Ukrainian Gospel Response

Olena* and her three daughters are among the millions of displaced Ukrainian families. They were living in a basement in Western Ukraine when we first met.

Because of the generosity of Christians like you, they were able to find stable housing in a nearby apartment. Now, they are regularly involved in our church plant.

Despite the war, the greatest problem facing Ukrainians is lostness.

Your gifts provide the supplies that open doors, allowing our team to reach hard places and share Jesus with those in need.

Baby formula, diapers, and children’s clothes help Ukrainian parents who often lack extended family support with childcare and other essentials.

Thank you for giving and praying for families like Olena’s. You undergird our presence at families’ points of need so that we can share the gospel in word and deed.

Please continue joining us in prayer:

• Pray for Olena as she raises her daughters “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
• Ask God to help struggling families like Olena’s find calm and safety for their children.
• Pray for spiritual and physical stamina for our team as we seek to bring hope to many hopeless Ukrainians.
• Ask the Lord to end the war!

We are so thankful for you, your faithful prayers and sacrificial gifts. You are making a difference in the kingdom and blessing many as you do.

*Name changed

Some days are just a struggle, especially in Ukraine, and this was one of those days!

The train was repeatedly delayed, as mechanical issues compounded a tight timeline and the terminal was unavailable because of another train.

When I finally walked into the small Baptist church, I was weary, distracted, and, frankly, a bit overwhelmed by the day’s chaos.

My sermon that morning focused on Ukraine’s greatest problem. It wasn’t the chaos and pain created by war. The greatest problem in Ukraine is lostness!

God used that sermon to draw Vlad* to salvation. He didn’t respond to anything profound from me, but to the Holy Spirit’s work in his life.

Now, Vlad is active in a discipleship group, learning and growing in his spiritual walk.

Thank you for enabling me to travel regularly in and out of Ukraine because of your generosity to this ministry. While your gifts provide transportation, your fervent prayers offer encouragement and support, especially amid the chaos of war.

Please join us in prayer:

• Pray for Vlad and other new believers as they mature spiritually and grow in their understanding of God’s Word.
• Ask God to use churches in Ukraine as they proclaim the good news despite the overwhelming suffering and loss around them.

Your faithful intercession and giving are more encouraging than words can communicate. Thank you for your continued partnership in bringing the gospel to Ukrainians. God is still at work here, and you are a vital part of this ministry.

*Name changed

While fleeing the war, Davyd*, a Ukrainian pastor, sensed the Lord’s leadership to remain in Germany, where he discovered more than 180,000 Ukrainians living in his area. Because of your generosity, he planted a church and started a training center to mobilize displaced Ukrainians to impact Western Europe for Christ. So far this year, they have baptized 10 new believers. Thank you for making this possible!

Your gifts enabled Pastor Davyd to organize and host a training conference with over 300 participants. The event brought together Ukrainian believers with church leaders who equipped them to share the gospel, disciple new believers, and plant churches throughout the Ukrainian diaspora in Europe.

Humanitarian needs continue as Ukrainians decide either to flee or to remain in their homeland. Your intercession and giving show ongoing compassion as the Body of Christ responds to their physical, emotional, and spiritual hurts.

Please join us in prayer:

• Pray for displaced Ukrainian believers to be catalysts for the gospel in Europe, the most lost continent on earth.
• Ask God to open the hearts of not-yet-believing Ukrainians to His love and grace.
• Pray for wisdom for our team as we give out aid and the energy to meet the rising demands of this critical ministry.

Thank you for joining us in addressing the world’s greatest problem: lostness. Your gifts and prayers for this team enable us to reach the Ukrainian people with the good news. You are a co-laborer with us in the gospel. We value your partnership!

*Name changed for security

Thank you for praying and giving to help reach the Ukrainian people for Christ. Long-term Christian workers and their local partners actively minister to Ukrainians, escaping the escalating conflict. With over 5.1 million internally displaced Ukrainians and another 6.2 million who have fled to other countries, your faithful intercession and generosity provide emergency supplies, water, shelter, and clothing and share the gospel through trauma healing, Bible distribution, and an online gospel witness.

War costs everyone. The war in Ukraine has caused prices to skyrocket, so many elderly and struggling families dropped into poverty. When the local people heard the church had established a feeding program for internally displaced persons, they came to the pastor and asked if they, too, could get food. Many had not had a regular meal for weeks, and some for months. They were scraping by with what little they had.

God uses few to impact many. Before the war, the small Baptist church in a border town ran about 30 people on a Sunday morning. Instead of feeling too small to do anything, they decided to help in any way God opened the door for them to serve. At the start of the war, they partnered with other churches to find housing for displaced people. Often, church members took in families and fed them at their own expense. The need for help with hot meals soon became apparent as many displaced persons could not afford gas or electricity.

The church started cooking soup with a little apartment-sized electric stove top by setting a large cafeteria-sized pot over the four small burners. Soon, displaced people volunteered to work alongside church members. As donations grew, the church hired one of its members as a full-time cook and another to oversee the needed changes to the building.

God continues to provide. Someone donated a large professional gas stove. Then, one man in the community heard about the need, took the gas stove top out of his own kitchen, and donated it also. When the pastor called to order gas lines run into the building, the gas company said sending someone would take three months. The pastor explained that the feeding program cooked over 500 meals daily on a small electric stove, and they sent a worker that afternoon who stopped on his way home from work. The man said he could not install two lines, one to each stove. Because of the high demand for new lines, the company enforced a strict one-line-only policy and then gave the pastor a wink. When the pastor entered the kitchen, he found a valve, allowing them to hook up both stoves from one line.

