Sergiy and his wife Vika live in Blagodatne with their two sons, and lead Hope Church in Cherkasy. A godly and passionate man, Sergiy was not always a follower of Jesus and faced many challenges when he was younger. Here is his story.

‍Back when Ukraine was still part of the Soviet Union, there was a lot of home brewing of alcohol as everything was very expensive. My father was making homemade vodka, barrels and bottles of it. When I was about 11 years old, I was already stealing the vodka from my dad and replacing it with water so he didn't notice. I was not a good kid and didn't listen to my parents, I got into lots of trouble.My dad was an alcoholic and by about age 13 I was too. Narcotics was an obvious follow-on and by the age of 16, I was already on a lot of drugs and involved in a lot of crime.

Then I joined the army, and just met more people who exposed me to more drugs. I was posted in Moscow which was an absolute nightmare, you could just make one phone call and get whatever you wanted, it was too easy. But I was unhappy there and wanted to come home, and so we can see that God had his plan, because if I had stayed there then I would surely be dead. If I hadn't met Jesus when I did, then I’d be dead by now.

So I came back to Blagodatne and married and had a daughter, but obviously under the influence of drugs, I was not a good father or husband and understandably my wife left me.

At this time I suffered with paranoia and I would sit in the street on my own, not wanting anyone to approach me. Then one day Vlad [Illin, now associate pastor at Blagodatne church], who was just a teenager at the time, sat with me and told me that I was not alone; he told me about God and shared God’s love with me.