Pastors Larry and Jacque Reichardt, of South Coast Fellowship in Ventura, CA, are on their forth visit to Ukraine and are teaching this week in the Joshua Missionary Bible Institute. I was able to spend a few minutes with them on Wednesday afternoon after a full day of teaching.

DS: Introduce yourselves and tell is a little about your ministry.

LR: My name is Larry Reichardt, this is my wife Jacque. I am a pastor in Ventura, CA, which is about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles. We’re right next to the ocean. We suffer from great weather all the time. So it is a really difficult place. We have an interdenominational charismatic church, which has been going for about 24 years. We feel blessed to be a part of it.

DS: Please tell us how and when you first came to Ukraine?

LR: We were trying to figure out the exact date, and I think it was 1998. We have a missionary that asked us to go into Eastern Europe with him. He was in Andorra, between France and Spain. He has a real heart for Eastern Europe and he asked us to come minister with him. We met him in Kyiv and one of his acquaintances said that we needed to come meet his pastor. He kept encouraging us to go see his pastor and we had no idea who he was at the time. And it turned out to be Pastor Sunday. So we went in and talked with Pastor Sunday and we prayed for him and he had his team at the time. And then we went down to a city called Mariupol and ministered there. We came back and then I started to correspond with Pastor Sunday over the Internet. We had a real passion for this government of 12 or the small groups of 12, this way of discipling. So while we interacted back and forth on the Internet about that, our friendship started to stir up. Then Pastor Sunday asked us to come over and preach in the Joshua School about the spirit of multiplication and duplication and ministering to the 12. So we came over and did it and that was our second visit. Ever since that time we have been corresponding and the friendship has grown.

DS: What is it like to have seen it from those years ago and to have been involved from the beginning and teaching those principles, and to come back now and see the fruits?

LR: It is exciting to see it. It is one of the greatest excitements we have to see it. When we first came over they were just beginning the groups of 12. I’m not sure how many they have now, I haven’t talked to Pastor Sunday, but the last time we were here, they had about 1,800 groups of 12. And to see this multiplication principle happen is just really exciting for us because, really, our heart is discipleship. And to teach in the Joshua School where there is a lot more understanding of it than the original time we were there and we first began to teach. There is a hunger. People have done it. They have sent the fruit of it. They have seen the miracles take place in those “care package,s” where people are cared for and nurtured and able to understand their giftedness and their importance and that they are all part of the body of Christ. It has been real exciting to see that take place, and also to see the heart of the ministry on equipping people to do the work of the ministry. Not just a person, but Pastor Sunday’s groups of 12, which he has since sent out to the world and now he is discipling another group. It is exciting to see those principles not only conceptionally, but practically put into place.

DS: Over the years you’ve come, what are some changes you have seen in the country, either positive or negative?

JR: One thing that I noticed, especially this time, and we have also seen world-wide with the Orange Revolution, is we really believe the Lord has used the church to change the city and He’s changing the nation. I know the second time we came they had shared where Pastor Sofia had been the one who had brought the whole idea of celebrating Mother’s Day and that was established – a change in the nation.

And we noticed even this time especially, I noticed because it has been three years since we’ve been here, that the billboards are much better though out the city than they were three years ago. They are much cleaner and you can look at them. Before it was difficult because of what was on them. So not only has the church been affecting individual lives within the church, they are touching the city and the nation too.

LR: We also saw the different ministries that have expanded – the homeless ministry, the increase there and the touching of the broken. Obviously with Pastor Natasha and the Rehabilitation Center – to see a lot of the people now in ministry that were in the rehabilitation center when we came. Now they are in ministry. We went to an orphanage and met a pastor there who had gone through Joshua School and was now pastoring out in a village. So you begin to see that fruit multiplying in the number of churches that have been planted, all of those are impacting and will continue to impact. So it is exciting to see the fruit, as you said, that remains. That is what brings God glory – the fruit that remains and that fruit is remaining and so it is neat to see that.