Investigation for Evangelism in Village of Chornoholova

Getting Info in Village of Chornoholva

Stephen (Stopia) and Tim traveled about 30 miles northeast of Uzhgorod today to revisit the mountain village of Chornoholova. This village is about 12 miles beyond Perechin, where we have our regular youth and children ministry. We thought that it would be a decent day with the typical overcast. However, since Chornoholova is a few hundred feet higher than Uzhgorod, the snow there generally more significant. In Uzhgorod the temperatures the last day and one-half have been such that most of the snow we had in the city has melted. But not at Chornoholova! The further we went on the narrow, winding road, the more snow there was. Little had been done to the road since the snow. One man at the village stated that the snow had been knee deep when it finished several days ago.
It was still a sloppy day there at the village as the temperature was about 33 and it was drizzling. There was a thick fog at times making it hard to discern the steep mountain slopes ascending up around the village.
Chornoholova is one of many villages targeted in our ministry vision because it has no evangelical church whatsoever. There is one Christian lady there, Stopia had learned, and maybe some Christians some years ago.
Our objective today was meet a few people and see what property might be for sale to develop some place to launch evangelism there. It is critical to have some place established so that we do not appear to be some kind of transient religion. We looked at four different places. One was a nice piece of property along the river, but adjacent to the Orthodox Church. That might be tricky. The next place was out of the village a little making it too inaccessible for youth and children. And the man courageously asked $10,000 for literally a shack and some land. The next place we only looked at but did not get any details. Its roof was totally collapsed. The last place was decent and the price sounded fair.

The "Roof Collapsed" house

House adjacent to Orth. Ch

The $10,000 house!

The "Decent" house

Perhaps one of the greatest victories God gave us on this excursion was that Stopia befriended the village policeman, who showed us the last house. It was beside his! But the astonishing thing is that the young policeman was nice, helpful and promised to help us in anyway he could to get official business done in the village! Wow! Praise the Lord! Considering how most of the police are crooked and cause everyone much frustration, we were so grateful. Then, while we were departing the village a woman was waiting beside the road. Stopia requested we stop and see if she needed a ride. Chornoholova is a village off the main road about five miles and there is literally and absolutely nothing between it and the main road but wilderness. So giving the woman a ride was a huge blessing to her. But the blessing for us was that she was one of the school teachers in the village and meeting her for connection with the children was very encouraging.