creation many times as we travelled across Ukraine. We addressed three public-school classes (over 100 students) in Kakhovka, where I talked about “God’s Design,” emphasizing the Creation account (using graphics from A is for Adam) and challenging the students to look for evidence of God’s design all around them.

The elementary students eagerly received copies (donated by AiG) of the booklet Dinosaurs and the Bible, along with “witness bracelets” and an explanation of the Gospel. We gave high-school students copies of Where Did the Races Come From? after a lively question-and-answer time. We were able to leave copies of all the booklets with the teachers to distribute to other students and their fellow teachers.

In Simferopol, a large city on the Crimean Peninsula, I spoke to over 50 people at Simferopol Christian Church on the topic of “Seeing Design in God’s Creation.” Sergei Golovin, noted European creation apologist [Ed. note: see this interview with Sergei], translated. Again, many questions were focused on the “fact” that science had disproven the Bible, and others said it was “unreasonable” to accept the Biblical account of history at face value.

Sergei is an adjunct-professor at Crimean-American College (CAC), where I was invited to speak to three classes about Biblical authority. Sergei and CAC Bible department chairman Georges Carillet host an annual conference on creation and apologetics that is attracting many scholarly papers and becoming well-known in Europe. The creation movement is gaining strength worldwide, contrary to evolutionists” claims that creationism is a “uniquely American phenomenon.”

In Kherson (an hour east of Odessa) we joined an “English club” meeting, an outreach to the local people hosted by Kherson Christian Church. After I discussed “Beauty in Creation” and presented The Answers Book to each guest, a young lady named Nadia asked me, “While we do see much beauty in creation, there is also much ugliness-how do you explain that?”

Children in the Ukraine enjoy Dinosaurs and the Bible in their own language.

I was able to guide her, using the Bible and the insights I gained through study of AiG materials, to see that there was no death before sin, that our present world is not the one God made and that this world is suffering from thousands of years under the Curse. Her eyes brightened as she saw there are answers; satisfying, reasonable answers that start with Scripture [Ed. note: See Q&A: Genesis-Curse for more information]. I learned from one of the club leaders that Nadia is not a Christian but has been attending the club and “asking questions” for the last six months. Please pray for her!

At the Church of the Transfiguration in Kherson, I shared a sermon encouraging Ukrainian Christians to accept Biblical authority in all areas of their lives. A young man named Vlade, a biologist (and Christian), told me how he had given his atheistic wife some of the creationist materials he received at the second-hand shop and how the clear information had opened the way for her to accept the Gospel. As the Ukrainians say, “Slava Bogu!” (“Praise God!”)

Please continue to support the outreach ministry of AiG to insure that more of these life-changing materials are produced and translated into many languages by ear-marking any donation for our “foreign translations” fund. Because of your generous support, AiG is able to help many missionaries share the Good News and the message of Biblical authority around the world.