When you look back at your life, have there been people in your life who have impacted you and made a difference in who you have become? Have you ever wondered how could I do that in someone else’s life? We have an opportunity for you! This fall we are partnering with leaders in Ukraine to begin a Leadership Mentoring Group for 320 young leaders in 16 regions of Ukraine. These groups will meet 4 times a year for 3 years. Two times will be in large group gatherings and two times in smaller gatherings. The high-level overview:
We are working with the leaders of each region to provide training and materials to help them lead these groups.
We are looking for individuals or churches who would like to sponsor each region. The investment is $1200 per year or $100 per month for three years. This investment will cover 50% of the costs and will help provide materials, lodging and meals for the gatherings. There are 24 regions in Ukraine and 16 of them have agreed to begin these meetings this fall. We will be traveling to Ukraine this fall to work with these regional leaders and help prepare them for these gatherings.
Here is a little of the history of this program. Four years ago, we visited Ukraine to see where God was leading us, as we began Potential Endeavors. We thought that we would work with one church in one community, but God had different plans for us. We met with the Vasily Furta, who was the Regional Leader of the Cherkasy Region, and he had a dream. He wanted to start a leadership mentoring group for young leaders to help them develop and was praying for someone to help him. We agreed to partner with him, and we started this group in the spring of 2018. We met with this group six times over two years and we taught three basic things:
At the end of the second year, Vasily Furta, was elected as a Vice President of the Baptist Union. As he started his new role, he had a dream to start groups like what we did in Cherkasy Region across all of Ukraine. In March of 2020 we started our second group in Kyiv Region and then covid hit. During the time when we could not travel, Vasily worked with Regional Leaders across Ukraine to share with them the results of these groups and encouraged them to think about starting such group themselves. When we returned to Ukraine in May of 2021 we met with people from our groups and listened to their stories. God had been working over these past three years and making big impacts. We also traveled to 3 regions and met with their leaders and shared this vision.
Now we need your help! Would you be willing to consider sponsoring one or more regions to begin these gatherings?
Let me tell you two stories of impact of two pastors that we have worked with.
First is Yan. Yan is the pastor of a church in Korsun, Ukraine. He was part of our first group in Cherkasy Region. Yan has a dream of reaching people in his city, especially those who are struggling with addictions, homelessness, and abuse. His church has been growing and making an impact. The city has seen the impact and provide a list of all the people it was aware of that needed help and the church reached out to each person and helped. Their church has outgrown their building and they are hoping to buy that building and expand it to make more room.
Our second story is of Sasha. Sasha attended our second group in Kiev Region last March. When we were doing our meetings, I shared with the group the reason why people don’t invite to church. He was challenged by what I shared but wanted to see if it was true, so he surveyed his church, and they came back with the same reason. It motivated him to begin to make changes at his church and because of that they are seeing many new people coming to their church. Just last week that set up a pool in the front of the church and they saw many people being baptized.
Getting back to our dream, we have learned our dreams for Potential Endeavors were too small. They were what we thought we could accomplish on our own. God wants us to have bold, God-sized dreams. Now we are dreaming about how we can impact leaders across Ukraine to reach people for Jesus. We have a dream of seeing over 110,000 people finding Jesus and many new churches being started. We believe that these leadership mentoring groups will be the start of developing new leaders for existing churches and to start new churches. This fall we hope to begin to impact 320 leaders – 20 from each of the 16 regions. If they can each develop 5 leaders that will be 1600 leaders and if those leaders will develop 5 leaders, we will multiply to 8000 leaders reaching people for Jesus and if each leader can help their church reach 10 people for Jesus, that would be 80,000 people.
We also need partners in one another way. We need people who will come along side of us and support the work we are doing with leaders and churches in Ukraine and in the upper Midwest. Maybe you would be willing to help provide support to assist with our travel costs and the costs of the events we lead. In October we will be bringing together these 16 Regional Leaders and their spouses for a two-day training. We cover all costs of lodging and meals plus gift packages that include notebooks, pens, and candy. Plus, we will be traveling to many regions, and we will need to cover our transportation and lodging costs as we meet with regional leaders and their teams.
We can’t do this on our own! This will only be accomplished with the help of others and God doing the impossible. If you would like to discuss more, we would be happy to meet with you. You can reach us at Rick.Post@potentialendeavors.com or Info@potentialendeavors.com
You can give directly with a credit card at Donate – Potential Endeavors or send a check to the address listed on the donate page. If it is for the leadership mentoring group, just note it in the comments section.