By George Thomas, CBN News
Fifteen years ago, a young Ukrainian couple left everything behind to follow what they believed was God’s calling to one of the most remote places on earth.
They arrived with little more than faith, a dream, and no idea how profoundly their lives, and the lives of countless others, would be changed.
Ira and Jenya Konstantinik arrived in the rugged highlands of Papua New Guinea in 2011.
Far from their home in Ukraine and far from modern conveniences, they stepped into the jungle believing this was where God had called them to serve.
ROMANCE OF BEING A JUNGLE MISSIONARY DIDN’T LAST LONG
“For the first week, it was so romantic,” Ira recalled.
“Everything was so exciting, here I am a missionary in Papua New Guinea.”
The romance, however, didn’t last long.
“Then we all got sick. So, the romantic period was done,” she said
CHALLENGES OF SERVING IN A PRIMITIVE WORLD
“I had to wash clothes. I had to get up in the morning, make a fire.”
“I have to grow my own food, which I have no idea how to.”
“I didn’t speak the language that people here speak.”
There was no electricity, no running water, and no toilet.
“We were so poor as missionaries, we didn’t even have the money to buy a mattress,” Jenya reflected.
FIRST YEAR WAS “NO WALK IN THE PARK”
The couple arrived with their two-year-old son, Matviy, and settled near Yonki Dam in the Eastern Highlands Province.
Their home, which was basically a hut made of bamboo and leaves, was right around the bend of a lake.
That first year as missionaries was no walk in the park.
“Rats were crawling under our blankets, on our legs, bellies at night,” Ira remembered.
AFTER RATS CAME THE ANTS
Then came a moment Ira says she’ll never forget.
She woke up in the middle of the night, lit a lantern, and looked at her son.
“I saw that his face was covered in ants,” Ira exclaimed.
“They were coming out of his nose, his ears, his mouth, everything.”
“His white face. I couldn’t see his skin. It was all completely covered in ants.”
GOD CALLS OUT TO IRA WHILE A TEENAGER IN KYIV
Long before that night in Papua New Guinea, as a teenage girl in Ukraine, Ira had a dream.
“I felt the Lord speaking to me. You have to leave your place in Kyiv and go out as a full time missionary.”
She had one more prayer.
“I told God: Lord, either you give me a husband who is a missionary or I won’t be married.”
“I wanted a husband who’ll be so crazy for God as I am, or even more.”
GOD LEADS IRA TO A BELIEVING HUSBAND
A year later, she met Jenya. At the time, his life looked very different.
“Before I met Christ, I was living a very troubled life,” Jenya explained.
“I loved to fight, smoked, drank alcohol, sold drugs, stole, and was involved in gang activity.”
But the former street fighter turned his life around, became a missionary, and met Ira.
COUPLE SENSE A CALLING TO THE PAPUA NEW GUINEA JUNGLE
“I really, really, really liked her for who she was, both inside and out, and that same day I knew she was the woman God had brought into my life,” Jenya said.
“Oh, man, I couldn’t speak. He looked so handsome with his curly hair and blue eyes and dark skin, and I couldn’t speak,” Ira recalled.
They first served in Russia before sensing a new calling – Papua New Guinea – a place neither had ever seen.
“I didn’t even know where Papua New Guinea was,” said Jenya.
WARNINGS THAT THEY COULD BE EATEN BY CANNIBALS
Not everyone supported their decision.
“They told me, ‘Look at yourself. What if you fail? What if you get sick? What if you get eaten, you know, in Papua New Guinea there are people who eat people?‘”
After returning to Ukraine for the the birth of their daughter, Ira found herself questioning whether she could go back to PNG.
But something changed inside her.
COUPLE NOW CALL PAPUA NEW GUINEA THEIR HOME
She says her love for the Papua people had grown deeper than she ever imagined.
“For the first time in my life I could feel just a tiny bit of God’s love for them, how God feels for them, how God’s heart is broken for them,” Ira revealed.
“In that instant moment, I knew, I’m going back, and not only that I’m going back, but I will also never call Ukraine my home again.”
“I will call Papua New Guinea my home.”
AFTER 15 YEARS THEIR MINISTRY IS THRIVING
After 15 years there, Ira and Jenya have adopted several local children while their own are now teenagers spreading the Gospel.
The couple run medical clinics, schools, a women’s ministry and a prison ministry.
They have been donated a house and land which they call ‘Promise Land’.
It includes a large open air church.
They’re now building an even bigger one and planting more churches across the highlands.
PRAYERS FOR UKRAINE
Jenya has negotiated peace and reconciliation with warring local tribes.
And Ira’s cooking and baking have become legendary throughout the highlands.
The couple still have a heart for their homeland with blue and yellow signs dotted around their home, daubed on their clothes and pasted on their vehicles.
They pray every day for Ukraine, for their families, and for an end to the war
You can find out more about their incredible mission in George Thomas’s video report here
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