Late May in Slovyansk, Donetsk region, a unique for Ukraine one-year missionary school was launched, which focuses on the work and service in front-line cities. The basic idea of missionary schools is best described in the slogan “We go where the pain is to proclaim the truth of God and restore the destroyed.”
Students attend classes in Slovyansk during a month and then have a three-month practice in front-line cities. There they communicate with the locals, practice physical labor, hand out bread, food parcels, clothing, medicines, and talk about Jesus Christ, pray together, sing together and praise God.
The main originators of the school - local Slovyansk Church “Good News”", NGO “Association Emmanuel,” German mission “Nehemiah.” They are calling for cooperation of all Christians who care about the fate of the residents of front-line cities. According to organizers, the work of missionary groups is effective and relevant. The next enrollment in a missionary school for front-line cities will begin at the beginning of August.
“We are once again returning from Avdeevka where we handed out bread and packages of products to people. I had mixed feelings. There most people are constantly under fire. It was dull and rainy, and those whom we met, almost all of them were drunk. I had mixed opinions: you are to help these people ... you help them, and they are drunk. I did not know how to deal with these feelings. Nevertheless, in that moment, God said to me there on the road: I love them like this as well ... “- says Petro Dudnik, pastor of the Church of “Good News,” one of the founders of missionary schools for front-line cities.
Despite the fact that a missionary school was initiated at the Church of “Good News”, the organizers do not want it to be a school of a particular church. “This school does not belong to a particular denomination or church, it is a school that can unite the church ministers who share a vision of missionary work and service in front-line cities,” Peter Dudnik said.
Now there are 22 missionary students. They come from Berdichev and Odessa, Simferopol and Olexandria, Dnepropetrovsk and Donetsk region, Slovyansk area. The youngest is just 18, the oldest is in his 60-ies. Some of the students already had experience of volunteering in front-line cities, and some of them got it only at school.
After training, the students dispersed to five front-line cities - Mironovsky, Svitlodarsk, Popasna, Zolote, Avdiyivka. The sixth city is Krasnohorivka, where the organizers of the missionary school and its partners are working closely with the local community “Church of Christ the Savior.” In the future they plan to cover fourteen more settlements.
"Our vision is as follows: if there is a church in the city that is focused on Gospel, focused on assistance to those in need, we agree to work for the sake of church expansion as a missionary team We had a very good experience in Krasnohorivka. The pastor focused on the service to citizens, and we had nothing to begin on our own, just had to help him develop all that. We have not sent a missionary team there, we just cooperate,” Pastor Petro Dudnik explains.
The missionaries also work a lot with children and disabled. Recently in Myronivsky, Zolote and Krasnohorivka the charity project "School of Life" held 10-day camps for children.