Eastern Europe
Andriy & Lyudmila Zolotaryov
Andriy and Lyudmila Zolotaryov are our longest-standing missionaries. Through a local team in partnership with local churches and Christian charities, they provide a range of material, physical, emotional, and relational support to seniors and their families. This support also extends to the church leaders and their teams in Zaporizhia city and region.
Together they lead the “Golden Years” Project. Andriy provides spiritual support to volunteers and the team members. He communicates with pastors of the churches that are part of the project. Lyudmila works directly with 17 churches and 40+ volunteers. She writes a program for a year that churches use during monthly meetings. Once every 3 months, she meets with each volunteer to encourage them and coordinates events for seniors around the city.
Currently, the Zolotaryov’s have relocated to Abbotsford, BC in Canada. They fully assist and support displaced Ukrainian families who have arrived in the Fraser Valley, while still carrying out ministry in Eastern Ukraine and the Golden Years Project. They also provide emotional support, personal and family counseling. Spiritual care and spiritual counseling is a big part of their ministry now. Zolotaryov’s together with dedicated Ukrainian new comers, started a Ukrainian Bible Church in Abbotsford.
The Family Table
Declaring good News of Jesus Christ and bringing hope with a focus on widows and marginalized women and their children in Kyiv through means of Bible study, home care, home care and humanitarian assistance. Our national missionary in Kyiv, Nelli, provides regular counselling, mentorship, and friendship through personal meetings during the week. Weekly Bible Studies and foundational Family Table Dinners are available for women and their children at Nelli’s church.
The Family Table also provides help with leading a Golden Year project at a local church. Together with a team from the church, every two weeks Nelli runs seniors programs to encourage them and shares the Word of God. The seniors are so thankful for the opportunity to meet together.
Jen Kirkland (Romania)
Jennifer Kirkland is a missionary working in Brasov, Romania with Firm Foundations Romania (FFR). FFR is committed to caring for & supporting the Roma Gypsy community by providing access to education and caring for babies & toddlers left alone at the local children’s hospital. She is the head supervisor for all volunteers coming through the hospital, as well as coordinates donations to be sorted and distributed to various programs, organizations and families in need. Jen is a new missionary to the field, but is proof positive that when God leads, amazing things can and will happen!
Hope For The Nations - Romania
Hope for the Nations – Romania was founded by Mark and Coreen Biech and started as an outreach near the Black Sea in Constanta in June 1998. The first years were working in the local orphanages during the period when Romania was going through great economic difficulty.A Christian Music Recording Studio was also developed which offered Romanian worship leaders and songwriters the opportunity to record their worship music for free as there was no such activity possible at that time. There were weekend Christian Music outdoor Coffee House nights where local musicians could come and play to an audience and we could mingle with those in attendance. We were honored to baptize several new converts in the Black Sea.In 2003 the ministry moved to Brasov, in the heart of Transylvania, where it continued volunteering in orphanages and the hospital. A difficult case was presented of a child with severe organ malformation. There were not enough funds available to help with the surgery as it required sending the child to Germany. This led to a wonderful God moment and it turned into an International Medical Workshop where the top pediatric surgeons of Germany and Austria accepted the invitation to come to Romania and teach local surgeons how to do this complicated surgery. Once it started, word got out, and many more cases were presented. To date, over 150 children have had life changing organ malformation surgery in Romania for free as a result of this project. For more details and photos, click here: romaniahope.com/international-medical-workshop
For 5 years the organization worked with the Brasov Infectious Diseases Hospital providing its Mobile Medical Unit to test in the Brasov Jurisdiction for tuberculosis.
The current projects are:
Ukrainian Front-Line Provisions
International Medical Workshop
Mobile Classroom
Back to School Supplies/Sock and Shoes for over 70 Children
Christmas Hampers for over 300 people
Firm Foundations Romania
Firm Foundations Romania (FFR) believes all people are made in the image of God and are worthy of love, respect, and dignity. It is because of this that we are committed to caring for and supporting the Roma (Gypsy) community in Romania by offering access to education, tangible resources, and the Gospel. FFR first started its programs in the Brasov State Children’s Hospital where co-founders Sarah Vienna and Steffi Vogel first entered in 2005. Finding rooms full of babies wrapped in rags, they started bringing in disposable diapers and holding these children. This turned into an international volunteer program providing arms of love and over 35,000 diapers on an annual basis.
The majority of the children in the hospital were from a nearby Roma village called Budila. In order to combat the abandonment issue, FFR began running educational programs for kids aged preschool through 8th grade. Currently, 230 students are enrolled in the programs where the are not only being encouraged to stay in school but also learning life skills such as proper hygiene, manners, and responsibility. Most importantly, these kids are being taught about Jesus, and that they can have a future and hope through Him.
In 2022, FFR opened the doors to its own educational building called the Agape Center. The new place will allow FFR to expand its programs – more students will be able to enroll and hear the Gospel, new programs will be started for the parents and families of the children in the programs, a youth group will be held for high schoolers, and prayerfully in the future Sunday church services will begin for the community. God is moving in the village of Budila, and FFR is thankful to be able to serve His people there.