Hope Ongoing International

06/30/2024

SO! It's been a long time since I posted! Things have been difficult since we left Ukraine and we were so broken hearted (still are) to see what is happening to the people and places we love so much in that country! While we fully intend to continue our work in Ukraine, and hope to even step it up a bit, we are also FINALLY finding a home here in the states!

Oksana and I have moved to Arkansas and now live just a few miles from Jonathan and Michelle! Our team is getting closer together! We have GINORMOUS plans and of course, the dreams always follow what we believe GOD IS LEADING US TO DO. We are praying step by step to be sure that we remain close to Him and that we don't step one inch outside of His will. Please join us in prayer as we seek Him in this endeavor!

You'll be hearing a lot more about this as we move forward. Keep your eyes open and your ears to the ground. So much more to come. See the picture below - we are endeavoring to buy this property and develop it for a ministry center. Both community services and intentional ministry will be the focus of this project. We plan to offer opportunities for outreach within Clarksville all over the world!

If you're interested in being involved, you can help in a TON of ways.

*Financially at https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=XTPMGBMN2XXEW or the website at www.hopeongoinginternational.org

* providing labor to fix up the building
* Spreading the word to get others involved
* If you're not from around here, maybe your church or organization could bring a team to help with the work that needs to be done.
* provide food, snacks or water for the work days we will be having

There are all kinds of ways we can pull together. This is a monumental task, but we serve an even bigger God. He will use this facility in incredible ways! Get ready to work! God is on the move!

12/27/2023

Come one come all to Christ's Hope New Year's Eve All Nighter!

Bring your teen for a night of fun, food, and games! Click the link below to register.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/new-years-eve-all-nighter-tickets-776601484947

09/22/2023

We have seen almost 2500 new people reached through the FB ads! That is an amazing new approach, but we are still not seeing any giving from the ads and that is the need right now. We have four families seeking to come to America under this program and each family will require a significant amount of funding to bring here. These people are from a war-torn country where they have left behind literally everything they own except a few measly things and they need our help. Many of them have lost their homes, their cars, some have lost their families and everything they owned. They have bounced around Europe for over a year trying to find a place where they could just settle down and rest. Some have moved 4 or 5 times in the past year and a half. Here, they will be able to work, to live in a decent apartment or house and have a community of people to support them as they move forward toward healing and starting to put their lives back together again. If you can find it in your heart, please consider making a donation of any amount toward this ministry. Go to the website and click on the give button and follow the prompts from there. 100% of what you give goes to the ministry. Not one penny is used for administrative costs. Right now, we have an immediate need for a refrigerator for Max and his family. It can be a used one and it doesn't have to be pretty - they just need something to keep food in so they can have it handy for themselves instead of using the one belonging to the people they live with. If you can help with this, send us a message! Thank you so much and God bless!

09/18/2023

https://hopeongoinginternational.org/donations/donation-form/

In 2008, on his first mission trip to Ukraine, Gary met Dima. When he first met him, Dima was an arrogant, self-absorbed young man who had no time to discuss Christ. He could be pleasant, but it often depended on what one could do for him as to how pleasant he could be. With all of that, Gary was st...

09/17/2023

Our first ever FB ad is trending well, but we have not received any donations yet. This is a test run to see if the ads would help us raise funds toward bringing these families over from Ukraine (or surrounding areas now) to America. The cost is prohibitive, and we don't want to be limited to only bringing the people who can afford it on their own. There are many people and the door will be closing soon. Pray with us for an out pouring of enough to cover the amount we need for the task at hand. We currently have 4 families and one more student that we just found out about this week. We don't want to say no to anyone! Can you help us get the word out?

09/15/2023

We posted our first Facebook Ad today to start raising funds through FB for our outreach for Ukrainian Refugees. Please let us know if you see the ad!

07/14/2022

Hey Friends! I am looking for churches to partner with Hope OnGOing and our Ukraine Ministry. Would you be willing to talk to your pastor or your mission team about setting up a meeting with me to discuss the possibilities I would love to have a conversation about what we are doing. Private message me if you might be willing to help make a meeting with your pastor or mission team possible!

Will you talk to your pastor or mission team for me?

01/26/2022

Sorry for the long post, but necessary for explanation! Thanks for praying about this!

Dear Friends,

I have an urgent request for you today. It is heavy on my heart, and I am hesitant to ask, but I feel compelled and need to seek help with this situation, as time is of the essence and this being a God-sized task, I cannot accomplish it alone.

