Nick and Maia Mikhaluk, Co-Founders and International Ministry Leaders
Nick and Maia are Committed to Evangelism
Nick and Maia are committed to evangelism, equipping leaders and church planting in Ukraine and other former Soviet Union countries.
Here’s a bit of their story, which is truly God’s story.
Nick and Maia both grew up in non-Christian families, never wondering or even hearing about God. Maia’s father belonged to the Communist party and greatly influenced Maia who dedicated herself to the Communist Youth League, convinced that The Party was the sure pathway to success.
Maia majored in English at the Gorlovka Teacher Training Institute of Foreign Languages where in 1992 she encountered a group of students from BIOLA University. They represented Intervarsity’s Global Project for evangelism. Here, Maia first heard about Christ and the Gospel. Then, through her roommate, Carol and her parents, Jay and Betty Shanor, Maia experienced Christ’s love and believed!
Early Years
Nick and Maia were already married at this point and Maia related to Nick what Christ had done for her. He wanted none of it, or so it seemed. Over the next year he secretly began reading the Bible trying to understand what his wife was into. The Bible perplexed Nick so that he stalled out somewhere in Leviticus. However, God was not finished! Jay Shanor returned the next summer, allowing Nick to spend many hours asking questions with which he had hoped to confound Jay. Nick soon joined his wife in the faith; now a couple anchored together in Christ.
God quickly worked through Maia to start Bible study groups on campus. These groups became part of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. By the time she graduated, eight groups had been launched with many students coming to Christ through studying the Scriptures.
Nick and Maia Join the CoMission Project
Nick graduated from the Donetsk Polytechnical University and began work as an engineer while the Scripture Union employed Maia. In 1994 Nick and Maia joined the CoMission Project which initially was invited to Russia to give a moral and ethical foundation in the schools, but which expanded into Ukraine and other former Soviet Republics. The plan quickly evolved seeking to start Christian groups, then to help Western missionaries train local leadership and hand over control. Nick and Maia helped in this transitioning phase to establish local leadership.
In 1997, Nick and Maia started International Partnerships, a Ukrainian ministry, staffed by Ukrainians who would focus on reaching influencers, equipping them to reach others for Christ who would together plant gospel believing churches.
Nick Graduates from Nayak University
In 2007, Nick graduated from Nayak University in Biblical studies as International Partnerships focused more and more on church planting. In 2012 Nick took part in Rev. Tim Keller’s City-to-City Church Planting Training and currently serves as a City-to-City Coordinator training Ukrainian church planters.
Also in 2007, Maia finished her MBA at the Kyiv Mohyla Business School and soon started a Business Consulting Institute to connect with the business community as a platform to share gospel principles in a business setting. She also participated in Haggai International’s training in 2006 and served as an international facilitator from 2007 to 2021. In 2021 she assumed Haggai’s Director of Equipping position.
Evangelizing and Planting Churches
Since its founding, the ministries of International Partnership have steadily grown to evangelize and plant churches in Ukraine and in countries like Kazakhstan where several home churches were established. What was unforeseen was the need for humanitarian relief work. Since 2014 with Russia’s ongoing aggression, Nick and Maia have personally made countless trips with their teams into the war zones. This work is ongoing and tragically shows no signs of slowing down.
Nick and Maia have two children – daughter Oleksandra and son Danylo. Oleksandra is married and has a daughter, Briana.