The church feeds people spiritually as well as physically. They hold evangelistic services daily, with about 30 people at each weekday service. Due to space constraints and language, Sunday services are divided between a standing-room-only inside meeting and another service in a tent in the courtyard. They recently had eight baptisms; another eight have gone through basic discipleship and will be baptized soon.

God’s provision is enough. The hired cook told our teammate that every night she goes to bed and says, “Lord, I am too tired to continue,” but when the alarm rings at 4 AM, God gives her the strength to get up and do it again. She works from 5 AM to 4 PM daily, then goes home, cooks for her own family, hoes the garden, and does other chores. She often goes to bed after 10 PM and then gets back up at 4:00. She says she is totally reliant on God to give her strength for the job because she has no more strength to give.

God is at work even in the time of war. It does not take a large church to make a difference in the Kingdom of God, only the faith to follow His leading. This small church has impacted the lives of thousands of people in their own town and hundreds of thousands of their countrymen. The church plans to keep the food program after the war, feeding the local poor and delivering food to neighboring towns with church plants.

Thank you for partnering with us to reach the nations for Christ. We appreciate your sacrificial giving and prayers as we labor together to solve the world’s greatest problem: lostness.

Thank you so much for your generosity to this ministry and the Ukrainian people God calls us to reach with the gospel. Because of your prayers and sacrificial giving, we provide emergency supplies, water, shelter, and clothing and share the gospel through trauma healing, Bible distribution, and online gospel campaigns.

Digital Campaign Touching Lives. Join us in celebrating that 22.7 million Ukrainians have seen gospel content on their devices over the last year from the “Hope for Ukraine” digital engagement strategy!

Recently, a Ukrainian mother saw our evangelistic ad and messaged with one of our Ukrainian national partners who was able to get supplies to feed her five children—because of your generosity—and pray with and encourage her, give her a Bible, and connect her with a local church! Thank you for your gifts and prayers as we continue to shine gospel light in the darkness on every device inside Ukraine.

Aiding Refugees in Transition and Crisis. Part of our team relocated to Budapest after the war began in Ukraine. We partner with local Ukrainian immigrants to minister to Ukrainian refugees displaced by war. Thanks to your faithful giving, we have planted a church among Ukrainian refugees here in Budapest. Your gifts have also enabled us to open a center for refugees called “Mercy House,” helping with food, clothing, and rent relief for refugees. In addition, the church plant provides additional ministries such as a youth and teen club and small groups for those interested in studying Scripture. At the end of April, we even had our first baptism!

Thank you for your generosity and prayers. Your sacrificial gifts and intercession truly transform lives as we partner together to solve the world’s greatest problem, lostness.

Almost five months of full-scale war in Ukraine has left many evangelical churches in Ukraine without pastors. Some evacuated, some went abroad, and others joined the army to defend the country, resulting in a great need for leaders and pastors.

As of today, in the city of Kyiv alone, nine churches have canceled Sunday services because of the pastor shortage. In the Kyiv region, more than 20 churches have been left without leadership. The ministers who have stayed in Ukraine are concerned that this problem will have long-lasting consequences for the evangelical church in Ukraine, and they have taken this need to the Lord in prayer.

By God’s grace, the Lord has raised up many believers to fill these gaps. They are enthusiastically involved in ministry, and the Lord continues to do great work in Ukraine through them. However, their backgrounds are in the marketplace, not church leadership, because they did not plan to become ministers. God’s call in such a time as this has led them to commit themselves to the ministry, but many lack Bible knowledge and basic leadership training. They are asking for training!

Seeing this need, the Association of the Churches of Evangelical Christian-Baptists of Kyiv has asked Kyiv Theological Seminary (KTS) to organize a compressed educational program for ministers who have taken on pastoral responsibilities during the war. These new ministers need theological foundations, mentoring and church leadership skills.

The president of KYS, Ruslan Khmyz, said, “In response to this urgent need, we organized the Linteum School of Pastoral Leadership at KTS. (Linteum in Latin means the towel with which Jesus wiped the feet of the disciples.) The Lord has brought together a strong team of Christ-minded people who have developed the program.

“The program needs financial support. For the majority of the brothers, it will be very difficult to afford even partial coverage of the cost of education, because the financial situation in Ukraine is very difficult.”

Students will take courses at the seminary three days each month over two years, completing 16 Bible and pastoral courses. In addition, they will be mentored and engage in theological and practical panel discussions weekly, covering issues such as baptism, ordination and dedication, the Lord’s Supper, ministry in a time of war, work with widows, teaching and other practical topics. Ten students are already committed to participating.

Establishing the Linteum School of Pastoral Leadership will cost $30,000, which underwrites the costs for 25 students over two years. Your gift to this groundbreaking theological training will create curriculum, cover professors’ stipends, and scholarship students who will find it hard to pay for education because of the shattered Ukrainian financial situation.

If you have wondered how you can touch the lives of Ukrainians affected by this war, prayerfully consider a gift to establish the Linteum School. These new gospel ministers are reaching out to those whose lives are shattered, telling them about the love of our God, who sees their plight and loves them. Your partnership will strengthen their ministries and transform lives for eternity.

IMB President Paul Chitwood offers a first-person account of the hope of the gospel and physical aid that Southern Baptists and their partners across Europe continue to offer to Ukrainian refugees. Read more.

As thousands of Ukrainians pour across the borders into neighboring countries, IMB is doing “everything we can to respond,” showing and sharing the love of Christ.

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