Saturday, November 13, 2010

Ukrainian Church Partnership Mission


Happy Saturday!

I am Ralph Taylor hosting Ed Winkle’s Hymark Blog while he and he pretty spouse travel through Middle Europe.

Ever Thought Of Doing Missionary Work?

Neither did I until I was approached by my Pastor in 1997. I was an Elder for26 years in a Church of Christ Church in Cincinnati, Ohio. Around year 20 our Pastor asked me to stop by his office to discuss a special project he wanted me to consider. Certainly was not prepared to hear what his offer was about. Underand that I was at that point Director of Quality Assurance for the Procter & Gamble Company. He told me that our church was strongly considering a new mission project that required someone to raise money to support the project. Why did he decide that I would be the choice for fund raiser? – I asked. He thought with my business background and stature in the corporate world that I would be a natural at fund raising. I told him that I knew nothing about missionary work but also knew that Churches of Christ are all independent of one another and seldom did joint projects like the one he was proposing. Exactly why I chose you for the job" he responded. "P&G trains their managers to tackle the impossible".

As it turned out – we needed $250,000 a year to support two ministers and their families to live in the Ukraine – a country of the Soviet Union. Two churches there had requested a sister church in the USA to partner with them to re-learn how to conduct worship and consul the congregation. They had lost their skills under the oppression of the Soviet government. Wow! What a challenge! Could not let that one go! Never realized that this was mission work. I didn’t have to have training to be a minister or go any place. I solicited funds from 16 other churches to help us fund this project. All told we had raised $285,000 for year one.

Now that was easy enough! “Well that is not all we need you o do” says the Pastor. "We want you to be the Mission Field Manager. You need to visit the mission site to make sure that everything is going smoothly and take cash with you since there was no other way to get the funds transferred" Why? because the USA and Soviet Union did not have mechanisms in place to handle this at the time. I ended up travelling from Cincinnati to Kiev Ukraine 15 times from 1988 through 1992 during the time right before, during and after the Soviet Union collapsed. Each trip I carried between $30,000- $40,000 in $20 dollar bills each trip. Got to stay with Ukrainian families each time. What a thrill this was! I spent all of my 5 weeks vacation every year travelling back and forth to the Ukraine helping our missionaries do their work

One of life’s treasures! Meeting people of other cultures. Conducting mission work part of the year and managing quality control the rest of the year in the corporate world. More stories about this missionary project later if Ed is away long enough 
Hope your weekend is restful and calm.

Talk more with you tomorrow morning.

Ralph Taylor

For Ed Winkle

3 comments:

  1. Seriously, teaching and farming have both been missionary work to me, not in the sense you are talking but definitely a Christian mission.

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