ABILENE, Texas — Leaders from the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Ukrainian Baptist Union signed an agreement Nov. 18 establishing church-to-church partnerships between Texas and Ukrainian Baptist churches. The event was hosted by Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene.
Event attendees heard from Nina Tarasovets, a Ukrainian Baptist and student at Hardin-Simmons; Texas Baptist pastors already involved in the partnership; and leaders of the Ukrainian Baptist Union.
Near the conclusion of the event, Ukrainian Baptist Union President Valerii Antoniuk and BGCT Executive Director Julio Guarneri signed a memorandum of understanding between their respective organizations.
The MOU establishes a pathway for pastor-to-pastor and church-to-church partnerships for the purpose of friendship, prayer and shared ministry focused on trauma healing, discipleship, worship and church planting.
Currently, 36 Texas Baptist churches have committed to the partnership. Organizers are looking for 14 more churches by Dec. 15 to round out the 50 churches they would like to pair with 50 churches in Ukraine.
Igor Bandura, vice president for international affairs with the Ukrainian Baptist Union, expressed his hope churches would join the partnership, pointing to Scripture.
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you,” he said, citing Matthew 7:7.
Also, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7).
Called to partnership
For Brent Gentzel, senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Kaufman, the call to shape a church-to-church partnership between Texas and Ukraine began in spring 2025. His church supported his call, he said.
As with himself, the call is “going to have to begin in you. The very nature of this partnership begins pastor to pastor, and then church to church, and then [out] from there,” Gentzel said.
“We come into this in the deep belief that the local church is the hope of the world,” he added.
God has given Ukrainian Baptists the ministry of suffering, forging strength and resilience in them, Gentzel said. “They’re allowing us into their suffering, and it is a ministry to us.”
Stories of suffering
Nina Tarasovets
“I’m really passionate about serving others,” Nina Tarasovets, HSU senior and student body president, said. Her father is a Baptist pastor in Ukraine, and her mother serves in women’s ministry. Nina serves in preschool ministry at Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene.
Born and raised in Ukraine, Nina came to Texas for high school in 2019. “My plan was to go home and continue my education there, but my senior year in high school was the year that the war in Ukraine started,” she said.
Unsure where to go, Nina started looking at different universities in Texas. After applying to several, HSU President Eric Bruntmyer called her, saying: “Nina, don’t worry. We’ll take care of you. Come here. You will be a Cowboy.”
In Ukraine, her parents and other Christians became “heavily involved in serving others.”
“Even in dark times, [God] showed so many different miracles about how people were getting saved,” Nina recalled.
“We don’t have all the answers, but we know that God has a plan for this, and He is using this war for something for His plan,” she said.
Pointing out February 2026 will mark four years of war: “People are exhausted. People are tired, but they’re continuing to work every single day,” and the church continues to serve, Nina said.
“Every summer I go home, and I serve on the kids’ ministry team, and I plan and help organize summer camps for those kids who have lost their parents,” she said. Many of those children tell stories of attending their mothers’ funerals, she added.
Valerii Antoniuk
“Paul said, ‘Whenever one part of the body hurts, the rest of it hurts,’” Valerii Antoniuk, president of the Ukrainian Baptist Union, said as Tarasovets translated.
“Well, part of the body is hurting, and the other part of the body comes to it. And it’s something that we feel today,” Antoniuk said, pointing to an image of Texas and Ukraine projected on the wall.
Since 2014, he has gone to the front lines many times, he said. “I see a lot of blood. I see a lot of pain.” And he cries a lot, he noted.
“We thank you that you are feeling our pain,” he said. “The closer we get to the coming of Jesus Christ, the more pain we’re going to experience on the Earth, and we will have to react to it,” he continued, holding up the church as the answer.
Characterizing the war, not as political or business, but as spiritual, “today, we are looking right at the devil’s mouth … and it’s not easy,” Antoniuk said.
“We are inviting you to a place that’s not safe,” he said. “And we really want you to be with us.”
Antoniuk reported 320 churches are under Russian occupation, 120 churches are closed, 650 pastors and ministers left Ukraine – along with “thousands and thousands of church members” – and more than 70 churches are destroyed.
Even so, God is blessing the Ukrainian church during the war, Antoniuk said.
“Over the past three years, we have baptized over 10,000 people. We got over 1,000 new deacons and pastors,” he said.
“It’s really weird for me to stay the night here, sleep and not hear the air sirens, missiles flying by. It’s not something that I’m used to anymore,” Antoniuk admitted.
“At night, whenever [my 6-year-old grandson] hears the explosions and missiles flying by and drones and everything exploding, he runs to [me] and says, ‘Let’s pray together,’ and we pray together at night, and our faith becomes stronger.”
Structure of the partnership
Organizers hope to have a prayer team ready in each partnership church by Jan. 1, 2026. The prayer team “is not just pastor-to-pastor, but it needs to be people-to-people,” Gentzel explained, suggesting groups of three-to-five people who will commit to pray with their Ukrainian partners through the duration of the partnership.
Additionally, Texas churches will be asked to provide some monthly financial support to their Ukrainian partners beginning in January. For safeguarding and accountability, funds will be sent to the BGCT, who in turn will send them to the Ukrainian Baptist Union to disperse to the respective churches.
Churches also are asked to give $10,000 per year for the next three years “to handle general expenses of infrastructure and curriculum and equipment,” among other needs, Gentzel said.
“This isn’t all about money, but the financial piece is going to matter in a time when things are difficult in Ukraine,” Gentzel said. “We don’t want money to keep anybody from doing this, but we are going to need resources to make this go.”
Ukrainian leaders also are seeking a deep connection between partner churches built on Bible study, sermons and devotionals. So, organizers are working with the Baptist seminary in Odesa, Ukraine, “to write a [seven-week] Great Commission, Great Commandment spiritual growth campaign” to be rolled out in fall 2026.
“Bible studies [and devotionals] would be shared by Zoom between churches,” Gentzel explained, noting they are seeking devotional writers.
The goal is to develop strong relationships now between Texas and Ukrainian churches, so when the war ends, the churches will be able to mobilize quickly to meet the specific ministry needs created by the war. Church partners will contextualize their own mobilization strategies.
For example, some churches in Ukraine aren’t singing in worship because they don’t have anyone to lead them. Partner churches might be able to provide that leadership.
A further goal is to expand partnerships to other churches in Ukraine over time.
Baptists have “led so heroically” during the war “that the Ukrainian nation is aware that the Baptist church has been the spiritual backbone of the country through the battle,” Gentzel said.
“And their importance in the community, in that nation, has risen across these four years in a way” that is even recognized by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he added.
Importance of partnership
“Sometimes, I think that we think that evangelism is about some kind of recitation of a Gospel presentation, that people have to pray this sinner’s prayer, and then it fixes everything,” Guarneri said.
“But I think the Gospel that we have in Jesus is more than just words,” he continued. “The Gospel of Jesus is incarnational. It’s about a God who came to our suffering. And when we live out that gospel, we have to be incarnational.”
Being incarnational means “going where the pain is and the hurt is and loving” people there, Guarneri said.
The partnership between Texas and Ukrainian Baptists is not paternalistic, but is “a two-way street,” he said.
“I believe this is a cause worth giving our churches to, and I believe strongly that to whom much is given, much is required. That’s why our church is all in. That’s why we’re ready to go. That’s why we’re figuring it out on the fly,” John Whitten, senior pastor of Pioneer Drive Baptist Church in Abilene, said.
To learn more about this partnership and how to be involved, visit https://www.healingpathmovement.com or email [email protected].
This article originally appeared in the Baptist Standard.
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