On April 13-15, another trip of our ministers, Vyacheslav Arterchuk and Arkady Slyoza, took place with the aim of evangelizing and serving the Ukrainian military in the Bakhmut and Avdiyiv regions.
The brothers are very grateful for the hospitality of the Christians from Pavlograd, who host them and let them stay overnight during these weary trips.
The brothers preach the gospel to all military personnel, give out New Testaments, and encourage them to listen to Christian audio recordings. Some expressed a desire to receive a link to the daily Bible reading “Daily Bread.” Unfortunately, soldiers listen to those who come to visit them and bring useful things only out of respect, but they do not yet have a real interest in God’s Word. But we rejoice that the truth is being sown. In addition, the visits of our ministers are a great encouragement for brothers in Christ who during the war found themselves in military service and unexpectedly became priests in their units, as well as for chaplains who dedicated themselves to this ministry and are constantly in their military units.
This time, our brothers brought each unit many different gifts, packages, and goodies. They were able to communicate with representatives of eleven different brigades. Each of them has their own difficulties and worries.
Back in peacetime, Arkady Slyoza and assistants from local churches visited a shelter for minors. Now the director of this shelter, Serhiy Volodymyrovych, is serving in the army. There was an opportunity to meet with him. He never went on vacation during the entire war. He said, “It will be against my conscience…” He is a master of aerial intelligence, the operator of the “Kazhan” combat drone that destroys enemies at a long distance. However, his drone was shot down by a foe, and now he is trying to raise funds to purchase a new one.
Sniper Oleksandr has an issue with his eyes – it happened because he stayed in the cold and damp trenches for a long time but the problem is that the treatment is not doing him any good yet.
Our brother Taras twisted his leg and damaged the tendon.
In general, it is very difficult for our fighters there! Please remember them in your prayers!
After the meetings in the first part of the day in Pokrovsk, Vyacheslav, and Arkady arrived in Kramatorsk. On this day, they could easily hear the terrible shelling of the neighboring Sloviansk. As a result, residential buildings were destroyed and several dozen civilians died.
In Kramatorsk, defenders from various combat units of the Bakhmut and Seversky regions were also waiting for the meeting with the brothers. An older military man noted that the volunteer movement was slowing down little by little and that our brothers appeared like angels to visit and encourage them.
Was it possible not to come to the defenders with the Good News during these Easter days? Praise the Lord for sending the necessary funds and many valuable things for the soldiers! The brothers from the city of Dubno asked our brothers to hand over a night vision device, a quadcopter, a solar battery, a generator, and other things to certain units. Children’s drawings from one of the schools in Khmelnytskyi were brought to the soldiers as well. We are also grateful for the traditional homemade dumplings, cracklings, cabbage rolls, and salads prepared by the sisters from the Baptist Church and many women from the village of Demkivtsi, Khmelnytskyi region. Thank God that they were able to minister and deliver everything to the destination!
God arranged a meeting with countrymen from the Rivne region.
Mykhailo from Verba is an orphan. In the past, he was a student of an orphanage well known to our employees. On December 20, he got caught in a terrible battle. They were attacked from three directions and shelled with mortars. He was wounded and hid under the corpses of the occupiers at the bottom of the trench. All the time he recited “The Lord’s Prayer.” When the enemy pulled back, he crawled out on his elbows, because his legs were numb from the frostbite… As a result, six out of twenty-six soldiers survived. He came under fire more than once, as he tried to bring a combat system to a battlefield in a truck. But God kept him until this day. Mykhailo dreams of returning to his village after the victory to hold his newborn grandson in his arms for the first time. Mykhailo serves in the paratrooper assault platoon of his brigade, and his son, who is named Mykhailo as well, serves in the same brigade…
We’d like to recall Igor, our brother in Christ. The young man is an orphan and was brought up in a foster family that loves the Lord. He came to believe and was conscripted into the army. Igor was seriously wounded, and we asked the church to pray for him. At first, the boy underwent an operation in the city of Dnipro and then, he was sent to a hospital in Lviv. There, the believers whom we know visited him and informed us that Igor, despite the difficult wound, was already walking on crutches to a room to have his wound rewrapped. And the doctor said that someone must have been fervently praying for him because the improvement is surprisingly speedy. Brother Igor has now been sent home to Khmelnytskyi to recover.
Please remember a man named Oleksandr in your prayers. At the great request of his believing wife, who was temporarily in Poland, our brothers visited him in the hospital during one of the trips. In addition to the injury and fever, Oleksandr was suffering from constant insomnia back then. He was haunted by visions of his dead comrades begging for help, and each time he failed to save their lives and carry them off the battlefield. Oleksandr’s condition did not improve, and eventually, he ended up in a psychiatric hospital. His wife is very discouraged. It also happened that the officials, who are responsible for that, failed to process his documents properly, and as a result, his mental disorder is not qualified as acquired during the performance of a combat mission, which makes his further rehabilitation complicated.
We met brother Oleksandr from Sloviansk, who has been serving as a chaplain since 2016. Now his battalion is on the front line in the Toretsk direction. It just happened that after visiting eleven brigades, boxes with underwear and socks were left in the trunk of our minibus, and were not needed for those whom we already visited before. You probably understand that in such conditions of war, especially when it’s so muddy, soldiers do not always have the opportunity to wash their uniform and dry it. The nearest store is a dozen kilometers away from them. So these things came in really handy for the chaplain Oleksandr. He told us that he could not get a hold of them in any way and had already prayed to the Lord for it. And then, our ministers arrived. Hopefully, we will be able to develop a relationship with the soldiers of this unit as well.
Pray for our defenders!
Thanks be to God for the brothers from abroad who started conducting seminars and training in Ukraine for chaplains and all those who come into contact with military personnel and their families. Our brothers are willing to participate in this training program.
We also pray for preparation for new trips to the front line. As long as the war is going on, it is our duty as Christians to be close to those who experience extreme difficulties and who defend our lives at the cost of their own lives and health.
