In 1992, Sergiy Chenko Tkachenko was born in the small city of Zvenyhorodka in central Ukraine, near the Hirs’kyi Tikych River. Six years before his birth, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant’s Reactor 4 exploded, releasing large quantities of radioactive isotopes into Ukraine’s air and rivers. As a result, Sergiy was born with a severe bilateral cleft lip and palate, making it almost impossible for him to drink or eat. He was also born without a right arm. 

Upon his birth, his parents placed him into a post-Soviet Ukraine orphanage—a facility that was rundown, underfunded, overcrowded, with minimal heat, poor sanitation and insufficient medical care. 

For more than six years, Sergiy endured isolation, neglect, harsh treatment and extreme hunger. Overworked and undertrained orphanage workers punished him by putting soap in his eyes and gave him vodka to make him sleep. As his seventh birthday approached, Sergiy was about to become officially unadoptable. The state, labeling him as “unredeemable,” planned to place him in a state insane asylum for adults. 

The Reverend Vic Jackopson, a British pastor, missionary, and the founder of Hope Now, a faith-based organization in the U.K. and South Africa that ministers to orphans in Ukraine, believed that no child is unredeemable. When he learned about Sergiy, he arranged surgery in the U.K. to repair the child’s lip and palate. A week before the scheduled surgery, Jackopson preached at Pastor Anton Fourie’s church in Birmingham, Alabama. When Jackopson told the congregation about Sergiy, both Anton and his wife, Elizabeth, heard the clear call of God to adopt this orphan. 

The following weekend, on Mother’s Day, the Fouries flew to Oxford, England, to meet Sergiy. The six-and-a-half-year-old boy was recovering from serious surgery and weighed only 30 pounds. “Immediately,” Elizabeth remembers, “a God-given bonding miracle developed among the three of us.” After a tedious and lengthy international adoption process, the Fouries were able to complete Sergiy’s adoption just before his seventh birthday. They named him Alex, provided him a loving home, and made sure he received the continued medical help he needed. 

 Alex remembers well the first time he met his new parents. “I called them ‘Mama’ and ‘Papa’ right away,” Alex said. “I didn’t know what love or family meant. I felt chosen by them.”

Anton and Elizabeth’s congregation embraced Alex, loving and nurturing him. Under his father’s guidance, Alex accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. “Jesus loves me unconditionally,” Alex says. “I know that, and He has given me a great sense of peace.” 

Anton introduced his young son to various sports—hunting, fishing, soccer, tennis and golf. Even with one arm, Alex especially loved and mastered golf, playing with his dad and cousins. “Golf has always connected me with my family,” he said. Throughout high school and college, he worked hard at golf, becoming the only one-armed golfer in the United States to pass the difficult 36-hole Playing Ability Test, a requirement for PGA (Professional Golf Association) membership. Out of 30 other two-armed and able-bodied players taking the test, Alex was the only one to pass it. 

In 2020, Alex began entering adaptive golf tournaments, competitions made accessible for people with disabilities. He won numerous championships. 

On Feb. 24, 2022, as Alex watched graphic news accounts of Russian forces invading Ukraine, shooting orphans and bombing orphanages, he felt deep sorrow. For months, he suffered flashbacks and nightmares of his own experience in Ukraine’s orphanages.

“It was so emotionally hard for me to watch,” Alex said, “I felt so sorry for the kids. What the Russians did was inhuman.”

 Alex partnered with Vic Jackopson’s Hope Now, raising donations, traveling to Ukraine and helping relocate hundreds of orphans from war zones to safe havens. He plans to return soon to check on the displaced orphans and provide medical kits to people on the war’s front lines.

He also partners with the North American One-Arm Golf Association, a nonprofit organization and a member of the United States Adaptive Golf Alliance. He travels the world, conducting golf training clinics for physically-disabled children. “Due to physical disabilities, their bodies are different. We teach them to adapt their posture, club grip, and golf swing according to their disabilities.”

“Now one of the world’s top-ranked one-armed golfers, Alex is winning championships playing against seasoned two-armed golfers and has been the subject of award-winning documentaries. He hopes one day to qualify for the PGA Championship, the most prestigious event in golf. 

His passion to empower children with disabilities to be all they can be and to impact the world with their lives is exceeded only by his love for the Lord.

“I know how special it is to be intentionally adopted by someone who loves you,” he said. “I enjoy telling people my story of being intentionally chosen and adopted by loving parents who made sacrifices to raise me in a godly home. And I take every opportunity to tell others about Jesus, who intentionally chose me and adopted me into God’s family. I tell them how Jesus loves me and willingly sacrificed His own life to forgive me so that I can enter into a relationship with Him.”

This summer, Alex became the first PGA golf pro with a disability to be hired as the Head Golf Professional at The 500 Club in Statesville, North Carolina.

He is also working to establish an Adaptive Golf Association in North Carolina. “It gives these kids such a sense of purpose and accomplishment,” Alex said. 

With his life, his love for Christ and his selfless work with Ukrainian orphans and disabled children around the world, Alex embodies God’s truth that every child on Earth has value and worth. And in His eyes, no child is unredeemable.

“I tell people that I am twice-adopted—by the Fourie family, and by my perfect Heavenly Father who loves me and intentionally gave His life for me so that I could become a beloved member of His family,” Alex said. ©2024 Denise George 

Denise George is the author of 30 nonfiction books published by Penguin Random House, Tyndale House, Bethany House, Zondervan and others. She teaches writing-to-publish seminars through Christian Writers for Life. (Christianwritersforlife.com)

Photo: Southern Intrigue LLC