Another one of the monthly meetings of ministers of the PCSBA took place on January 18. Even though the pandemic is now over, ZOOM became a good platform for communication among the PCSBA pastors who are serving in different cities.
Similar meetings over ZOOM are scheduled for the entire year. Since 21 out of the 35 churches of PCSBA are located outside of the Sacramento region, in order to serve all of the churches, including those who are in states like Washington, Minnesota, South Carolina, and Hawaii, ZOOM became a wonderful solution to a practical problem.
Any useful practice of one church could become advantageous to other churches of PCSBA, including those in other regions. During the time of a missions’ reunion in 2022 in Sacramento, the necessity of work with the unchurched people in the Sacramento region was specifically highlighted. Two churches: The Cornerstone Church, and the Spring of Life ought to be an example for working with the refugees and immigrants not only in Sacramento, but also in the other states as well. This was the main theme of this ZOOM meeting.
The missionary work with the arrival of refugees from the war zones in Ukraine became important opportunity for many churches of PCSBA, and the question now is, to what extent are we ready to go outside of the comfort zone and would like to start serving these people? This is also the question that every mission department of every church should be asking as well. A big part of this ministry is creating the social connections for immigrants who are in need of the constant flow of information, sharing of their experience as they are arriving, as well as practical influence in making decisions about which city or state they ought to ultimately end up in. God blessed Sacramento with Ilya “Korifan” (his alias), who created the largest Facebook group of Slavic immigrants in the U.S. of over 37,000 people. The immigrants are looking for those who could help them in decision-making, and to get situated in the new country. Today it is becoming increasingly impossible to do any kind of missions without some form of social sites. Ilya is ready to share his experience in organizing social groups for immigrants. This is a time of the ministry opportunity that opened up, but it will be very short. Some time will pass, and the immigrants will become self-sufficient, and will not require any help from the outside.
During the ZOOM meeting, there were church representatives from various states. Oleg Petrovich Kostyuk, and Ilya Koryaka (Koryfan) took an active part in the meeting. Naturally, there was a time of questions and answers as well.
Praise God for the opportunity to serve one another and share the ministry experience. It is a great blessing to serve in the family of churches at the PCSBA, where we don’t just say that we love one another, but also that we are practically helping one another in ministry! Praise God!
President of the Association of churches of the PCSBA, Ivan Mileyev
- For those ministers who for some important reason was not able to be at this meeting, but would like to access the things discussed there, there is a recording of the meeting, but you would need to reach out to I. Mileyev directly.
- Contact information of Ilya Koryaka and Oleg Kostyuk:
- Ilya Koryaka
- Personal Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/elijah.koryfan
- Sacramento Immigrants: https://www.facebook.com/groups/189821571497530
- Oleg Petrovich Kostyuk:
- Phone: (916) 825-1795
- Email:
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- Ilya Koryaka
