By Gennady Podgaisky, CBF field personnel
For the past three years, we have been partnering with and supporting this group of Christian ministers and volunteers. This charitable Christian non-denominational organization was formed in Western Ukraine in March of 2022. The organization serves refugees and displaced Ukrainians in need, especially in the areas close to the front lines or in de-occupied territories of Eastern Ukraine.
Soon after the beginning of the war in February 2022, many Ukrainian people found themselves as refugees abroad or internally displaced and stranded in places where they had never been before. They tried to survive for a few months and waited until the war was over. They hoped that soon they could return to their homes, families, jobs and normal way of life. Several volunteers of this organization were church leaders from the church that we attended while in Kyiv, and one was a pastor from an eastern Ukrainian town. Being called by God to serve people, they decided to mobilize local people in Western Ukraine and help those in Eastern Ukraine where the need was great, but resources were scarce due to active fighting, destroyed roads and dangers of driving in the proximity to the front lines.
Volunteers and ministers have been transporting donated and purchased food, clothes and basic supplies to small villages and towns to people who stayed there. It was mostly the elderly and /or disabled people and sometimes mothers with children whose fathers had been drafted to serve in the military. Mothers with children did not want to flee or had nowhere to flee.
This ministry has continued for three years and there is no end in sight. Nobody could have predicted that it would be for so long and that this war would bring so much destruction, death, pain and suffering. Even if the active phase of war ends soon, there is still a long road of recovery, rebuilding and stabilization for the whole country.
Alexander (not real name), who is leading this ministry, regularly sends me pictures and reports of their ministry trips and how they are ministering to hundreds of people. In the pictures, you can see the distribution of potatoes and freshly baked bread to people in need. Behind a couple with a sack of potatoes and freshly baked bread on the gate, you can see the signs of damage done by shrapnel when the fighting was in that area. In the other photo, you can see children happy to get a supply of potatoes, and they are often hiding in that basement because of daily air raids, shelling and bombings. A boy in the picture just received a jar of honey.
It is the sad reality of their lives, and that is how they have lived for the past three years. In the other photo, there is a heated tent where they feed and distribute clothes as evangelism in action, and then they share the Gospel with people in Eastern Ukraine. Thank you for your support of us and our ministries. It is because of your prayers and donations that we can help others in areas where we cannot go. Those volunteers bring tangible help as well as the light of Christ and words of hope to people who live in a time and place that has not seen much light, hope and normalcy for the past three years.