Faith over fear: The ongoing story of Hope Lebedyn

The beginnings of an influential ministry

Back in 1999, Peter Martin, Executive Chair of Hope Lebedyn, had the privilege of being invited to a conference on the outskirts of Moscow, where 650 pastors from the underground church gathered. He recalls that it was an incredibly eye-opening experience. “It was a life-changing moment for me,” Peter remembers. “I couldn't help everybody, but I knew I could make a difference with just one person.” So, he asked to be introduced to those who had the greatest need and was introduced to Pastor Sergey Ovcharenko, based in Lebedyn. When Sergey showed Peter pictures of children walking around barefoot, he knew he had to do something.

Lebedyn was a town that had previously built munitions for the Soviet Army but when the Iron Curtain fell so did all the work and industry. There was 80% unemployment in the town and Sumy, the county within which Lebedyn sits, was recognized to be the poorest region in Ukraine. Peter realised that there was a definite need and began sourcing support. He quickly found a charity partner and they got eighty tons of aid delivered within six weeks. From there, it just grew. 

They founded a church, bought a meeting centre in the town with the help of another charity in the UK, and they appointed a pastor. As the church slowly became influential in the town many of the people who became Christians through their work wanted to give back and assisted in the ongoing ministry. These were the humble beginnings of what is now known as Hope Lebedyn - and then came rumours of a war with Russia.

A faithful response to the threat of war

Once the rumours turned into a reality and the Russian invasion began, the team realised that the whole of the Ukraine was going to be attacked. They prayed about what to do and decided unanimously that they were going to stay and continue the gospel work they had been doing all those years previously. 

Lebedyn is only 100km from the border and soon the towns and villages around them were being invaded. Apart from a few broken windows and a bit of damage to the roof, God has continued to place his protection around the centre. Despite the surrounding devastation, they have been able to continue their vital work and Peter sums up what they have been doing in three simple words – staying, supporting and serving. 

Staying – the team decided to stay and help when many chose to leave; supporting – the team wanted to do something to help and not just hide away, and serving – because the heart of the team has always been to serve the people within their community. 

There are many powerful stories of God’s grace that have been told during the last twelve months, but the biggest testament is to the resilience and growth of Hope Lebedyn itself. As Peter notes, “At the beginning of the war the church was 200 strong, and when everybody left it went to around 50. But as more people became Christians through the work of the church, it has now grown to around 350 people”.  

One young man, Edward, had initially fled but became a Christian as he reflected on what he had seen of the church while he was living in Lebedyn. He gave his life to Jesus and immediately wanted to return to the church to be baptised and help serve the people that were still there. This practical demonstration of Christ working through him has had a massive impact on his whole family. Recently his dad also became a Christian and has been baptised at the church.

One thing runs through the whole story of Hope Lebedyn - all the work the church has been doing wouldn’t have been possible without the help of generous people supporting them financially. “The Stewardship Rapid Response Fund was just amazing. We were real beneficiaries of that. It really set the ball rolling for us, and it meant we could do so much more than we'd ever hoped we could do”.

Faith, vision and purpose

There are three things that stick out to Peter as he reflects on all that has happened over the past year and as he looks to the future– faith, vision and purpose:

“I think people's faith out there has grown, there's no doubt about that. Seeing the team and how they work together. I think even for me, it's been impactful to witness what has happened. When you see answered prayer, like we've seen answered prayer, then it's life changing, and it reminds you of why you became a Christian.

People are growing in their vision as they see that they can do more. I think the whole team has grown their vision. They don't just see themselves as helping the people in Lebedyn, but now the whole region of Sumy. They’ve been helping people in lots of places, anywhere that has need, especially places where churches have been demolished”.

People have been looking for a hope and they've been looking for a purpose, and the Gospel has become greater. I've never seen such a need for Bibles as there is now. As soon as Bibles are printed, they're given away and we don't give them away willy-nilly. I don't think there's ever been such a need. We've gone through well over 2000 Bibles with people just asking. There's a hunger for the Word and we're seeing that particularly in the teenagers in our region. We're currently getting over fifty teenagers a week at Home Group, studying the Bible.

How can people help?

Despite everything Peter thinks that the need for support is going to be even greater going forward than it was at the start. Many people support something initially, which is fantastic, but then they move on to the next crisis. Hope Lebedyn is so grateful for the funds that they have received up to this point and they stress that the support they value is not just financial, they believe another asset they've had in this whole year is prayer. 

“We need prayer, but we still need to have funds coming in to be able to do the work. One of the things that we’re doing, and we've had 50% of the funds come through already, is to rebuild our Bible College. Part of our vision is to transform this hunger for the word of God into young people going to Bible college. We can do this through a link to the seminary at Kyiv and then we can then put them into the churches that have been destroyed throughout our region. We are going to plant churches in all the surrounding villages because we're going to start changing the nation. We're starting to see the gospel really move. And that's exciting.

But all that begins with donations. Peoples’ donations can be turned into life-changing moments and without Stewardship we’d never have been able to do any of what we’ve been doing. Giving with Stewardship connects the giver to the charity with trust”.