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This January our team is partnering with Promise Land Ministries in Papua New Guinea for one of the most ambitious projects they have ever attempted. From January 5 to February 7, a team of six volunteers will travel to a very underdeveloped region to help build a church that will serve more than four hundred people.

For many years, the ministry has planted small village churches, but after much prayer and discussion they realized the need for a larger, central church in the city. Local believers do not have trained builders or access to proper construction resources. This new building will become a meeting place, a ministry hub, and a spiritual home for hundreds who are hungry for the gospel.

About Promise Land Ministries

Promise Land Ministries is led by the Konstantinik family, missionaries from Ukraine who moved to Papua New Guinea in 2011. For more than fourteen years they have lived among the local people and dedicated their lives to discipleship, church planting, youth ministry, and reaching remote communities that have little or no biblical teaching.

They have planted daughter churches, trained young leaders, and walked with families through challenges most of the world never sees. Their mission motto is simple and powerful: One more soul for Jesus, make disciples. Their heart is to build strong churches that can stand on their own and raise leaders from within the community.

Why this project is different

The local believers are hardworking and devoted, but they have never built a structure like this. Most construction in rural Papua New Guinea is done the traditional way using bush materials, woven walls, bamboo frames, and grass roofing. These homes are often built with hand tools and no measurements, no welding, and no engineered structures. They are functional for village life but cannot support a large congregation.

This church requires a steel frame, proper welding, engineered support, and a strong roof that can withstand extreme rain, wind, and heat. Without outside help, the community simply does not have the knowledge or equipment to complete a building of this size.

One of the men joining the team is bringing a unique and critical skill. He owns a metal fabrication shop in the United States and has more than thirty five years of experience in welding, custom iron work, and building large steel frame structures. His expertise will guide the entire construction process and train the local believers in the work.

Project challenges

  • There are no design plans or engineering drawings. Everything must be created on site once the team arrives.
  • The steel frame will likely be nine to eleven feet on the sides and eighteen to twenty feet at the center to handle heavy rainy seasons and the intense heat.
  • A welding machine must be purchased on site. Wire welding materials are extremely limited and difficult to find.
  • Welding electrodes take long to work with in the climate and terrain.
  • A generator of at least five to six kilowatts must be sourced.
  • A crane will need to be hand built to lift and position beams for the upper structure.
  • January is the best and only workable season because other months bring constant rain or dangerous heat.
  • The goal is to build the full frame within one month.

Why support is urgently needed

A small church in PNG normally costs about fifteen thousand dollars. This project is far larger and requires steel, transportation, tools, equipment, generators, welding supplies, and food for the team. The minimum budget needed is fifty thousand dollars.

Without help, this church cannot be built. It will become the central location for worship, discipleship, training, youth ministry, and community impact. Hundreds of people are waiting for a place to gather and grow in Christ.

How you can partner with this mission

Your support will directly help purchase materials, equipment, generators, welding supplies, steel, transportation, and basic needs for the volunteers and local believers working on site. Every gift lifts another beam, strengthens the ministry, and brings the church one step closer to completion.

With the escalation of the war in Ukraine in Feb of 2022, life changed for a lot of Europeans. When Ukrainian families had to flee because their cities and villages were being bombed, someone had to take them in. Poland, Romania, Moldova, Hungary and Slovakia are among the top European recipients of refugees as they border Ukraine and have been very helpful and supportive in this time of need. But these countries couldn’t take in millions and millions of refugees on their own, and a lot of other European countries stepped in to help. As of late June 2022, nearly 7 million Ukrainians have fled their country, with more than half, around 4.3 million, going to Poland. No doubt Poland has taken in the greatest amount of refugees, but its not easy to house, feed and provide medical attention to an influx of over 4 million people by a country Poland’s size. Of course not all 4.3 million refugees stayed in Poland. Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany and a few others bordering Poland have been helping relieve the burden Poland has taken on.

Pastor Slavik Mayboroda, being from Ukraine, wanted to help at least some the people fleeing his own country. He left Russia with his family, where they’d been doing missionary work in the Far-East for over 20 years now, and went to Latvia. In Latvia, he first served the Ukrainian refugees as a pastor and counselor, talking to people and praying with them. Most of them still had family in Ukraine. He later joined volunteers from churches to help bring smore Ukrainian refugees in to Latvia from Poland.

Egor Krasheninnikov was born in 1996 together with his sister Galya. They are twins. Galya is 15 minutes older. There are three children in the family. There is an older brother, Kolya, born in 1995.
When they were still children, mom and dad parted ways. Some time later, in 2015, their dad drowned in the Kur River, near the village of Pobeda, under unknown circumstances.
In September 2016, during a family quarrel, his stepfather, who was drunk, stabbed Egor in the stomach. Egor lost a lot of blood. He was taken to Khabarovsk by helicopter. Several operations were performed. The last one was in May 2017. As a result, he was left with a colostomy.
A few years ago we had one of our summer camps in the village of Pobeda. Egor came to the camp and so we got to know each other better. After a while, we learned about what had happened to him earlier. When we asked if he was planning to undergo an operation to remove the colostomy, he said that he was afraid of the consequences, because the last operation was very unsuccessful and with dire consequences.
But the main thing is that he began to read the Gospel and attend church services. In 2020, he received holy water baptism. After a while, in a conversation, he said that he agrees to do the operation to remove the colostomy. In November, we started the preparation process. As a result, the operation is scheduled for June 16. Egor has now undergone a preoperative examination. On June 14th we should get the result.
We ask you to pray for him. As of now, he is the only Christian among his relatives.
If God puts it on your heart, you can take part in his surgery financially. You can donate right here on our website, just add “Egors Surgery” in the memo.

Plans for this summer are a little different. Our local partners in Khabarovsk have some prayer requests. They changed the schedule for this years village ministry back by about a month. They did this because a missionary family that is willing to help them with the program is going back to the US later in the summer, therefore this is the only time they can help. The summer ministry is planned to start around June 21.

Changing the schedule isn’t the biggest problem though. There is a need and prayer request to anyone who can join us. There aren’t enough volunteers for this years summer program in the villages. They are short on leaders. Please pray that God opens a door for extra help, or gives them the strength and wisdom on how to do it with the team they have.

They have a VBS style program planned for the kids of 3 villages; Pobeda, Ulika and Sanboli. The kids program is developed by the local church where Pastor Slavik is leading his ministry form. It is based on the Superbook series in hopes of reaching the kids in a different way this year.

All your prayers and support are greatly appreciated!

Even though times are tough, God’s people are still doing His work. Much work has been done on church buildings in Pineda and Ulika in these past several months. We appreciate all who have been praying and supporting the ministry! We can’t do it with you. All praise be to our Lord God for blessing us through this difficult time.

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A tragedy hit close to home, in fact one home in particular, in one of the villages where we have been doing VBS kids camps over the years, a house burned down. Aunt Nina became a member of the local church in Pobeda when Pastor Slavik started ministering there.

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Dear friends, I greet you all with the love of Jesus Christ!

“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.” Ecclesiastes 9:10(KJV)

I would like to share briefly what God allowed us to do, with His help, this winter during the Christmas season.

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