School Without Walls
Alesya’s Testimony: Ministry to Children with Disabilities
“I love serving those in need, especially children and orphans with mental disabilities,” shares Alesya, a School Without Walls (SWW) student from Pinsk, Belarus. Alesya coordinates the team of 5-8 dedicated volunteers from Church Without Walls that visits a local boarding school for children with special needs twice a month and organizes a summer Bible camp, Gift of Hope program, and other special projects at the school. “We spend as much as time as possible with the children so we can form strong relationships with them and support them beyond our regular visits.” Alesya says that SWW played an important role in helping her discover her calling and in equipping her to fulfill it. “After assuming this leadership role, I felt the need to grow as a leader. It’s one thing to be a volunteer, but it’s another thing to think about ministry in a more holistic sense when you’re caring for…
Alex’s Testimony: A Miraculous Transformation
Alex is one of our School Without Walls students and Bible camp leaders from Russia. His testimony is one of miraculous transformation that began when God saved his life after repeated suicide attempts. Today, Alex is a thriving leader who is serving the church, ministering to hurting people, and reaching his community for Christ. Alex’s testimony: “You could say that I came to know God through many challenges. When I was younger, my heart was filled with emptiness, loneliness, pain, and resentment toward many people who had betrayed me. In order to stifle the pain, I started doing martial arts. But that wasn’t enough to heal me, so I tried committing suicide twice. The first time I tried to kill myself, my mother was able to stop me in time. I think this first attempt was a cry for attention, because I wanted people to know the inner pain I was…
Ambassadors for Christ
Mission Eurasia’s School Without Walls (SWW) program is a flexible leadership and ministry training program that trains and equips young Christian leaders in Eurasia and Israel to transform their communities from within. Some of our SWW graduates go on to traditional ministry roles after graduation, like church planting, pastoring, and full-time evangelism—all God-honoring vocations that are crucial to the body of Christ. But many of our graduates emerge from School Without Walls with the vision that their personal mission field is their own schools, neighborhoods, and workplaces. They put the tools that they’ve received from the SWW program to use as they share the gospel within their unique circles of influence and live their everyday lives as a testament to the transforming power of the gospel. Veronica, one of our 2013 SWW graduates from Belarus, recently shared with us how her SWW training gave her a new perspective on how…
Creatively Sharing the Gospel in the Workplace
Our School Without Walls (SWW) students are trained and equipped to use creative ways of living out the gospel in their workplaces, even if they are not allowed to share their faith openly. Many SWW students and graduates–like Alina, a young school teacher in Russia–use their vocations as a form of ministry to their colleagues, employers, students, and those around them–they truly see the workplace as a mission field. Alina shared how God is using her as a minister of the gospel in the school where she teaches: “I have been a 1st-4th grade teacher for two years. I really like my job, and I can’t imagine working anywhere else. The director of my school knows I am a Christian, and after I was hired, he told me that he and his family are also believers. There are 28 children in my class, and they are all very different. Whenever I experience…
Elza’s Testimony: The Truth Will Set You Free
Elza is one of our first School Without Walls graduates from Russia. She and her husband planted a church several years ago in the capital city of Kalmykia, Russia and they feel called to minister to the native Kalmyk people there. Elza has an incredible faith story about how God touched her heart and convicted her to renounce Satanic influence in her life. The Truth of Christ has truly set her free! Elza and her husband considered themselves good Kalmyks – they zealously followed Kalmyk traditions, and their tribe could trace its ancestry back to Genghis Khan. They were very proud of their identity and history, studying Kalmyk culture, music, folklore, and making frequent trips to Mongolia. In keeping with Kalmyk tradition they married early, and by the age of 16 Elza was already expecting her first baby. Elza’s husband was a third generation healer – he had inherited an…
A New Family in School Without Walls
After suffering from divorce and a tragic car accident, Fatima felt hopeless and bitter. But God intervened in her life in a miraculous way, just when all seemed lost. Fatima shared her testimony of faith with us and communicated the transformative impact that the witness and love of our School Without Walls teachers and graduates had on her life: “I used to be very arrogant and proud. I didn’t believe in God, and I refused to acknowledge His existence. Since religion in Ossetia is a mixture of paganism and Christianity, many people are very devout, but they also worship false gods and build temples and altars to perform senseless rituals. My family would often reproach me for refusing to take part in their pagan rituals, but I argued that, if there was no God, then it didn’t make sense to do these rituals, and if He did exist, then He…