A Loud Voice from the Donbas

Pastor and church-planter Igor from Myrnohrad shares insight about life in one of the most difficult and darkest areas in Ukraine: the Donetsk region. Igor’s journey of faith began at the age of 15, when a friend invited him to church. There, he read a brochure and understood that he was a sinner in need of a Saviour. Yet, it took him some years to come to the truth and knowledge of who God was. In fact, having been brought up in a very traditional church, he became ‘the strictest legalist in church’, and taught others of the ‘dangers’ of the color red, dyed hair, and high heels. Yet, on long morning walks with his dog and thanks to his love for reading good Christian books, God opened his eyes to repent of his legalism and put his trust into the grace of Christ.

Soon, he felt God’s call to spread the Gospel message to unbelievers and step out into the mission field in his home country, Ukraine. After finishing at the university, he and a team planted two churches there. In some time, he got married to Vera, and, as a family, they moved to the Odesa region as missionaries. The Lord blessed their ministry, and they planted a church there, in which they served for seven years. Yet, throughout the time of being in a different region of Ukraine, Igor’s heart hurt for his home: and he prayed for God to send missionaries to his Donbas region. In some time, the answer was surprisingly clear: God showed him that he was to be that missionary…

And thus, his life and ministry re-focused to the Donbas region. “I love the Donbas people – and I am a local myself. Yet we have always had conflicting thoughts within our region…” pastor Igor says. The local towns are all coal-mining cities where generation after generation, miners labor in the dark pits underground, many of them from the young age of 18. Many people are quite harsh in character and spend their days arguing a lot. They’ve had to deal with a lot of lies and corruption in their lifetimes, and thus, they became angry with “everyone and everything” that surrounds them.

In truth, once the year 2014 came around, all this made it easy for Russia to fool many of the people living in the region. During that year and the following years, many things changed. Russia annexed Crimea and started a war in the Donbas, taking away entire cities and spreading evil propaganda all across the region. Soon, slogans like, “Ukraine doesn’t love us although we are the most important part of their economy. We feed the entire country. We’re unhappy here…” filled the atmosphere of the already dark and difficult coal-mining region.

Understanding what was happening and in shock of it all, pastor Igor took a stance, and became a“loud voice from the Donbas” to the rest of the country and others around the world.

As someone from the inside looking at the truth of what was occurring, he was able to share valuable insight during the period that was changing the entire country. He spoke of what the hands of the Russian and Russian-backed Separatists did in their cities to his friends and others he knew. Confusion, chaos, and death spread across the region as some of the lowest-class locals were hired by the Russians to spread propaganda, persuade citizens to vote for a sovereign state, and kidnap and kill patriotic citizens and Protestant brothers – because they loved their home country Ukraine and believed differently than the Russian Orthodox Church.

Yet throughout this time of chaos, God was working. He gave Igor and his team wonderful opportunities to open four more churches in different cities across the region. The gospel of the grace of God was being shared as people came together, first in apartments and homes, and then in larger buildings. The churches were a place where locals and internally displaced people from Donetsk and other cities could come for humanitarian aid and good fellowship., Hundreds after hundreds of elderly, teens, families, and children were reached with aid through the good works of the church. Many heard the Good News of the gospel, got baptized, and became followers of Christ.