Death strikes even church children . . . yet hope and love triumph

Viktor O.
SGA-supported Missionary Pastor in Ukraine

Greetings to you with the Love of our Lord! For the third summer we have been forced to live and carry out ministry when Ukraine is at war. Many thanks to you for being with us. Many thanks for your prayers for us and your material care.

Thanks to SGA partners, we received items and were able to distribute them to people. We held services to which we invited displaced persons, the elderly, and to others in need. We held a service and treated them with lunch, then they had the opportunity to choose clothes.

Among these people there are those who regularly come to the services, and there are those who have repented. Now we try to hold such a service once a month, to meet with people who are lonely, displaced, or those who have relatives at war.

Many thanks for the generator, since electricity is often cut off, this is a great help for us—it has been helping us in the ministry for several Sundays. We also did not forget to prepare for the winter, bringing in firewood together with church members and young people. Now everything is getting very expensive—electricity, water and firewood too.

Of course, the situation continues to be tense, air raid sirens often sound and sometimes rockets fly in. For example, at the end of June, rockets flew into the center of the city of Volnyansk, it is not so far from the House of Prayer, that rockets hit next to the store and there were casualties. A boy was riding a motorcycle and died on the spot. A girl Darina also died, she was only 10 years old, at that time she was in the store with her mother, the mother was taken to the hospital, but Darina died. This girl, Darina, used to attend Sunday School in our House of Prayer. How much grief and tears there are around, but by the grace of our Lord we are alive. Of course, we do not know what awaits us ahead in this earthly life, but we believe that these circumstances will strengthen our faith and hope in Our Lord.

Please, continue to pray for us, I send my best regards to everyone and great gratitude for all the material assistance. May God richly bless you! We pray for you!