During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia standing and begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” After Paul had seen the vision, we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach the gospel to them. Acts 16:9-10
“The initiative to talk about generosity, sacrifice, and a biblical view on stewardship is very timely and is now discussed at seminars, presentations, and printed resources. We are grateful to our partners for making this resource available for our evangelical churches, pastors, and leaders. We hope that as we promote this course and its ideas it will help Christians to look at generosity in a new way and help for spreading the gospel and for the churches to grow different ministries. Our hope is that as we distribute these books it will be helpful to many churches in taking care of financial needs of the church and missions and grow in other ways of giving. Some leaders use this material in their small groups, in seminars at Christian conferences and meetings with Christian businessmen.”
Pavel Tokarchuk is a pastor in Moscow, Russia, who also serves with Mission Eurasia.
This testimony was collected by Mission Eurasia after Pavel went through the Seven-Day Generosity Challenge by Jon Wiebe, my friend and fellow stewardship author and administrator at MB Foundation.
In today’s Scripture, Paul and Silas had just enlisted Timothy to partner with them. They followed the Spirit’s leading to a new region, Macedonia. Lydia received them with generous hospitality, and they ministered to her and built her up in the Christian faith.
The Macedonians wanted help. The three served them fearlessly. When we partner and share resources, we must avoid giving handouts that create dependencies, but rather give a hand up to build disciples. That’s the fearless aim of GTP and our partner, Mission Eurasia!
So far, I have experienced receptive hearts and rich Ukrainian hospitality from saints like Lydia. If I were likened to the Apostle Paul, Dr. Mykhailo (Michael) Cherenkov would be Silas, and his colleague, Mr. Denys Gorenkov, serving with us like Timothy (and helping drive us around, too).
But this morning we changed our schedule. It reminds me of the pivot Paul, Silas, and Timothy had to make from Asia to Macedonia. Based on talks that started at the National Day of Prayer breakfast yesterday and continued last night, I have been invited to speak to a Baptist Union group.
Baptist Union serves 800 churches across Ukraine. I pray for ears to hear and wisdom to discern the needs of this context. Then later tonight, I will speak on “Nurturing Generosity and Sustainability” again (same topic as yesterday) but at another school, Kyiv Theological Seminary.
Sometimes pivots happen due to schedule changes. Other times it is linked to opposition, which is real in Eurasia. Pray for neighboring country, Belarus, and read this article in which Dr. Cherenkov was quoted only 2 days ago. Our brothers and sisters in Belarus are suffering and waiting on God for help. Lord have mercy.
As I said yesterday, reply if you want to receive a copy of my teaching handout in Russian and English. And as others have asked how they can help, click here to make a charitable gift to GTP to assist with this effort to train and resource national workers in Ukraine and Moldova or become a monthly giver. I am praying for people to stand with us at GTP as monthly givers.