Mobile Kitchen Project
The Mobile Kitchen: Meet Grisha. We have known each other for over 26 years. It is hard to believe so much time has passed since he was nervously applying to be a church planting student in our training program “Project 250”. Grisha has a winsome personality and one of those few people who can talk to anyone… literally anyone from the mayor of the city to the indigent looking for scraps at the city dump. Over the last quarter of a century, God has developed Grisha and his darling family into a quiet, but powerful force for church planting. So when I got notice that he and his wife had a vision for a mobile kitchen to enhance their ministry, I responded.
Recently I passed through his city and I had the opportunity to take a look at the progress on their project. Like most things that are worthwhile in life, the project has not been easy, but Grisha and his team have learned a lot about trailers and mobile kitchens throughout the process. The task of designing, ordering and securing the mobile kitchen fell to Igor, who was happy to walk me through it and explain what things were and where everything will go.
“Has it gone out yet to any locations?” I asked. “No, not yet. We wanted to take it to (name of city withheld for security purposes), but we have had to secure a stronger vehicle and are in that process right now. The kitchen weighs three tons without being loaded. Plus, our driver is in the hospital right now.”
“How much did this project end up costing?” I asked. He told me what they had spent on the mobile kitchen and I was a bit taken back. “Well, it looks like the portion we brought to the table was barely ten percent of that,” I said.
“Yes,” replied Grisha, “but you were the first.” He could see the honor of being the first was lost on me, so he continued, “You see, it was easy to sit around and talk and pray about our vision, but when you came into the picture with that first gift, we had to act… to start moving… to follow up on what we believed God was leading us to do.”
Sometimes we Americans like to think we do everything and nobody else does their fair share. Before April of this year, when most of us thought America was the number one contributor to Ukraine, there were really seventeen others in front of us. So when I asked where the rest of the funds had come from (aside from Ukraine herself), I was told the rest had come from believers in Germany and Switzerland. Switzerland?! I guess we should cut them some slack for that whole neutrality thing!
Kudos to our brothers and sisters in Christ in Ukraine, Germany and Switzerland who came up with 90% of the cost of this project, but also to all of us who have been giving to the Ukraine Relief Fund. You provided the seed funding that became the catalyst for the creation of a ministry tool that will help Ukrainians help Ukrainians. Our work in part is to steward the funds that we oversee to maximize the benefit to Ukraine and for the Gospel. We also strive to safeguard these funds from corruption.
Whether you have given directly to the fund or to another mission or missionaries, you can still be involved in the relief ministry of the mobile kitchen by lifting Grisha and his church up in prayer. Click here to subscribe to the Yodis/Ukraine newsletter and we’ll occasionally bring you an update so you can know what becomes of it as they bring relief to communities in difficult places… sharing the Word… showing they care.
Eric Yodis 