Many Christians have contacted us with offers to host Ukrainian refugee families, asking if EMF can help link them to named Ukrainian refugees, particularly as part of the Homes For Ukraine government scheme. We have been working hard to find a way support this in a safe and effective way, with a small UK staff. 

As the conflict turns into more attritional warfare, the suffering of people especially in the hardest hit areas like Mariupol, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Donetsk and Luhansk continues and refugees from these areas bring tales of tragedy and unimaginable sorrow. The refugee crisis, now the biggest refugee crisis since WW2, continues to escalate.

The latest UNHCR figures show that the exodus of refugees to neighbouring countries has slowed compared to previous weeks, but is still running at the staggering level of 400,000 refugees in a week. But perhaps the bigger picture is the far greater number of people displaced within Ukraine itself, more than 7 million people.

Donations Received: 

£568,000 has been received since the start of the appeal.

Funds Disbursed: 

£164,000 has been disbursed since the start of the appeal.

51% to Ukraine

31% to Moldova

10% to Poland

7% to Romania

0.5% to Italy

0.2% to Hungary

Delivery of aid being unloaded in Ternopil. Ivan Gontar, who leads the "Light of Reformation" charity coordinating the aid distribution, tells us how the supplies will be used.

We were thankful to the Lord to see the shipment of supplies from Netherlands arrive without any delay at the depot in Ternopil,  with a full load of food, medical supplies, bedding, hygiene products alongside more expensive items such as generators and washing machines.

Significant items of spend last week included funds for Pastor Gennadij Prosjanko and his church near Dnipro to buy a new van to carry supplies right into the warzone area around Donetsk; we will be supporting Gennadij's brave work on an ongoing basis. From next week we are planning to begin regular shipments of supplies, along with Bibles and gospel literature into Ternopil as a hub for onwards distribution to evangelical churches throughout Ukraine. 

Our Approach is to work through our network of missionaries, their churches and sister evangelical churches to distribute support for refugees. In the past week we have extended support to evangelical churches in the Donetsk region, as well as beginning to support work in Hungary and expanding our network of partner churches in Poland. 

Our Priorities to date have been primarily focused on providing financial support our partner churches on the front line of providing emergency support to refugees. In most cases, especially outside Ukraine, they can access all the provisions they need locally, but need financial help. 

But as we see the situation change, we are now anticipating spending a greater proportion of the funds on bringing supplies into Ukraine and Moldova from outside these countries. Next week, we are planning to send a shipment of clothing from Romania to Mihai Chisari in Moldova (with the help of Pal & Anna Borzasi) - he can buy food for the many refugees his church is supporting, but clothing is in short supply.

And increasingly we are seeing churches organising shuttles of vans taking supplies from places like Lviv and Ternopil to the East, and bringing refugees back. So we are helping churches to buy vans like Gennadiy pictured here), and to buy the increasingly expensive fuel they need. 

Pastor Gennadij Prosjanko taking his new van, packed with supplies, into the warzone in Donetsk.

EMF missionaries Vitaliy Mariash and his wife Lyudmila arrived in Chernivtsi from Kyiv as refugees themselves some weeks ago. They found a new ministry there, one that is very different from their work in Kyiv Theological Seminary. They joined forces with the leadership of local evangelical churches, and have set to work helping to provide shelter, transport, food, and above all love and care to refugees, as they reach out in Christian love to suffering people. One of Vitalii's friends, a deacon in the ‘Heart of Jesus’ church, is Oleksandr Diankov (known to all as ‘Sasha’). He has been leading the support work at the church, where they are almost overwhelmed by the numbers of refugees fleeing the East and South of the country.

Sasha says, ‘Our situation is more or less calm. Thank God the rockets do not reach our region.  But everything shows that the country is at war.  Now there are a lot of people, immigrants in the city.  Housing is almost impossible to find.  We continue to receive people in all our premises, in the school where we have been allocated training facilities and a gym. Today, about 45 people permanently live there.  Some of them stop for a short time and go further abroad.  We try to support them morally and give them hope by talking to them about Jesus and life in him.  Of course we try to provide everything they need’.

Sasha tells us that they are using appeal funds to buy essential products (food and hygiene items) in Romania, which is about 280km from Chernivtsi. Aid packages are then made up and delivered to the places the refugees are living in. Some of those towns, like Beregomet, 40 km from Chernivtsi, are more remote, but news still reaches them that there is aid in the Chernivtsi churches. So when refugees from these more distant places call Sasha and his colleagues, they do not hesitate to drive out with supplies.

Read more about Sasha and the work in Chernivtsi here. 

Sasha (left) alongside Valeriy, the pastor of the Heart of Jesus Evangelical Church in Chernivtsi, and Vitalii Mariash (right)