Capitol Ministries

40 CM 2017 | International Oleg Rachkovski Eurasia Director Belarus HE BIBLE STUDY TO THE UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT THAT WAS LAUNCHED EARLIER THIS YEAR is the first in eastern Europe, and prayers are that it will be an exemplar for others in neighboring nations. Oleg Rachkovski, CM's Eurasia Di- rector, led the effort to create the new ministry along with Pavel Unguryan, an Ukraine Parliamentarian; Valeriy Ant- onyuk, President of the Evangelical Bap- tist Union of Ukraine; and Ralph and Danielle Drollinger who made two trips to former Soviet Bloc countries this year. With its strong Evangelical founda- tion and high numbers of Christians in Parliament, Ukraine was a perfect loca- tion for the first ministry in this part of the globe. "Out of all the former Russian coun- tries, Ukraine is the most evangelical," Oleg said." Ukraine has more church- es per capita than any of the other sur- rounding countries, and their evangelical involvement in politics is vast, especially aer their revolution a couple of years ago when a lot of Evangelical pastors and Christians were involved in praying for the nation and for democracy. "Several people connected to the Baptist Union ran for office and are in the Parliament today. Pavel is one of them." As is the case with many other na- tions, national leaders in Ukraine were poised and ready for a Bible study. Many of Ukraine's Christian Parliamentarians had already been meeting regularly to pray and read Scripture, and that estab- lished meeting has become the Capitol Ministries® Bible study which is led by Pastor Nickolay Skopych. Dozens of Capitol Ministries® Bible studies are already available in Russian, which is widely spoken in eastern Eu- rope. One of the first tasks Oleg under- took aer being named Eurasia Director three years ago was to arrange for Capi- tol Ministries®' Bible studies to be trans- lated into Russian. e Ukrainian leaders also wish to work with Oleg to establish CivicReach® ministries to local elected officials throughout the nation. Oleg, Pavel, and other Christian Parliamentarians are now working with Christian lawmakers to establish minis- tries to national leaders in the nations of Latvia, Moldova, and Armenia. "With God's leading, we pray that this ministry in Ukraine will be the first of many that will be established in neighboring nations across eastern Eu- rope," Oleg said. "e leaders of every country need to know the Word of God. But because of the past Communist and atheist experi- ence under the Soviet Union, countries in eastern Europe need them to a great- er extent. I sense that the Lord is doing something wonderful in our part of the world." T St. Sophia Cathedral in Kiev, Ukraine eurasia

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