Foundation and history of the International Public Organisation "Hope to People"

The International Public Organization “Hope to People” (originally called the Christian Society “Missionary Brotherhood”) was established on the 29th of September, 1993, in Rivne, Ukraine. It was formed as a result of the reorganization of the Missionary Society “Light in the East”.

It was the year of 1988 and the population in the country began to perceive the absence of the promises made by Soviet leadership of the “bright” future. Social and political systems crisis as well as economic systems crisis became more and more evident. Inflation, half-empty stores, lines for the basic food, the introduction of rationing and controlling amount of supplies in the form of coupons…

All of this made people rethink their life and question authorities as to what happened and how they could survive in that situation.

Thus, God by His Sovereign will and prayers of many Christians prepared the ground for preaching the Gospel to a large number of people.

Now the Christians had to become active and carry the Gospel to the places where it was possible. Several Christian men, Sergiy Tupchyk, Oleksiy Melnychuk, Sergiy Timchenko, Anatoliy Nazaruk, Vitaliy Nazaruk, Taras Prystupa and others, first began to talk on the 7th of January, 1989, about the possibility of creating an organization aimed at spreading the Gospel to the nations of the Soviet Union and helping them plant new local churches.

And so the Missionary Society “Light of the Gospel” was registered on the 25th of February, 1989. The organization worked successfully until 1991. They had connections with many regions where the missionary work had already started. Little by little they gained experience of working in the new conditions. The results brought big joy for the successes and the mistakes were analyzed…

God’s Word was bringing light to many people indeed. God’s grace and mercy touched the hearts of the sinners who deserved death and did miracles, giving the Life. The regions where God’s Word sounded were Kyiv, Kharkov, Donetsk region, Moscow, the Volga river region, Urals, Russian Far East, Tatarstan, Tadzhikistan, Karachayevo-Cherkesiya, Tyva, Kalmykiya, Chukotka and Yakutiya. But it was a restless time for the country on the whole.
Several interethnic conflicts were inflamed on the territory of the USSR (Karabach, Fergana valley). In Crimea intensity occurred between Russians and the Crimean Tatars as the latter returned, in Northern Ossetia between the Ossetians and the Ingushes as the latter returned, etc.

Starting from 1991 a demographic crisis occurred as death rates exceeded birth rates.
During 1990—1991 a so called “parade of sovereignties” happened when all union republics and many autonomous republics declared their independence. Those conflicts cut many economic ties that worsened economic positions even more.

After the republics of the USSR declared their independence, it became very hard to work between different regions because of poor financial infrastructure, a collapsing economy and poor communication systems.
So it was decided to reorganize the Missionary Society “Light in the East” into the Association “Light of the Gospel” in 1993. It included independent missions. Such a mechanism of the work coordination was more effective in the changing political situation.


One such organization was the International Public Organization “Hope to People”. It continued the work of the missionary department of the “Light of the Gospel”, the head of which was Taras Prystupa. The founders, leaders and developers of the “Hope to People” were:

Taras Prystupa       Volodymyr Parhomey        Yuriy Pilipovich