By Gennady Podgaisky
I met Tatiana soon after we arrived in Kyiv, Ukraine 22 years ago when we started attending a home Bible study group in at friend’s house. After a few months, I started leading and teaching that home Bible group. Later, we moved the location of our home group to Tatiana’s apartment.
She was a wonderful host to our group despite struggling being a single mother and having a teenage son. She became a Christian several years ago while attending a Christian cult. After realizing that it wasn’t the right place for her, she moved to another church but had never been discipled in the basics of Christianity. She wanted to learn more about God, the Bible and Christianity, and she was eager to serve the Lord.
During several years we had numerous conversations and mentorship meetings, and I encouraged her to get some Christian education. With CBF help we sponsored her tuition to attend The Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary. During her studies she hesitantly agreed to occasionally substitute me as a leader of our home Bible study group when I was away. In about a year, when we were on a home assignment in the U.S., I received a call from her. She wanted my counsel regarding accepting the call to become a pastor of a small church in a town outside Kyiv. She felt that she was completely unprepared for such a role and was not sure what to do.
After some conversations, discussions and a process of discernment, she accepted the call and faithfully led that small congregation until the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020. She was not able to travel to that location due to the lock-down policy in Ukraine.
When the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, she fled to Poland along with millions of other Ukrainians. Soon after her arrival to Poland, doctors discovered that she had a life-threatening illness and performed a surgery. It was by God’s provision that she was in Poland and could quickly undertake surgery and receive follow-up treatment. Had she been in Ukraine, due to the ongoing war, she would have never been able to get neither surgery or treatment. We were able to help her from the Ukraine Relief Fund in this challenging period of her life.
Being a pastor by calling, Tatiana joined a Ukrainian church in Krakow and became an associate pastor. She also was witnessing and reaching people in several locations where she lived in the past two-and-a-half years. She was witnessing to a single mother, her flat mate and invited her to visit her church.
The Sunday we visited Tatiana’s church, that single mother whom Tatiana was witnessing, was there and it was her very first visit of a protestant church. At the end of the service, during an invitation, she came forward and committed her life to Christ. Now Tatiana is teaching her basics of Christianity, discipling her and helping her to face life’s challenges together in a Christian community.
“You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others” (2Tim. 2:2).