John and Nadya were both born in western Ukraine and their families were close friends. When John was 14, the Bokoch family moved to the east but because the families stayed in touch, John and Nadya remained friends. In 1987 John and Nadya were married and have lived in Nikopol since that time. John has a background in construction work and continued to work in the industry until 2001. In 1995 he started a Bible study with three people in the village of Kirovo. Previously, Nadya had been working in a wood factory, but in 1997 she became involved with these Bible studies and later that year, the Kirovo Church was planted with twelve people. John and Nadya continued to work in construction and Nadya began volunteering at an orphanage in Nikopol, organizing Bible studies and Sunday school. In 1999 John attended a Bible school in the city of Dnipropetrovs’k for four years, and then completed another four years at Irpin Bible Seminary through correspondence.
In 2000 John planted three more churches in the suburbs of Nikopol and began to pastor one of them. An old house was purchased and renovated, and it became the Nikopol Second Baptist Church. He remained there for a year and a half and then moved to the main Baptist church in Nikopol with 350 members. At that time, John quit construction work and has been a full-time, volunteer pastor ever since. In 2002 Nadya started to volunteer full-time with the elderly, widows and bed-ridden people. She also began to distribute used clothing to orphans and families in need from parcels she was receiving from her sister Mary in Canada.
Currently, John is the Head Pastor at the Nikopol Central Baptist Church and Riverside Church in addition to overseeing eight other churches that have been planted in the surrounding villages. Besides a partnership with Hungry For Life, John and Nadya work alongside Bible League Ministry (Kiev). John is working on his Pastoral Leadership Master’s degree from Irpin Bible Seminary in Kiev and Nadya continues to work among the orphans and widows in the region of Nikopol. Because neither one of them have paid employment, they both continue to live on God’s provision and rely on the generous support of God’s people.