God Works in Strange Ways

“Pastor, I want to apologize,” a parishioner said to Brother Slavik Nakonechny one day.

For what? he wondered. They were on good terms and never had any conflicts.

She explained: “When we arrived in Naples four years ago, we prayed that God would send a pastor. I knew your father and your family, so I prayed, ‘Lord, you see the Nakonechny family in Ukraine. Please send one of the sons here to Naples.’ But I didn’t think that it would be at such a high cost!”

I talked with Brother Slavik when I was at the winter camp outside Naples and learned the story of how he ended up as the pastor of a new evangelical church in Naples, Italy—and why the woman in his church sought his forgiveness (although it was for something that was not in her control).

In May 2018 while they were living in Rivne, Ukraine, the youngest of Brother Slavik’s five children, Timothy, then four years old, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia. They prayed for his healing, but when he was not healed, the family understood that God had other plans. First they tried to get Timothy into a medical facility in Kyiv for treatment, but that door was closed. Then an acquaintance told Brother Slavik about a medical program in Naples, Italy that would treat his son for free. The costs were covered by the Italian government. The program accepted Timothy.

“I did not seek Italy; Italy found me herself,” explained Brother Slavik.

In June 2018, they arrived in Naples. “What’s interesting,” said Brother Slavik, “is that in less than one month, a mission team arrived from the States to try to start a Ukrainian evangelical church in Naples, and in that city of one million, we encountered this team. We didn’t know them, and we didn’t know they were coming.”

Working together, they started a church service. At first Brother Slavik helped this team with music and driving people around and sharing the Word of God. But every week or two, he’d return to Ukraine to oversee his construction business in Rivne. He was constantly traveling. The family was counting the days when Timothy’s treatment would be over and they could return to Ukraine.

“My construction business continued to function. But when covid came, we could not travel at all, and in a few months, my business was completely ruined,” Brother Slavik shared. “I now understand that if the business had not failed, I would not be serving here.”

Timothy’s two years of treatment ended June 2020. They could have left Italy at that time, but during an earlier return trip to Rivne, both Brother Slavik and his wife realized that God had taken away their peace when they were home in Ukraine. They understood that God was calling them to ministry in Italy. Elders from the church proposed that Brother Slavik and his family remain in Naples. On February 21, 2021, Brother Slavik was ordained as pastor.

When the war in Ukraine started one year later, Naples saw a large influx of refugees with children. God put on the pastor’s heart to serve the children, and in the summer of 2022, his church started reaching out to the children. When Vova Poplavskiy of TLOT contacted the pastor about bringing a team during winter break, Pastor Slavik knew exactly what they could do: they could work with the children, gathering them in the street, playing, singing, teaching. Through the work of this team in January 2023, the children’s program in Naples took root. They have been meeting outdoors weekly since then, and not once have they been deterred by bad weather. God cares for the details.

Although these children, who were mostly children of unbelievers, met weekly, they spent only 30 minutes per week on Bible studies. Some kids came one week, then skipped the next two. Attendance was not consistent. A more systemic approach to teaching God’s Word was needed. So the idea of a camp was born, a camp where the gospel could be presented in a methodical manner, where the children could feel a Christian atmosphere and experience Christian love. Last summer, TLOT volunteers, along with volunteers from Ukraine, ran the first children’s camp. During Christmas break, they held a second one-week camp, one that I was blessed to be a part of.

“Did you see changes in the children after camp?” I asked Pastor Slavik.

“Absolutely! They are completely different children—how they relate to adults, how they relate to each other, how they relate to God. The changes are very significant. I can see God working with these kids. And, yes, some have chosen to follow Christ.”

God certainly works in strange ways. The journey, the pastor admitted, has been quite an education.