As most of you may already know, I found the love of my life in Ukraine. I am engaged to be married and started the process for a visa, which is expected to take 6 – 9 months. Well, President Putin from Russia is threatening that process greatly now. With the growing tensions between Russia and Ukraine, the threat of invasion seems imminent. American military analysts believe Putin will invade Ukraine within the next couple of months. If Putin invades, all visa applications will come to a halt for an unforeseeable period of time. If in fact Putin takes possession of Ukraine, visa’s may never again be issued. As Russia and America are not cooperating with visa interactions currently due to strained relations.

I spoke with my lawyers today and asked if the visa could be expedited or if there might be an emergency visa we could pursue. They said there is and that they would investigate the possibilities and get back to me tomorrow sometime. Then the shocker (which is not really a huge shock) the visa will cost about $10,000. With the visa fees and plane tickets, it could run as much as $15,000. I simply do not have $15,000.

I am writing to ask you as my previous supporters to consider helping raise this amount, but I only have a matter of days, not weeks, in which to accomplish this huge task. And, I am sorry to say, this will NOT be tax deductible since it is not for a ministry purpose, but for a personal purpose. It is simply a favor for me and to get her out of the country before the war escalates and the visa can no longer be acquired.

Maybe I know 15 people who could give $1000. Or maybe I know 100 people who could give $150? Who knows what the combinations might be? If you would be willing to give something toward this goal, I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate your generosity. There are several ways in which you can give directly. Those ways are listed below. I am sorry to say it is urgent, and super timely. If you are unable to give at this time, I totally understand, but I still covet your prayers. I love you very much and thank you for your support.

Cash App: $gchad2003

Venmo: -Chadwick-4

Mail (please use express or priority mail)
Make Check out to Gary Chadwick
Mail to: Gary Chadwick
3000 Chautauqua Ave, Unit 119
Norman, OK 73072

Love in Christ,
Gary Chadwick

01/21/2022

Many of you may not know, but it is my joy and pleasure to announce to you that I am now fully and excitedly ENGAGED!! I asked Oksana Gazizova to marry me and she said yes! We have begun the process of applying for the VISA and are just waiting to hear from the government on that. It will take 6 - 9 months, but one day, we will have that VISA and it will be final! God is good! Prayers appreciated!

09/08/2021

Hello everyone!

I just wanted to give you an update! I am pretty much settled in at my new place in Oklahoma, and it is going really well. I am adjusting to the climate here and, though I really miss Ukraine, I am also excited to be here with this new adventure ahead of me.

I also want to make sure you know that the ministry in Ukraine is still happening. Things are actually gearing up and getting stronger. We have a really good team of nationals, and we also have a couple of Americans that come and go from time to time. This week, we are working on opening the Youth Center, and the team there in Ukraine started Moral Lessons in Agronomia this week. It is a really exciting time in Ukraine, and I hate to miss it, but praise the Lord, it is still happening even though I am gone. God is moving and moving strongly!

I am asking you to continue your support of this ministry even though I am not living in Ukraine at the time. This Youth Center is a crucial part of the plan for ministry in Agronomia. We have been working toward the funding for the center, and while we are progressing, there is still a need for more funds to help facilitate this project. The past few weeks, several of our regular givers have not sent anything in, primarily because they think that since I came home, there is no ministry going on. I humbly and genuinely ask you to consider giving as God allows you to do so. We have about 50 students that need a place to go and hear about the Lord. It is essential for them to be able to receive the Gospel and the follow up Bible Study to grow in Christ. I am asking you to consider giving to this ministry to help provide a place for the Gospel to be presented and for true discipleship to continue. Your gifts have been the only thing that has allowed us to accomplish this ministry and I am deeply grateful that you have chosen to support us over the past several years. I believe we are on the verge of an amazing breakthrough that will allow the people of Agronomia to experience a move of God like never before. I am asking you to help us do this as so God allows. Thank you again so much for all you have ever done for this ministry. I love you and appreciate you deeply.

08/17/2021

Greetings!

The drive to Norman, Oklahoma was uneventful! I first drove to Arkansas and visited my friends for a couple of days, then here to Norman. I checked into my Airbnb and rested for a bit, then went to get a bite to eat and then the folks who own the apartment I wanted to look at sent me a message to tell me I could look at it tonight instead of tomorrow if I wanted, so I did! It is PERFECT! Fully furnished with nice furniture and with everything I need to live on my own already in place. I will have to buy very little – mostly my personal items like body wash, toothpaste and so forth. I searched for furnished apartments, and this was the only one that came up and it just happened to be open even though it is rental frenzy time here in the area with OU getting ready to start back up. I can see the Hand of God on every aspect of this move, and it is incredible! I was fretting about having to buy furniture, pots and pans, towels and everything else – making plans to scour the local thrift stores immediately – and God put this Condo in my path! He is good, and I am super grateful.

