A Tale of Two Villages
Posted on September 25, 2019
My name is Bailey Bada, and I love my work with Global Action. One of my many responsibilities is working with our partner churches, and this week I was in Ukraine with Bethel Church from Crown Point, Indiana. We spent the week with Pastor Maxim Dzhum, who is transforming communities in Ukraine with the gospel. Maxim graduated from our GLOMOS Foundations program in 2013, and he is on fire for the Lord. He pastors a church and leads children’s camps, and he has a God-sized vision: to lead the Roma people of his region to Christ, and to raise up leaders within their communities.
The Roma (gypsy) people are regarded as non-citizens, and they are often excluded from basic services like education and healthcare. They are despised and avoided by most people in Ukraine. But not by Maxim. He has been laboring in multiple Roma communities for years, preaching the gospel and meeting their many physical needs. He is on a mission to be salt and light in these hard places.
The Bethel team and I partnered with Maxim to sow seeds for the Gospel in an impoverished Roma village called Berezivka. He began working in this community less than a year ago, and it is hard work: Berezivka is full of darkness and chaos, and the people are lost. But Maxim perseveres, because he knows that true community transformation takes years.
Maxim then brought the team to serve in another Roma village called Poplavka, where he has been working for several years now. The contrast was striking: the people were kind and respectful, they were organized and attentive. The Gospel is starting to take root, and there is hope in this village.
This is the difference a godly leader can make. When you give to train a leader, you are impacting entire communities just like Berezivka and Poplavka. Thank you!
For His Glory,
Bailey Bada, Development Coordinator
P.S. Check out the pictures below from the Bethel team’s time with Maxim! The team played with children, provided free eyeglasses, laid the foundation for a new room on the tiny church building, and distributed food and Bibles. They were an enormous blessing and encouragement to Pastor Maxim and his ministry. Thank you, Bethel!
