Vladimir Kalabujov: The Lord Is Doing Something

I was born in Uruguay, but my grandparents were from Russia and immigrated after the Second World War. I came to Christ at a young age, got baptized and had youth pastors guide me into adulthood. 

In 2016, I was with my wife at a family bible camp [in Uruguay] and after the preaching, both of us felt we wanted to be in ministry. That night, I said, “Hey, I want to serve the Lord full-time.” And she said, “I feel the same thing.” So, we started praying for that. 

We applied to Rio Grande Bible College in 2021 after hearing about it from a friend. During our studies, I did a short internship at a Free Church in Green Bay, my first connection with the EFCA. Later, we heard about a pastor role at Galena Bible Church (EFCA) in Galena, Illinois. The church called us and said, “We want someone to be the pastor of the Hispanic community at our church.” In June 2025, after graduation, we went to Galena.

When we arrived, there was only one Hispanic man who was a recent Christian, and he was growing his faith and going to Bible studies. We started one-on-one discipleship and encouraged him to grow in the Lord and invite others. My wife and I started to meet people in the Hispanic community—visiting businesses, restaurants and coffee shops—and inviting them to come to church. We also offered eight weeks of English classes, which opened doors, and after that, we had a group of five or six people. We hosted Bible studies in Spanish on Wednesday night and started offering live translation during the main service on Sunday.  

The Lord is doing something. One woman from our ESL classes started coming to Bible studies and then brought her whole family. Another family was looking for the Lord, saw one of our Facebook videos and started coming. Now we have three families and some individuals coming Sunday mornings. If we're all together, we are around 26 people. The Lord is doing something. Good things are happening, and we hope to have more souls come to the Lord.