On February 20, an employee of our mission, Arkady Slyoza, together with the pastor of the Rivne church Grace, Oleksandr Mulyar, and brother Volodymyr Mulyar, went to Turkey to serve the people affected by the earthquake. Our missionary, who has already traveled to the disaster area, is helping there, and now the brothers decided to visit those places together again to deliver humanitarian aid, support the people morally by being alongside them and, if possible, share the Good News.
In two days, the Rivne brothers reached Istanbul, met with the local brothers, and on the morning of February 23, an extended team arrived in the city of Antakya, the capital of the Turkish province of Hatay, where the earthquake occurred. Driving through the city, they saw hundreds of destroyed buildings and thousands of messed up lives. Only the Lord can give these people a “future and hope.”
They met a woman named Mariam. She is a Christian, originally from Azerbaijan, who is a widow with three daughters (6, 12, and 16). Her husband, Aykhan, was in their apartment on the 3rd floor when the building collapsed. His best friend, about whom he had previously told his wife that he’ll take care of her and the girls if anything happens, also died when he was in his apartment on the 13th floor. Both owned businesses — shops on the ground floor of their apartment building. Everything is gone! Only three people were saved from the entire building… All people’s possessions were lost. Now the church is taking care of them. Our brothers also had the opportunity to help this family as much as they could.
People here live on the streets in tents because it is dangerous to stay even in those buildings that are left. Our brothers also spent the night in tents, as they repeatedly experienced earthquakes – and it was really scary!
To help the victims, an international Christian volunteer team was formed from representatives of Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Israel, Switzerland, Germany, Canada, the USA, El Salvador, and Ukraine.
In the village of B., where our team stayed, volunteers fed 800-1000 people. They helped them connect gas burners, packed grocery bags, and then brought them to the surrounding villages.
A brother from the local Turkish church compassionately communicated with the people, learning about their needs and then helping them.
Together they visited some friends, to whom the Turkish Christians had already testified about Christ several times before. There, our brothers had their first experience of communication and then the joint prayer of the Ukrainian team with the Turks in their lemon garden. They talked about family values, the futility of chasing after earthly riches, about God who resists the proud and gives grace to the humble.
In the village of O., where Uzbeks who moved to Turkey from Afghanistan live in tents, children started to get sick due to unsanitary conditions. So the brothers helped clean up the territory and treat the area with chlorine, installed and filled a specially purchased tank with water, and bought and connected a washing machine.
Through our missionary and his assistant, the team managed to establish friendly relations with several families of Turks, Uzbeks, Arabs, Afghans, and Syrians. It was a God-blessed time to touch the hearts of the afflicted people, to pray with them and for them, to serve them with the gifts they needed, and to establish good relations for future meetings.
On March 3, the brothers returned home to Ukraine and they are very excited about the opportunity to serve people there.
On March 8, the city of Rivne received a thank-you letter from the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Turkey to Ukraine, Yagmur Ahmet Gülder for the arrival of the team of volunteers. It is a great honor for our brothers and a powerful testimony to the world about the loving heart of our Lord. Thank God for the opportunity to serve the needy!
