Vitaliy & Sofia Andriiets

Vasilii, Varvara, Alisa, Fedir

Vitalіy was born and raised in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine. He accepted Christ and was born again in 2010 in a small, family-style church. Vitaliy attended seminary in the Department of Teenage and Youth Ministry at the Kyiv Theological Seminary. In 2014, Vitaliy and his family were forced to leave their hometown due to the beginning of fighting and war in that region. God led them to the wonderful city of Cherkasy in the central part of Ukraine. It was there that Vitaliy discovered himself as a missionary - visiting Kenya, India, and Sierra Lyon with various ministries. It was also in Cherkasy in 2017 when God led Vitaliy’s heart to start a workshop called Wise Carpenter—where Christian men share their experience of working with tools and studying biblical wisdom. Today, Vitaliy is the head of the now public organization Wise Carpenter, which aims to help men and churches to create similar workshops where they can disciple boys and young men. Currently, there are 12 functioning Wise Carpenter workshops throughout Ukraine.

Now, through a partnership with Epokha (Josiah Venture Ukraine’s partner organization), Vitaliy has a vision of developing this movement throughout Ukraine and Central and Eastern Europe. His dream is to expand the Wise Carpenter movement—where men will disciple boys and young men around the world. Vitaliy and Sofia have been married for 12 years and have 4 children. Sofia currently serves on the Sunday school team at our local church in Cherkasy. She guides young children and prepares lessons for them. She also gathers together with other women once a week for prayer.

During the first three months of the war, Vitaliy gathered a team of men with whom they constantly traveled to various hot spots in order to provide humanitarian aid to those who needed it and to evacuate the civilian population from areas where shelling was taking place. Since June, he has returned to his vision and continued to minister to boys as well as ignite men to minister to boys.