History

Slavic International Association of Ministries “Good Samaritan” was birthed out of the prayers and tears of the persecuted church in W. Ukraine.

Vitaliy Radchuk, the patriarch of the family of eight, had traveled tirelessly on his motorcycle throughout the Former Soviet Union, preaching the Gospel and ministering to the underground church wherever he found it.

In 1985, a group of missionaries went out from W.Ukraine to spread the Gospel. Not able to go as Christian missionaries, they went as construction teams – remodeling buildings. They traveled 3,600 miles through Siberia, going close to Mongolia.

This group included the Radchuks and some of their spouses. God opened their hearts to all of the 140 nationalities represented in the USSR. They began all-night prayer meetings, praying for the freedom to preach the Gospel and the opportunity to reach the unreached small ethnic groups of the North. In 1989, the era of persecution ended and it became permitted to be able to hold evangelistic crusades.

The desire and gift of evangelism, confirmed through clandestine preaching trips with their father, came to fruition as the Radchuk brothers; Slavik, Pavel, Peter, Vasiliy, Yuriy and Victor, established the Good Samaritan Mission in 1989 (along with a team of brave young people). A little later, a three-story mission in Rivne West Ukraine, near the Polish border, was built.

For the first time in seventy years, this newfound freedom permitted preaching to be freely spoken in every stadium, cultural hall, city square, and church.  Evangelists, musicians, pastors and compassionate workers were sent out to churches, prisons, orphanages and to the needy.

Missionaries went from Rivne to the Russian/Ukrainian people and ethnic tribes of Far Eastern Russia called Magadan and Chukotka, located directly across from Alaska, in response to the vision of Pavel Radchuk. Television programs and radio broadcasts were produced on-site, as well as the training of a new crop of evangelical leaders and missionaries.

The first director of the mission was Slavik Radchuk and in 1992, Pavel Radchuk became its president. In 1994 the Radchuks immigrated to the United States to the city of Seattle, WA. Good Samaritan was registered as a non-profit charity organization in the state of Washington in 1994. Pavel Radchuk was president and his twin brother, Peter, was vice-president. The ministry looked similar to the mission in Rivne, with the added outreach of Humanitarian Aid, sent monthly by container, to Ukraine. Support, communication and coordination is maintained with the Rivne branch, which is under the leadership of Rostyslav Boryshkevych.