Update: Sovereign Grace Churches' Support for Ukraine
KingsWay,
Mark Prater, Executive Director of Sovereign Grace Churches, has updated the churches in our denomination about the impact of our contributions to aid churches in Ukraine caring for those impacted by the war. He thanks us for giving to our denomination’s Europe Development Fund and encourages us that our giving is making a huge difference. He shared the following update from a local Ukranian pastor:
Friends,
On behalf of our entire community and team of ministers, I thank you for your invaluable help to the war-torn people of Ukraine.
We are still accepting refugees from bombed-out cities. We invite them to Church Sunday meetings, and most of them gladly accept our invitation.
This Sunday, a campaign of 8 women sat in the second row. They sang along with the church, prayed, and then listened attentively to the sermon. I thought that these were believing women from some church, and after the sermon I went up to meet them. It turned out that these were teachers from a school in the city of Kharkov. Last week, a rocket hit their school and completely destroyed the school building, two of them had their houses destroyed, and five of their husbands went to the Ukrainian army. The Ukrainian authorities gave them the opportunity to work in other cities, they arrived in our city late on Saturday evening, and one of the hostel workers where they spent the night invited them to our church on Sunday to receive humanitarian aid. I was surprised that this was the first time they had been to a Protestant church and heard the gospel preached for the first time. We talked with them for about an hour and I answered their many questions about the war, about faith, about salvation. I prayed for them that the Lord would arrange their fate and give them faith in Jesus. It is amazing that they lost their jobs and property, but God, rich in mercy, gave them the opportunity to hear about Christ.
We also serve teenagers who came to our city with their families from the war zone. The guys are very open for acquaintance and friendship. We play football with them, and then we invite them to the church to the fellowship club. We pray that the Lord will open their hearts to the truth about Jesus.
In addition, we make food packages and distribute them to the migrants, testifying to them about the love of Christ.
Today, our city was subjected to rocket fire, there were powerful explosions, a power plant was destroyed, people were killed. Now there are power outages in the city, the Internet disappears, in some areas there is no water, traffic lights do not work. In the morning I was in the area where the rocket hit and saw a hole 20 meters deep, destroyed houses, broken windows in multi-storey residential buildings. I met my fireman friend, he is a believer, we prayed with him.
Friends of Sovereign Grace and Arche, you are doing a very important thing for our people! Thanks to you, we can continue to serve people suffering from war and preach the gospel to them!
___________________
Michael Ostanin | pastor
ARK church, Dnipro
Ukraine
KingsWay, to date, our family of churches has given over $137,000 to the war relief efforts in Ukraine. An additional approximate $16,000 remains and is earmarked for sending to Ukraine over the next month. Given that the relief needs in Ukraine will continue for some time, Mark asks each of us to prayerfully consider an additional gift to our Europe Development Fund for the relief work in Ukraine. The denomination’s goal is to raise at least $40,000. Gifts can be made here.
May the Lord move powerfully for the sake of His name amidst these devastating circumstances.
Posted by Matthew Williams