‘THIS IS YOUR CALLING’
Local group continues Ukraine support despite invasion
The Feb. 24, 2022, Russian invasion of a nation of 41 million people sent shock waves around the globe, including one group with Hot Springs roots that was already long-established in Ukraine.
After the fall of the Soviet Union in late 1991, religious organizations and capitalists alike flooded the Eastern Bloc. Everyone from McDonald’s to Billy Graham rushed to plant seeds in the fertile ground.
Among the missionaries was Buddy Barnett, who visited Ukraine in 1994 with a group from his church in North Carolina. He was asked to come back the next year to pastor an international Baptist church, which he did for nine months. A trend noticed throughout the former empire was the rapid growth of Christianity in the land that once enforced state atheism.
Barnett continued to coordinate the effort between the North Carolina Baptists and Ukraine until 1998 when the partnership was set to be dissolved. But Barnett knew of at least 17 churches that had begun construction with the help of the partnership that would be left without funding once the partnership was terminated. That’s when he knew that his work in the Eastern European country was not over.
“We just felt like God was saying, ‘This is your responsibility, this is your calling, this is your job,’” Barnett said.
He and his wife, Janada, formed Ukraine Challenge International with the goal of securing funding for the projects started in Ukraine.
Thinking it would only take a few years to complete, Barnett’s organization is still helping the country almost 20 years later.
Ukraine Challenge continued sending teams throughout the trying times up until 2020, when a team of only three people went during the pandemic. Barnett’s group has blessed the Ukrainians with church construction, children’s day camps, medical and dental projects.
Since last year, the organization has focused on raising money for humanitarian aid projects. Working with 30 ministry partners in Ukraine, the money goes to help evacuate people from war zones, purchase modular homes for displaced families and to buy firewood and generators for those without heat and electricity.
For $5,000, the organization can place a modular home — with two beds, a small kitchen and an indoor toilet — on a family’s property where their home was destroyed.