A Catalyst for Change

In 1991, Paul and Linda Wicklund and their three children took a trip to the Soviet Union. When they got back home, their hearts were moved by the hunger of Ukrainians for spiritual truths. The curtain was lifting on 70 years of atheism.

A year of prayer for God's leading was answered as their small group at Calvary Church in Roseville, Minnesota, contributed wholeheartedly toward adopting a sister church in Zolotonosha, Ukraine.

The link between Calvary and Zolotonosha grew strong as more and more volunteers headed for Ukraine. Many of these folks formed the beginnings of the Shepherd's Foundation as they "shared skills, helped provide community based answers to social needs and explored spiritual truths together
with their Ukrainian friends."

Shepherd's Foundation does a lot of coming alongside, says Paul Wicklund. We partner together with local community leaders. Teaming up with the Minnesota Baptist Conference, they shipped many containers packed with everything from food, clothing and medical supplies to agricultural products and seeds. Dr. Wicklund, an orthopedic surgeon, saw the need to team up with other medical and dental colleagues to provide desperately needed services in the communities where the MBC was forming sister church relationships. His wife, Linda, a former teacher, began linking Minnesota teachers and Ukrainian teachers.

The partnership idea expanded to include a program of home-stay visits that linked people with their career counterparts - teachers, law enforcement officers, attorneys, social workers, psychologists, businessmen, dentists, and physicians. During these week long stays, team members exchange ideas with their hosts, work side by side in their shared profession, and become lifelong friends. Ninety percent of the volunteers make return trips to stay again in the homes of their host families. Many Ukrainians have become believers through this program.

The educational partnerships have been particularly successful. Minnehaha Academy in Minneapolis Minnesota is currently linked with School No.2 in Zolotonosha Ukraine. Many teachers have participated in seminars and home-stays. Every summer teachers from Minnehaha travel to Zolotonosha to participate in an English camp for students. They are joined by the English teachers in the Zolotonosha schools.

One of the biggest areas of change has been in the field of dentistry. In a country with little preventative dental care, no fluoride, no flossing and incomplete removal of decay, the need is crucial. Shepherd's Foundation's volunteer dentists work together with Ukrainian dentists to share skills necessary to use modern high speed drills and up-to-date restorative materials. This work has expanded thanks to the donation of $40,000.00 of portable dental equipment. The dental teams have been providing dental care to 4 orphanages since 2003.

Shepherd's Foundation is a partner with Courage Center of Minnesota in providing rehabilitation services for mentally and physically challenged children. Rehabilitation centers in Zolotonosha and Cherkassy now serve a growing number of these children. In 1997 the Territorial Center in Zolotonosha began camps for these special children and their parents.

In Ukraine people love to read. After 70 years of atheistic communism, there were virtually no Christian books available. George Johnson from Cambridge, Minnesota, caught the vision for providing literature for churches and pastors. Under his leadership a printing business was established in Kremenchuk Ukraine. From this beginning a new organization, READ Ministries, was born 5 years ago. Hundreds of churches in Ukraine now have trained librarians and church libraries. The vision to expand to public schools, public libraries, and orphanages is a reality.

Within the past decade, Shepherd's Foundation has given practical help in a variety of other ways including finding foster homes for orphans, helping to establish a computer center serving 400 students, supporting a Senior Citizen Center and soup kitchen, Building a Community Youth Center, and providing agricultural products and expertise through the Heifer International Foundation.

Ukrainians are resourceful people and they are learning to cope with the upheaval of a troubled economy in this former Godless nation. Take for example the little house church in Zolotonosha made up of a half a dozen children and 25 senior citizens lead by a pastor/shoemaker. This congregation had a vision for building a church. The group of older adults took it upon themselves to construct this church with their own hands. They started to dig in April, 1991  normally the rainiest month of the year. As the scoffers did with Noah, detractors came to watch them dig, taunting them with comments like "Are you crazy, digging for a foundation in April? When the rain comes, you'll end up with nothing but a mud hole", but these die-hards said, "No, we are going to pray that it doesn't rain for the next three weeks." Their critics laughed, but no rain fell in their part of town until the foundation had been laid.

One day a businessman who had gone to grade school with Pastor Victor drove by. "Do you need anything?", he asked. "Yes, we could use 6,000 bricks, they replied." "No problem," he said. A short time later the bricks were delivered to the site. Because of their ingenuity, their own hard work and their perseverance and God's blessing, the total cost of the building came to less than $10,000.

But that's not the best part. Once they had their own building, people started coming and worshipping with them. This fledgling congregation has now grown to over 250 people and they have planted 13 churches in other villages. The original church now includes college graduates including many teachers who became believers through the outreaches of the church into the community.

God is changing our hearts, He is changing villages, and God is changing a nation for Himself.