Before we are willing to listen, oftentimes it seems like God must strip away all of our self-reliance. As you will read about in the story shared by SGA-supported Pastor Sergei below, this family was driven from one war to another war, and they have now opened a door to Pastor Sergei and his wife. They claimed to know of Jesus and of God, but have no idea what it means to believe in Christ in saving faith. 

Pray that this open door to the pastor from Oleg’s church, Pastor Sasha, will be the beginning of God opening the door to their hearts.

Sasha writes . . .

We write to you about a family from Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine. The eldest son is 13 years old. After the war started in Ukraine, they stayed in Zaporozhye for a long time. They suffered under  a lot of the shelling of the city, but God preserved their lives. Then the whole family left for Europe and began to prepare documents for repatriation, including a large dog. At this time Katya was pregnant. At the end of August, the family made aliyah [LB1] and settled in Ashkelon. Katya was 36 weeks pregnant when the war in Israel began. Just a week ago she gave birth to a baby boy, Yaroslav.

Today we visited the baby boy with his parents and brought help and gifts to Yaroslav and his older brother. A new country, another terrible war, a small child, not knowing the language and not being able to learn Hebrew well. The family faced all this after repatriation, but they are not discouraged. They say that they believe in Jesus (but have yet to come to saving faith) and plan how to build a life in this country. In addition, during one of the rocket attacks on Ashkelon, rocket fragments destroyed the family’s car (the state compensated the loss, they are looking for a new one). Katya and Kolya are open to fellowship, and we hope they will become friends of our congregation and believe in Christ. Pray for this family, their successful absorption into life in Israel, and their true conversion to Christ!