First Love’s team members, Daniel and Janna Ross, serve in Ukraine and have dreamed of starting a small business in response to the need for English books.
“We’ve always wanted to make our ministry more self-sustainable by generating income here in Ukraine. We played around with a lot of ideas, but nothing seemed to stick. Then one day, I saw a post in one of my Facebook groups for foreigners living in Ukraine. She asked, “my son is 11 and he reads a book a week. Where can I get affordable English books?” I realized there weren’t great options for her, or anyone else in her situation. This sparked the idea of starting a business selling used English books, and after some groundwork, Book Haven was born.”
The vision for Book Haven is to financially support their ministry in Ukraine while providing affordable English books for nationals with a desire to learn English and for English-speaking expats like that mom and her son. The Ross’s have already been able to employ several orphanage graduates to help them and have plans for additional opportunities as time goes on.
“While we knew that books in English are a commodity in Ukraine and hard to find, we soon realized that people we are connected to were very open to donating books! But we had other big questions to answer, including where to source the books? We discovered just like it’s hard to find them, it’s also hard to find places to supply them.”
The Ross’s came up with an idea to partner with local schools to host book fairs for students. The results have been very encouraging, “We have already held a few book fairs, and it is clear that there is a demand. Those who took part were so grateful that something like this exists in Ukraine. The kids are so happy to have access to a wide variety of English books, and parents are happy at the affordable prices.”
English is the language of business and travel. Therefore, adult Ukrainians desire to learn English to have more opportunities for jobs with better income. They are also eager for their children to learn English, as well, to open opportunities for their future.
Unfortunately, the war put plans on hold for a few years. But the Ross’s didn’t stop in their dream for Ukraine. Instead they chose to use this time to collect books for their shop, and invite others to join in this dream. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and inspiring:
“While we waited, we collected affordable books in the U.S. from thrift stores, yard sales, and library book sales. Churches, schools, home school groups, and small groups have done drives to collect books. Families we knew that were moving back to the States have also donated 1,000s of books over the years! Individuals have donated as well, and we’ve packed them all up onto pallets to be shipped this summer (2024). We have a connection who is willing to ship the books for free and so far we have 9 pallets and around 16,000 books ready to be shipped to Ukraine!”
Because of the war, the dream of Book Haven was put on hold for 2 years, but Janna and Daniel are encouraged and excited to begin to put motion to moving it forward again. “Our goal is to rent a space somewhere in Kyiv, and open a physical location for our book store. We hope to find even more schools who would like us to come and do book fairs, but for now we’re still waiting on the shipment so we have more stock. We know we have work and challenges ahead, but we believe in Book Haven and its potential.”
Learn more about Book Haven: bookhavenkyiv@gmail.com
