On the occasion of Christmas, the employees of our mission visited the military personnel serving in the Bakhmut and Avdiiv areas. Before the trip, families of believers from various churches in the cities of Rivne, Khmelnytskyi, Boryspil, Zvyagel, Sarny, and Dolyna, as well as students of schools in the city of Khmelnytskyi and the village of Klevan prepared 350 individual gifts with encouraging letters and children’s drawings for the defenders. Friends from the USA, Italy, Sweden, and Germany also joined the gift campaign. Our brothers bought the necessary things for the soldiers, especially the nine camouflage nets woven by sisters (a valuable thing in war conditions when the enemy increases drone attacks). Once again, women from the village of Demkiv in the Khmelnytskyi region made the soldiers happy with the homemade dishes, which were carefully prepared in large quantities and packed for convenient transportation. Everything that had been collected could barely fit into two vans, this is why we had four drivers go on a trip. One car’s tire could not hold up the load, and a minor repair had to be done on the way: two tires were purchased and replaced.

Several meetings with soldiers took place in the Donetsk region, during which they were given gifts. Most of the gifts went to units fighting in the direction from Liman to Avdiivka. At all meetings, a short gospel message was preached for new acquaintances, and they also prayed together with the guys. Our brothers also had good communication with one brother in Christ, who is currently serving in the army.

The next day, together with chaplain Oleksandr, they went to visit our fighters at the front line. The soldiers were very happy to have guests from the “other” peaceful world and were surprised that our brothers dared to come to them in broad daylight.

They sought to communicate as long as possible, sometimes it seemed to our employees that the greatest gift the guys received was the arrival of civilians and the opportunity to simply talk with them. There they also prayed together and blessed those who were in the trenches for a long time.

On the front line, they had an unexpected meeting with a famous Ukrainian landscape photographer, who is currently serving in the Armed Forces. He gave them away his photo album with wonderful landscapes of his native Donetsk region when the land was not yet distorted and devastated by fire.

It was probably one of the most difficult but most blessed trips to the combat area. The brothers returned with the confidence that trust in God, multiplied by courage, will lead to victory, and we pray for this.

In conclusion, a few words from each of the participants of this trip:

“We made a trip to the Donetsk region for several days. We had the opportunity to give gifts to our soldiers, congratulate them on Christmas, chat, and spend time with them. I thank God for this opportunity, for the fact that He arranged everything and made it in a way that I could go and serve our military there. I thank all those who joined this trip, and who prayed and collected these gifts. This is a very important and necessary cause. Our soldiers serve there for a very long time without rotations and replacements, so it is important for them to feel that they are not alone there, that they are remembered, and that those for whom they fight there are not indifferent to them. It is also important for all of us to remember at what cost we continue our peaceful life here. This is thanks to our military, who are there on the front lines every day looking into the eyes of death. Therefore, we will not be indifferent, but will help and pray for victory to come as soon as possible.”

Ilya Vakulko

“I want to thank God for such a wonderful opportunity to be useful. I want to especially thank Khmelnytskyi school-lyceum # 10: the teachers, for motivating the children in such a way that they were able to prepare gifts, write letters, and color them with their families. Everyone who received such gifts was very excited. I also thank the women from the village. The people of Demkiv prepared very tasty food, we even had breakfast and ate it ourselves. The guys were very happy, they were especially looking for fried potatoes, dumplings, and cracklins to go with them. Thank you for taking the time to serve strangers. The guys send their greetings to everyone, thank you for not forgetting them, thinking about them, and of course they invite us to come visit again. Therefore, friends, the war is not over yet and we will continue to work tirelessly.”

Ruslan Andrusenko

“I want to thank all families, children, adults, churches, schools, everyone who participated in the preparation of Christmas gifts. We convey sincere greetings from the military and sincere thanks. The guys are weary, many of them are exhausted, and many dream of going home on vacation, but not all of them can go. Both our arrival and these gifts brought them a little bit of warmth, and a little bit of support. They could just chat with us, we drank tea together and talked about life, and they could share what was bothering them, what was in their hearts. We were pleasantly surprised that Chaplain Oleksandr is constantly with the guys of the 109th brigade and they have such a good tradition of praying together and hugging, and in one of the units, even the commander himself suggested that we pray together. He testified that he had already read the Bible twice this year, which was given to him by the chaplain. We ask everyone to pray for our military, that God will stop this war and give us victory. Thank you all and may the Lord bless you!”

Arkady Slyoza

“We sincerely thank everyone who is concerned, everyone who is worried and makes some effort to bring victory closer, to help our guys on the front lines, to hear the gospel, to make God their God and Savior. Both believers and non-believers from Khmelnytskyi, Zhytomyr, Rivne, and Kyiv took part in the preparation of gifts – they collected and donated, and asked us to do this good thing – to take Christmas gifts and greetings to our defenders. It is a great responsibility and at the same time, it is a blessing to be able to do that. Please continue to pray for all those on the front lines and for all those yet to get there because there are fewer and fewer guys and the enemy’s goal is not changing and the enemy is trying to do as much damage as possible. The war continues, and we must stand side by side in defense of our lives, our country, our future.”

Vyacheslav Arterchuk