The Grace Church of Zolotonosha town welcomed us with the words “Christ is Risen!” and “Peace be unto you!”

Early in the morning, on April, 11, the group of KCU’s representatives leaved Kyiv for a small town, called Zolotonosha, Cherkasy Region, in order to take part in the service of the Grace Church and to tell its youth about the possibility of receiving Christian education at our university. Our group consisted of 6 people; they were academic administrator Shatalov Yevgen Oleksandrovych, manager of public relation department Zalishchuk Oleksandr Pavlovych, librarian Rafalska Galyna Anatoliyivna, who was responsible for the music, manager of maintenance and driver Tokar Igor Stepanovych, and the full-time students Muzychenko Vasyl and Gutsul Lesya. Interestingly to note, that the member of this church Fedoryuk Yurij studied at KCU. Now he is involved in a missionary ministry in Tajikistan. Moreover, Chakalo Vitalij studies at the Youth Leadership program. It was him, who invited us to visit his church.

The Lord blessed our journey. On our way, we had opportunity to have fellowship, to listen to Christian music and even to take pictures. We arrived 30 minutes before the beginning of the service. So we had some time to rehearse our program and to coordinate it with the church’s leadership.

As it turned out, the Grace Church celebrated its 96th anniversary in this very day. It surprised us a lot. In his festive speech, the pastor expressed his gratitude to God for the existence of the church in Zolotonosha and of the temple for worship and services. He said that they ought not to take pride of this, since it was the Lord’s hand, which has done this. This is the reason why all glory should be His. Besides that, the ordination of a brother to a deacon’s ministry took place at the service. After that, the head of the Zolotonosha’s Christian center reported on his work. He performs educational and missionary activity among children and youth.

During 30 minutes, we presented four songs (two of them were in Latin), a poem, and information about the KCU. After that Yevgen Oleksandrovych shared the Word of God. The group from Kyiv, headed by Kunets Volodymyr Yakovych, was present at the service as well. They also participated in the worship. Afterwards we were invited to have festive lunch. There we had less formal fellowship with the local brothers and sisters. All of them were happy with our visit and invited us to visit them once more.

Our way home was blessed as well. Even though we were tired, we were happy, that had opportunity to glorify our Lord, to present Kyiv Christian University, and to have fellowship with His children.

author V. Muzychenko
translated by V.M. Zakhozhay