God Touches Hearts in Former Soviet Nations-May 1, 2009- Intercede International

God Touches Hearts in Former Soviet Nations

UKRAINE (INS)—Even while Communism ruled the former Soviet Union, Good Samaritan Mission was actively spreading the gospel across that atheist state. Since 1989, GSM has planted more than 1,000 churches in that region—despite opposition from various governments. Through crusade evangelism and TV and radio broadcasts, many thousands have put their trust in Christ. GSM is an indigenous ministry based in Ukraine that is partnered with Intercede International.

Slavik Radchuk and his five brothers started up GSM in 1989, in secret, while the Communist regime was in power in the Soviet Union. “Our vision was to preach the Gospel, teach disciples, and open new churches,” explains Radchuk. “God touched our hearts.”

In 1990, shortly after Mikhail Gorbachev introduced perestroika and glasnost, the Radchuks approached the government in Rivne, Ukraine, and asked for permission to operate as a non-profit organization. They were registered as GSM, which represented hundreds of formerly underground evangelical churches.

Soon, the door was wide open to conduct large-scale evangelistic crusades all across the former U.S.S.R. Thousands attended outdoor crusades, with hundreds coming to the Lord at every meeting. GSM teams have held more than 1,000 crusades since freedom came.

“Our vision is to teach students and missionaries and send them across the former Soviet Union,” declared Slavik Radchuk in an interview with myself at Intercede in December.

Crusades are an important part of GSM’s work, but these meet with some resistance and red tape from some authorities.

“In Russia, you cannot preach publicly outside a building,” explains Radchuk. “You have to use facilities and preach only inside. Before, we would sign an agreement, a contract, and use a facility from former Communists, or some culture house. Now they require us to have a church building.

“‘Okay,’ we told them, ‘we need a piece of land to build a church building.’ It’s not easy to get a piece of land in Russia.

“Belarus is the same. In Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, you can preach publicly, no problem. Ukraine is completely open. Moldova is also open. Ukraine is completely free to preach. In Kazakhstan it depends—in west, no freedom, in east more—nearby China. In Kyrgyzstan, you cannot preach publicly. Uzbekistan, Tajikstan and Turkmenistan are the same.

“Turkmenistan is worse, because the government destroyed Baptist and Pentecostal houses of prayer—they destroyed by trucks and tractors. But since the president died in Turkmenistan, a little bit of freedom came, but not completely. Armenia is afraid of Georgia—freedom, but now they have a conflict between nations.”

“But Ukraine is a mission field for people in the Soviet Union. We send 90 per cent of missionaries from Ukraine—from St. Petersburg to the Far East.”

Challenging New Mission Field

Central Asia is a new and exciting mission field for GSM, but a challenging place to work. In Uzbekistan, observes Radchuk, there is “no freedom to preach. We opened a Bible school secretly. We teach students and support them and help them to go preach the gospel in other areas, because we have a lot of cities and villages and not any kind of church.

“The law in Uzbekistan says you can have a registration number from the government if one church will have 100 members. You cannot come to government and say, ‘Hey, I have 100 people.’ The government will ask, ‘Show names.’ Some people are afraid to put down their names and addresses. They have to be very strong to go to the government and say, ‘Hey, I changed my religion. I am a Christian now. I want to be a member of this church.’ We have to have 100 members in Uzbekistan. In Kyrgyzstan, they changed the law recently. They require 200 members to a church so that they can give a registration number. In Kazakhstan, 50 members, but in Ukraine only 10.”

“We opened a Bible school in Tajikistan.” So now, Tajik people can go to Afghanistan as missionaries, “because we have 40 percent Tajik people in Afghanistan. We are teaching them and sending them to Afghanistan.

GSM also has a Bible school in Azerbaijan. Students there have the potential of reaching out to Iranians, because many Azerbaijanis speak Iran’s Farsi language.

Many Churches Established

Radchuk and GSM have planted more than 1,000 churches across the former Soviet Union since the late 1980s. Recently, GSM has started new congregations in Siberia and Ukraine.

“In Russia, we have 90,000 villages and cities without any kind of church,” explains Radchuk. “When we send missionaries, we open churches. Now my vision is in the next three years, teaching and raising up 2,000 missionaries, evangelists and pastors in Ukraine in two years through our video Bible school.”

GSM already has a Bible School in Rivne, Ukraine. But now GSM plans to expand its teaching through a new video Bible school. “We cannot teach at one time 2,000 people,” observes Radchuk. “In our Bible school, there are only 30 students maximum. We teach them for three months and send them across the nations. A video Bible school we would open separately in different places. I want to bring in leaders and key people—good teachers, professors and doctors who have good experience.” Such teachers can train students to be evangelists, pastors and missionaries, using video technology.

Broadcasts Break the Boundaries

“Radio and television cost money—a lot of money,” says Radchuk. But GSM’s radio and TV broadcasts reach millions for Christ, across vast areas.

“I started a radio program when freedom came. The Communist system built a special radio system. We have a special cable to every single house and government buildings, every office and prison. You can hear our radio program when you are on the bus or train and in every office and every home. It was especially for Communist propaganda. This program was under government control. I signed an agreement with government for this radio program from the 1990s.”

Now, because of the Communist’s radio system, GSM broadcasts can reach millions of households with a better message than Communism. As a result of these programs, GSM receives up to 10,000 letters per month from people asking for Bibles, New Testaments, or tapes of messages.

“When we receive letters from one village, we check this village—okay, we don’t have a church in this village,” says Radchuk. “But a lot of people are interested in Christ. We send Bibles and New Testaments. We open new churches in those villages.

“Radio costs per year $33,000. This is only airtime. We have workers, because when we receive thousands of letters, we have to open every letter and read it very carefully, and send an answer to people who send in some request—prayer requests or asking for Bibles. When we pay for New Testaments and Bibles and pay for shipping, it costs more than $33,000.”

Hundreds of stations broadcast GSM’s radio programs across Eastern Europe as far west as Germany. GSM’s TV programs are broadcast from Tel Aviv, Israel, across Europe, part of India, part of China, through the former Soviet Union, North Africa, the Middle East and beyond.

“One year I met a lot of people at a conference from different countries,” explains Radchuk. “One lady came from Kazakhstan. She said, ‘God saved my family through your ministry.’’ One lady from Belgium said, ‘I got saved through your ministry. Thank you for your preaching by television.’”

GSM’s broadcast are in Ukrainian, with translation into Russian, and English subtitles (for TV). Radchuk estimates that a potential audience of 18 million Ukrainians are scattered around the world.

GSM’s TV broadcasting costs are about $68,000 per year—for about 104 original programs and the same number of re-broadcasts. This is a fraction of what such programs would cost in North America.

GSM’s ministries reach out to millions with the gospel—but Radchuk notes, “After 35 years of my preaching, my ministry, I learned something: one soul is very important. Sometimes God sends a vision and angels to save one person.” Pray that God will continue to bless and provide for GSM’s missionaries, as they reach out to many lost souls.

For more information on Intercede’s work and partner agencies, please check out: www.intercedenow.ca.

Photo 1:.GSM Evangelist Slavik Radchuk preaches to a crowd. (Intercede International Photo)

Photo 2:.A Kazakh Worship team working with GSM in Kazakhstan. (Intercede International Photo)

368GSM

May 1, 2009