Lika Roman always dreamed of doing something great for God. Her life turned into a different direction when she became Miss Ukraine in 2007. Today, God is raising her up as an ambassador for Ukraine to reach people with love and restoration. Lika’s life speaks a message of hope and intimacy with Jesus and she wants to share her story with Revive.
Finding Jesus
‘I grew up in Western Ukraine, in the small city of Uzhgorod. Danish missionaries held a tent meeting to share the gospel with my city. This is where I met Jesus for the first time, I was eight years old.’ Lika had had been brought up with ideologies and philosophers, due to the soviet years. When the Danish preacher did an altar call, Lika responded and gave her heart to Jesus. ‘I felt immediately at home in Christianity, even though I didn’t know anything about God or the Bible.’ Tears streamed down her face when encountered the Lord. From this moment on, Lika and her mom started to fall in love with Jesus and became hungry to know Him. They’ve also seen incredible miracles. ‘We’ve seen many miracles, for instance God healed my grandmother from cancer.’
Salt and light
Massive transformation came when Lika experienced the fire of God and began her friendship with the Holy Spirit. ’When I was 14 I started thinking about the meaning of my life. During a church service I asked myself: ‘am I the salt and the light of the world?’ Lika concluded she loved God, but she wasn’t impacting the world around her. She started to seek God and made space for Him. ‘God spoke to me about His dreams for me. It was time to stop just being a church girl and hide in the background, my life had a purpose.’ After her new commitment to serve God, she started to share the gospel. People began to encounter God: ‘Soon I saw my class come to Jesus, we even prayed together before we had to make a test.’
How did you become Miss Ukraine?
‘When I studied at university, I heard the voice of God. He reminded me of my faithfulness to Him years before. God told me: ‘You trusted me when you were 14 years old, now I’am going to change your life in the blink of an eye’.’ When Lika worked as a hairstylist in 2007, Natalia Vorona showed up at her salon and noticed there was something different about Lika. She and encouraged Lika to join the Miss Ukraine beauty contest. Lika refused many modeling contracts before, because she believed these weren’t environments where you could easily keep your standards as a christian. However, God told her to join this contest.
Lika expected the reason God asked her to join the pageant was to minister to the girls. However, little did she know God worked on her own identity instead. ‘I was the last person who should win this pageant. I had no time to learn everything that involves a pageant and I didn’t know how to walk as a model.’ Lika found this very challenging and the environment wasn’t very supportive either. When she wanted to quit, God spoke to her very clearly: ‘Lika, you can’t let others decide who you are. No circumstance can take your dignity, let me tell you who you are’. She gained her courage back and Lika won the Miss Ukraine contest of 2007. When she was walking on stage, the judges saw light beaming off of her. Lika gives all the honor to God: ‘Winning this contest had nothing to do with my own beauty or abilities, it was because of His faithfulness and His word. I just took a risk and stepped out in obedience.’
A missionfield with great influence.
After becoming Miss Ukraine, Lika’s life changed radically. Her mission field expanded and now involved red carpets, business meetings, TV interviews and lectures.The favor of God got her into non-profits, schools, universities and businesses to share about her values and believes. Lika could openly speak about Jesus at places and platforms you wouldn’t normally talk about God. Every time God prepared her for new assignments. This happened when she received a vision from God about speaking in front of world leaders.
A few weeks later, Lika found herself standing on the stage of a massive international business conference. Lika was invited to share about how believes and values influence the atmosphere of investment. She was part of a panel discussion together with the leader of the Jewish orthodox church. ‘The Jewish rabbi opened the door for me to share about Jesus, because he started to share about his faith. I felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit and began to share my story. I started off with: ‘when I was 14, I asked myself: What am I living for?’ Lika ended her talk with the following words: ‘life only has a purpose when you have something to die for.‘ At that moment an American Wallstreet investor who sat at the front row was very moved. He raised from his chair said out loud: ‘All my life I have been waiting to hear this.’
Lika visited over 35 countries in the last 15 years. She was based in Kiev, but had to leave because of the war. Currently she helps Ukrainians to find shelter and introduces many to Christ. When she is not in Ukraine, she speaks for her country in TV programs, churches and meetings. Currently she works on a documentary to tell the stories of revival amidst of the war.
