As the counteroffensive continues and the greatly increased onslaught of missiles and drones continues, more Ukrainians will be displaced to central and western Ukraine. The need is only growing.The recent shipment of aid to this region that you will read about below in SGA-supported Pastor Leonid’s report was provided by SGA/Australia. “The Lord is working in the hearts of many people,” Leonid shares.

We praise Him for His faithfulness and His provision for hurting Ukrainians. Read more from
Leonid . . .

Dear friends!

I write to you with tears of gratitude for your sacrificial and so kind hearts. We are the Revival Church . . . distributing food to displaced people. We are already being widely reported here as a church that helps and distributes wonderful food packages to IDPs [internally displaced persons]. Today we were able to distribute 215 such packages. We thought that there would be less people, but more and more of them are coming. These are mostly IDPs from the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.

People were afraid to come to our church before. And now on Sunday mornings, even before 10 o’clock, the church is full with these people. They want to talk. They now see other Christians in the church, not like those they had been told all those years before that Christians are uneducated people.

Recently, we visited the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, visited many people who stayed there, brought food packages from you for them, and were able to tell them about Christ, about His love for them, sang Christian songs for them, prayed with them for their families and for peace in Ukraine. Many people live in damaged homes there now, so we felt how much they need Christ and His love for them.

Thank you, friends, that through our joint efforts, the Lord is working in the hearts of many people . . . We continue to serve IDPs. Once a month we meet with them. Many come to the service on Sundays, and we are grateful to the Lord for that! Also, our church has had a baptism, where five people made a covenant with God. One young man—an IDP who attended our church meetings—was baptized. We rejoice in this! God is so good!

For His glory!
Leonid

Visiting people in the Kharkiv and Donetsk regions, taking products to them, singing and telling them about Jesus’ love.

Old ladies who fled from the war from the Bakhmut and Donetsk regions, and now they live in [our] area.

These are the pictures of IDPs and their children. These people now always come to our church, because they cannot find any other place for themselves. Only in our church do they find peace and comfort, where God’s Word is read and where people love the Lord.

Baptism. This is always an exciting moment, when people tell about their relationship with the Lord and His work in their hearts and lives.

Translation:

I really like to come to this church in Kalynivka, where the Word of God is well explained. I used to call myself a believer, but in reality I was never one. We all believed, in the Orthodox way, that we needed to have icons and religious crosses on all our walls. We hid behind all these attributes and cried out to God: save us! We were baptized once when we were little, and that was enough for us. We thought so and believed it was right! Our hearts and souls seemed to be at peace! We could lead a good and proper life. 

I am saying what I feel now. There was constant anxiety. The anxiety is passing. We have been here for nearly a year and a half. What is our future? We do not know. We would all like to return to our homes. My house is destroyed, everything is destroyed, everything is looted from there. And I used to think that if you lose all your good things, you can go crazy. But now I understand differently—no, you don’t have to go crazy. What is lost cannot be regained. Our age is such that you can’t earn everything back as you used to. You don’t want anything anymore, not a nice, big TV, not nice clothes. The most important thing is that we all survived, all nine of us in our family. And I am grateful for that!

In a time of great uncertainty, God is bringing help, healing, and hope to the people of Ukraine through SGA-supported pastors, churches, a seminary, and SGA-sponsored Compassion Ministry. Be a part of God’s incredible work with your generosity and prayer support.  

Your gift of compassion helps struggling people with emergency aid that generally includes Scripture materials, food, medicine, warm clothing, and shoes.