Since 2012, Ihor and Alona Minenko have been leading the ministry of RD Ukraine ("Helping Hand").
We help local Christian churches to start and develop teen and youth ministries, we train and mentor leaders of local churches, and we develop and distribute the resources needed to make that happen.
Over these years, by God's help, we have launched a range of training programmes — today you and your church can:
Invite us to run a training or a seminar
- Evangelism
- How to run an Alpha course
- Building a culture of discipleship
- Youth ministry strategy
- Leadership and leadership teams
Earn a theological degree at CLST
- modular online study
- from bachelor's to doctor of theology
- a US-accredited diploma
Develop your teen and youth ministry
- we train leaders
- we build teams
- we develop materials
Join the RD Camps for teenagers
- bring a group of your teenagers
- learn to run camps of your own
How it began
The name "Helping Hand" was given to our organisation by Serhii Suknenko back in 1996. He was the first Ukrainian leader of RD.
From 1992 onwards God sent many ministers and missionaries from different countries, especially from the United States, and they ran a wide range of trainings. Serhii was one of the students of these youth ministry programmes, and he was also running a ministry among unchurched young people in the Borshchahivka district of Kyiv. Later, with the help of Reach Out Solution — led at the time by its founder Barry St. Clair — a team took shape that became known as "Helping Hand".
Under the leadership of Serhii Suknenko many new directions of ministry developed. Among the best known were "Idea Pack", a magazine for youth leaders, the gatherings of youth leaders in cities across Ukraine known as "Strilka", and the annual youth training conferences. We want to remember everyone who gave so much to the growth of the organisation: missionary John Gordon, Nataliia Kulbich, Oleksandr Pasichnyk, Arsen Huzhva, Hennadii Vakulenko.
In 1997 missionary Douglas Landro joined the team. At the end of 1998 the International Charitable Foundation "Helping Hand" was founded and registered, and it carried the main projects of RD. In Douglas Landro's words: "The purpose and vision of this international organisation reflects the purpose and vision of Reach Out Youth Solutions (ROYS). We handed leadership of this organisation to Ukrainian leaders and we help them grow and be effective in ministry."
In 2000 ROYS became one of many partners of the Association for Spiritual Renewal (ASR), a church-planting ministry with 24 regional centres, nine of them in Ukraine. We worked locally with the Ukrainian Baptist Union, helping those centres develop youth ministry inside the churches they planted.
2002 was a very hard year for our ministry. For RD it began with a financial crisis and misunderstandings within the leadership, which brought us dangerously close to closing. The RD board then asked ROYS to take over the leadership of the foundation until a new president could be found. Merging ROYS and RD proved to be a good decision: it removed many of the past obstacles to the growth of the international ministry. The tension eased and we moved forward more flexible and stronger than ever.
In 2003 Douglas Landro became president, and "Helping Hand" joined the Next Generation Churches project, aimed at planting urban churches across Ukraine for postmodern young people. The publishing house "Teenager" was also founded. From that point RD began to publish a range of books, including bestsellers such as "A Wonderful Wife", "An Exemplary Husband" and "Parenting with Love and Logic".
In 2004 we became founders and members of the Youth Ministry Alliance of Ukraine, a network of denominational and organisational leaders involved in youth ministry in Ukraine. We were the first organisation to chair the Alliance, during 2004–2005.
In 2005–2006 the Alliance held the youth festivals "My Time". Around 7,000 delegates attended these two festivals; Ihor Minenko was the administrator of both.
In 2005 Ihor joined our team as director of training. In 2012 he was elected president of RD.
2013 became the year the publishing work was restored and expanded: the transition from the "Teenager" publishing house to the RD Press publishing house, and later printing house, was completed. RD Press not only kept the earlier titles but began developing and publishing new ones, among them "The Veil of Silence", "The Messianic Church Restored", "Teen and Youth Ministry by the Book", "Building a Culture of Discipleship", "The Colouring Bible" and "Life in Sonship".
Between 2005 and 2022, together with volunteer leaders from many churches, we ran year-long Schools of Youth Ministry in more than 80 churches. Over the life of the organisation we have held hundreds of conferences and published thousands of magazines and books for church leaders.
In 2007 "Helping Hand" became part of the international mission International Teams, later renamed One Collective. In 2008 we became the official representative of the Youth Alpha course in Ukraine. Since 2024 Ihor and Alona have served as Alpha course coordinators for Ukraine.