When Maxym and Anya Oliferovski first met John and Evelyn Wiens, missionaries with Multiply, they knew that they shared with them a calling to serve the brokenhearted. It was out of this calling that together they founded the New Hope Center in Zaporozhye.
“That was ten years ago,” said Max. “Today we are celebrating ten years of God’s faithfulness.”
“Our first burden was for the orphans,” Max went on. “Children in the public orphanages age out of the system as teenagers. There is nothing for them to do, no future but the streets. We started a drop-in center in downtown Zaporozhye to give them a place where they could find community and hope.”
For two years, the Oliferovski and Wiens families provided a safe space for youth at risk. Teenagers would come for the hot meal, only to find themselves unexpectedly among friends. As this ministry grew, so did the vision. In 2012, the two couples launched a licensed dairy farm in the village of Nikolay Pole, and opened two group homes for aged-out orphans in Zaporozhye. Their goal was that these children would learn life skills and a means of supporting themselves.
“But it was we who learned the most,” Max said. “We learned about the incredible hardships faced by children who have not known the love of a mother or father. We learned how vital it was to provide a sense of family and belonging. We learned the importance of helping children in government orphanages to have good Christian friends.”
They learned what it was like to be orphans. Then, they themselves became orphaned.
When John Wiens passed away in 2014, Max and Anya felt like children who had lost their father. There was comfort to be found in applying to themselves some of the very words of Scripture that had inspired them to care for orphans in the first place.
Jesus told his disciples, “I will be with you and will not leave you as orphans” (John 14:18). The team at New Hope Center held strongly to that promise and kept going.
It was a painful year, as in that same year the war in eastern Ukraine began, bringing violence, economic devastation and bleak despair to the populace. Continuing in ministry was hard, both financially and emotionally. They had to stop the training program on the dairy farm, and they focused their efforts on providing other forms of vocational training for the orphans and youth at risk in Zaporozhye. These young people would need every advantage they could possibly give them, if they were to survive in Ukraine.
Max and Anya kept praying and asking God to give them a new vision and an expanded ministry focus, and to bless their dreams for the future. “God answered our prayers,” Max declared. “Our Spirit-led dreams became – DreamKIDZ!”
In 2016, the Oliferovskis and their team launched this program, serving to reach families in crisis. In ministering to whole families, they hoped to prevent a generation of children from becoming orphaned themselves, through abandonment or neglect. God tremendously blessed this ministry, and within a year several families began to attend their Bible studies. They began to run summer camps with a Gospel focus, and in 2018 the first three people received Jesus and were baptized.
“It was in this way,” explained Max, “that our God’s Family Church was born.”
As the church grew, so did the need for training and resourcing. In 2019, they began hosting weekend renewal retreats for new Christians to allow them to experience God’s touch and healing. One year later, they were responding to requests to provide training for workers in the government social services, and for workers in Christian non-profit organizations. They felt privileged to be sharing what God had taught them about helping families in crisis.
This year, they are celebrating. They look back with humble, grateful hearts on all that God has done for, and through, their ministry.
“It was God who provided us with the desire, vision, and opportunity to serve the brokenhearted,” Max acknowledged. “And it is our friends and partners,” he added, addressing those who have supported the New Hope Center, “who have provided the prayer and financial support to continue with this ministry. Together we have touched and healed so many lives, showing them the new hope they have in Jesus.”
GIVE
Is God putting the brokenhearted of Ukraine on your heart? To learn more about the ministry of Maxym and Anya Oliferovski at the New Hope Center, go to multiply.net/ukraine To make a financial contribution to Multiply’s ministry in Ukraine, go to Ukraine Team
