NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE (ANS) -- Alex Leonovich, executive director with the Slavic Missionary Service, was preaching on VJ Day over HCJB Radio in Quito, Ecuador, when he read over the news wires that Japan had unconditionally surrendered during World War Two.

The title of his message that very day was 'Unconditional Surrender,' and so he changed the title. Little did he know that his brother Nick Leonovich was listening via short wave in Passaic, New Jersey.

"My father dedicated his life to the service of the Lord Jesus Christ at that time. Both (my father and my uncle) went into radio broadcasting and I’m second generation now," said SMS Inc.'s Director of Media, Jim Leonovich.

Dan Wooding interviews Jim Leonovich at NRB

Leonovich told this anecdote to author and international journalist Dan Wooding during an interview at NRB in Nashville, Tennessee.

Wooding asked if Leonovich is a Ukrainian name?

"Well, actually they say it’s Belarussian. I say it’s Ukrainian because I love Ukraine -- I work in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. But I love Ukraine because being born in Italy I find Ukrainians to be more akin to the Italians. The French are more akin to the Russians," Leonovich said.

He said the mission was following events quite closely while the elections were going on in Russia, "and we’re very interested in how things will develop for things like religious freedom and communications down the line in the future."

Wooding wanted to know more about Leonovich's work in Ukraine and the so-called Velvet Revolution.

"We actually started three radio stations that we equipped right from the beginning working in partnership with Trans World Radio and HCJB, but then we’ve also built recording studios for recording music and encouraging young people to get involved in media and in broadcasting to raise the level of professionality within journalism and using modern day technology like streaming video and audio as well as websites. That’s what we’re doing in Ukraine right now. We’re involved also with children’s ministries raising up that next generation, and the Lord is blessing (that work)."

Has the Velvet Revolution helped the church in Ukraine or not?

"I personally believe that it was an incredible intervention of God, an intervention that really kept the freedoms of Ukraine as far as being able to preach the Gospel, have the Bible schools and the seminaries and again provide a freer kind of communication. It was a popular revolution: most of the Ukrainians really supported it and it was really a revolution that provided freedom and it strengthened democracy and it (has) worked so far."

Wooding and Leonovich then talked about the Ukrainian presidential elections.

"As a matter of fact his wife who is a believer; she was actually from the Chicago area and I think the Lord really has blessed Ukraine because of these two, not to say that I agree with all of the politics you know. But the freedoms and the democratic principles and the values are strengthened very much, yes."

How has the work in Belarus, Russia and Ukraine affected Leonovich spiritually?

"Well I had the opportunity of actually experiencing and being a witness to a miracle -- the miracle of transformed lives. I’ve seen kids come to know the Lord in summer camps and in orphanages and grow up accepting the Lord at these summer camps and orphanages and then growing up and going to seminaries and Bible schools and so on and so forth and becoming the leaders of the future. That is my dream. Especially with media and computers and all that, these young people are having possibilities of reaching their own generation for the Lord in ways that we couldn’t in the days of regular broadcasting and written media."

Slavic Missionary Service, Inc. (SMS) is a non-profit organization, founded on May 23, 1933, by Dr. I.V. Neprash. SMS is dedicated to reaching the Slavic peoples and the “whosoever” around the world for Christ.

Those who want to know more about the ministry can get in touch with Leonovich at Slavic Missionary Services, Inc. You can write to him at P.O. Box 307, South River, New Jersey 08882, or you can log-on to the ministry website, which is www.smsusa.org .

ANS would like to thank Robin Frost for transcribing this interview.

** Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. Michael's involvement with ASSIST News Service is a sponsored ministry department -- Michael Ireland Media Missionary (MIMM) -- of ACT International at: Artists in Christian Testimony (ACT) International.