Update #27:
4th - 23rd February |
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| Please join us for our next Prayer Meeting for Ukraine, where we hope to be joined and led in our praying by people working in the area. |
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As the sad anniversary of the invasion on 24th February 2022 approaches, please do pray for evangelical Christians in Ukraine, supporting people both with humanitarian support and in sharing the gospel. Pray for renewed strength for them, but also for the Lord to bring an end to the war in justice. |
There is great concern about a likely Russian offensive soon, perhaps even one involving Moldova. Many people are exhausted, and the war is taking an increasing toll. A large proportion of the millions of people who have been displaced from their homes are in great financial need. |
And yet there are also reasons for thanksgiving. The Ukrainian military has been able to defend the country heroically, the winter has been relatively mild when many didn't know how the population would survive, and the electricity supply is getting better. But above all, many thousands of people are coming under the sound of the gospel, as many evangelical churches serve faithfully and sacrificially. |
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Liuda and Vitalii Mariash yesterday in Kyiv, share some prayer requests. |
| Please do continue to pray for Vitalii & Liudmyla Mariash. It was a real joy to speak to them both yesterday, as Vitalii spent a few days back in Kyiv with the family. |
Vitalii had just been made an official army chaplain, one of only 5 from his denomination, which gives him more freedom to move between areas, as he spends time with different units, but also more responsibility. |
He was clearly delighted to be back home, but he said he was emotionally exhausted, and couldn't sleep in the quiet of Kyiv, as he'd grown so used to the constant noise of warfare. |
We'll send out a fuller report of our conversation soon. |
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Andrii & Yolanta Kaustov, with Ron & Joy McCormick who are hosting them in the UK. |
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Please do also continue to pray for Andrii and Yolanta Kaustov as they continue their cancer treatment. Andrii is in the middle of some intensive therapy, involving a transfusion on 27th and 28th February. After this, in a few weeks' time, he'll have to go into isolation for a month, with a course of intensive chemotherapy. |
Yolanta is awaiting the results of her most recent CT scan, to determine how effective the PARP inhibitors have been, and they are hopeful as she seems to have responded well to the treatment. |
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Thank you to everyone who has contributed to our Bibles and Blankets Christmas appeal. Once again we've been taken aback by the generosity of Christians, and we have received a staggering £145,618 in donations. The need is so great for both the physical and spiritual resources, that we can make good use of all the funds sent to us - and 100% of all donations will be used for these supplies.
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With the help particularly of Volodymyr Kostyshyn in Ternopil and Liudmyla Mariash in Kyiv, and Dawid Koziol in Poland, we've managed to provide:
- 9,820 Bibles or New Testaments, in Ukrainian or Russian;
- 8,200 high quality quilted blankets;
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16 large generators.
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This has used £101,423 of the funds, and we are already in the process of raising more orders for Bibles and blankets. We're also looking to provide 15 large 'power stations' (rechargeable power units for churches which can't use generators) - with the permission of some of our donors, as we didn't explicitly include these items in the scope of the original appeal, but were requested by churches in Ukraine.
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Bibles and blankets being distributed in Kyiv |
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Last week we caught up with Valik Lipskiy, whom we've been supporting in Uman, where his church have been working tirelessly to support refugees, both in this city and in the east. Valik spoke to us from his van, which carries him 1000's of kilometres each month. He'd just returned from taking aid supplies to the outskirts of the city of Bakhmut, the focus of recent Russian attacks. |
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In Uman, they support many hundreds of displaced people, who continue to come from the east. The small church has doubled in number from 40 to 80 as people have joined them, and they've had the joy of baptising many. But the emotional and physical and spiritual costs of this outreach are great, and recently the team had to take a break from the relentless pace of work to recover their strength. |
Vivienne Birch has written an article about Valik's work and our conversation with him: "A Man with a Van in Uman". Please do take a few minutes to read the article, and allow it to inform your prayers. |
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Volodia Kostyshyn joined us on the call to help translate, and also to share his own prayer requests. It has been a period of real trial for him and his family, after the sudden death of his father a couple of weeks ago. And while other evangelical churches have been seeing fruit from their labours, with people being added to their number, Volodia's church hasn't had this joy (probably because of its location outside the city). Instead they've had the disappointment of several of their fellowship leaving the country. But they continue to give themselves to the work of the gospel, especially amongst the families of people with disabilities.
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| £1,428,993 has been received since the start of the appeal.
(This figure does not include the £145,618 raised for the Bibles & Blankets Appeal) |
£1,2473,031 has been disbursed since the start of the appeal.
76% to Ukraine
16% to Moldova 5% to Poland 3% to Romania <1% for across Italy, Hungary, Spain and literature from UK |
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We are currently giving direct regular support to 15 evangelical churches across Ukraine, Moldova, Poland and Romania, and others on an as-needed basis. But some of this support is also channelled to other churches, particularly in the warzone. In some cases, we are also helping particular families, to enable them to support the work of their church. |
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For more details of how we are working to make effective use of the generous donations entrusted to us, please click here. |
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Phil Dunn (EMF Northern Ireland Representative) |
| Martin Tatham (EMF Church Partnership Coordinator) |
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