March 25, 2022
From IEA’s European ministries leader, Willi Daiker, and our Ukrainian partners…
Brothers and sisters, greetings!
The war continues… Tonight the air-raid sirens sounded all over Ukraine. Moscow does not stop its attempts to seize Ukrainian territories. Humanitarian corridors are blocked and shelled by the occupiers, and civilians are left homeless, without water, food, and medical care. There is a war of annihilation. We ask you to continue to pray and we invite everyone who is ready to support us by fasting for peace in Ukraine this week to join us!
On March 18, in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Christians of Rivne paid tribute to brother Serhiy Ilchuk. He was involved in relief work, rescuing people from Borodyanka as a volunteer driver. Despite the inscription “Evacuation” and red crosses, the Russian occupiers opened fire at the car and Serhiy was seriously injured and then succumbed to his injuries … The brother was survived by his wife and six children.
Three brothers from our mission took part in the evacuation of refugees from Chernihiv yesterday. They rode in a convoy of 10 cars together with volunteers from Kyiv. The trip was very exhausting and psychologically difficult and took them almost all day to get there. In the evening, all participants of the trip with their passengers returned alive to Kyiv, and today to Rivne.
Our other team managed to repair their minivan in Kryvyi Rih and have already made their way to Kamyanske. Currently, in the church of our Association House of Agape several ministers, including the pastor of the church Word of Truth from Mariupol, together are setting up a reception center to help the people of Mariupol and Zaporizhzhya. May the Lord help in this cause!
A Sunday service was held today in the Community of the Good Shepherd Church in Rivne. It was attended by people from Kyiv, Irpen Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhia, Bila Tserkva. In his sermon on Psalm 16, brother Mykola Romaniuk reminded us that we are mortal people, so we can find refuge only in the highest authority of God. None of the material things we can touch are able to protect us: no money, no houses, no cars, no weapons. We depend only on God and our protection is only in Him because everything you touch is as temporary and vulnerable as you are. That is why our security begins only with faith in God! Like the psalmist David, people in Ukraine need a community to share hard times. Psalm 16:3: “I say of the holy people who are in the land, “They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight!” And we thank the Lord for the fellowship we have in him with you, dear friends!
We look to the future that God has prepared for us with hope because He is already there! Like David, we want to praise our God because worship, contemplation of the Lord, and praise from a man make God visible to both ourselves and the unbelievers around us.