For those of you who might have missed it, I will be serving at Life.Church here in Norman. I will be the Associate Pastor of Life Groups & Life Missions. I am really excited about this opportunity. If I had to leave Ukraine, it is certainly wonderful to be able to do something I love while I am here. I’m looking forward to my first day, which is the 23rd. Your prayers for continuing in the transition with this move will be more than appreciated!

Check out Life.Church online, or if you don’t have a church that you attend and live near a Life.Church facility, go in and see what you think. It is a pretty amazing place! I promise you will find friendships there – and the place for that is Life Groups! C’mon, Y’all! Give it a shot!

I love you all very much! God bless and I will write again soon!

08/11/2021

Boy, do I have an update for you! After living in Ukraine for the past couple of years, and going to Ukraine since 2008, a couple of months ago, I found out my funding was being shifted. It was not because of anything anyone did wrong, there were no disagreements or anything like that, it just changed, and I found I needed to return to America to work and live, in order to have a paycheck. I arrived in Bastrop last Tuesday.

In late May, when I first realized this may be a possibility, I prayed that God would give me direction and help me transition as smoothly as possible so the ministry in Ukraine would not suffer – after all, I hope to continue going, I just won’t live there for a while. It is amazing how God answers prayer.

I had set a goal to have so many days in a row on my YouVersion Bible app for a streak. Not so I could proudly say “look what I have done!” but to keep me accountable and to be able to have something tangible to keep me motivated. I was almost to my goal, and then the team from Arkansas arrived in Ukraine, and I opened up my app at 12:01. My streak was back to 1. I wasn’t mad or anything, but a little bummed. After we arrived back at my home and I went to bed, I opened the app again, just looking to see if it might be possible to restore it to my streak. It wasn’t, but I found the creator of the Bible app to be Life.Church, which I thought was really cool, so I looked at the website. I was amazed at how “ME” this church seemed to be. There was a jobs tab, so I clicked on it. I found a couple of positions I thought sounded like might be a good fit, so I filled out an application and returned it. Later on, I got an email requesting a phone interview. It seemed too good to be true and I was amazed at how open and friendly the interviewer was (Thanks, Krissa!). That interview was followed by another, then another, then another, and here just weeks later, I have accepted a position as Associate Pastor of Life Groups and Life Missions. I will be based in Norman, Oklahoma and I might be there for a while or I might be there for a matter of months, and move to another location. I honestly have no idea what the future holds, but I can absolutely say I KNOW for sure that God has put this opportunity in my path. I will be going to Arkansas to visit my good friends the Whitlock’s this Thursday, and on Monday, I will head to Norman to find a place to live and all of that fun stuff that follows this kind of situation. It is amazing how God works and just how He answers our prayers. I truly believe this church will be where I am able to do the greatest, most genuine ministry of my life. I have LOVED being a Youth Pastor. I have LOVED being a Missionary (I will still be going to Ukraine!). I am extremely excited to see what God has in store for me in Norman. Your prayers for transition would be greatly appreciated!

What is going to happen to Hope OnGOing, you ask? Well, as I already said, I will still be going to Ukraine. I am still going to complete the house projects and the camps, Youth Center and all of that will still happen. My Assistant, Vasya, will be doing a lot of stuff in my absence, and I can say honestly, I am leaving that part of the work in great hands. My friends Timothy & Inna and Nataly & Andrew plus my cousin Quentin and others will continue the ministry as well. I will still be the person raising the funds. Remember, as I have said from the start, 100% of what you give goes directly to the ministry. Not one penny supports any of our missionaries. Every missionary is responsible for raising support themselves. I pray that you will continue to support this ministry as you have in the past, and even more so. There is much to be done and I know in my heart God is not through with me in Ukraine either.

Thank you so much for all your prayers and love over the past 13 years since I first started going to Ukraine. God has done amazing things and I am incredibly blessed. Thank you, and I love you.

By the way, Life.Church has an amazing online community! If you’d like to check it out, just go to Life.Church – yes, just put Life.Church into your browser window. I promise it will come up for you! If you are near a Life.Church, check it out in person, if you do not already have a church home. It’s different. It’s incredible. And, also by the way, they are still hiring!