Bonus Talk: "Ukraine Crisis" by four brothers

The one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him, and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Strength to Strength. It is a pleasure to have you all here this morning, although our reason for gathering is maybe not so pleasant and a little interesting for our time, I guess, to see the invasion that's going on in the Ukraine.

So we're gathered here this morning to hear about some of the refugee crisis and how some of the brothers are helping out with that. Strength to Strength is usually every other Saturday morning, but this morning is a special event due to the conflict there and the crisis, and next Saturday morning will be our regular scheduled meeting.

We have four speakers on this morning from four different countries. Each one of them will be sharing for about 10 to 15 minutes, and we will open it up for discussion or for questions after each speaker. So if you have any questions or comments, we'll have a time of a few— we'll field a few questions after each speaker has shared.

Before we get started, Brother Titus Miller, would you say a prayer before we get started here? Go ahead. Let's pray. Lord God, we come to you this morning in the name of Jesus, and thank you that we can call on you. Thank you that you are all-knowing, that you're in control. Thank you that we can trust our lives to you. This morning, we just pray, especially for those who are suffering in the Ukraine, those who are fleeing the pain, the insecurity that many face. Lord, we just pray that you would touch each one with your gentle spirit and that you would speak to them, you would minister their needs, and bring them, Lord, into contact with others who can show the love of Jesus and can bring life and peace to a troubled world.

We just pray, Lord, that your blessing would rest on each of those who are reaching out, administering, and those who are concerned for what is happening and wanting to get involved and to help. Bless each one in a special way with wisdom from above. And I pray, Lord, you would be with us today as we hear what you are doing through the lives of your children. We pray your blessing on the brethren who will share. We pray your blessing as well on those who will be listening. And Lord, we desire that through the events that are taking place, the kingdom of God would advance, would grow, would go forward, and the light of Jesus would shine brightly through your people.

We just commit this time to you and pray that you would be with us. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen.

So our first presenter this morning is Brother Bruce. And Bruce, if you could just give us a little introduction on who you are and where you're at there, we would appreciate it. This is a report of my experience as a pastor here in the days of war.

So I'm from Sheep and Sea, that's southwestern Ukraine, Chernivtsi, Oblast. And so far, our merciful God has spared us from bombing in our Oblast, Oblast is a state. So we are still in Sheep and Sea, and the Mennonite Church in Sheep and See is still intact. Only our school teacher, Kaylee Rhodes, has left. This is day 10 of the war, and everything that I want to talk about has happened in these last 10 days. So our trauma, our drama began at 5 o'clock on Thursday morning, February the 24th. One of our brothers from the Kyiv Church, Slavik Bodrov, brought his 20-year-old son, Jan, down to our house. His plan was to quickly get out of the Ukraine, although he had no idea that war would start that morning.

And they were going to rest for a while in our house before they drive across the border because they had driven all night. And suddenly, at that early hour, our son, Michael, from Kyiv called, sorry, sent a message to say that there are bombs and fire in the sky rattling their windows. So without finishing their tea at 5, then Yuzuba, who lives in our house, drove Jan to the Romanian border, which is an hour south. He walked across and was met by the brothers of the Suchaba Mennonite Church.

And half an hour after Jan crossed the border, the Ukrainian government made a rule that no men of military age, that's 18 to 60, may leave the country. So the crossing arm went down. So 10 kilometers from Michael's house in the village just south of Kyiv, the Russians started bombing the military airfield, that's Kyiv's main military one. Michael's quickly made plans to leave Kyiv with their six children and come to us in Sheep and Sea.

They brought the rest of this family that had the father and son were here, so they had 18 persons in an eight-passenger van. My wife and I went to meet them partway to relieve this packed van. And every service station that we passed that morning, there were 40 to 100 cars waiting to fill their vehicles with fuel. And we traveled 150 kilometers, so you can imagine how many cars were simply waiting at the gas stations. And what happened next was an exodus of the Mennonite Church in Ukraine.

So most of the families with children who had vehicles from our Mennonite Church in Kyiv and Kryvushchensy began to flee Kyiv and head to our Mennonite Church in Sheep and Sea. In Sheep and Sea, there was no bombing, and they would decide what to do next once they arrived. And there was great consternation among the brothers, the fathers that were military age because they didn't know how they would get out.

So on Thursday evening and Friday, our Mennonite families began to descend on us in droves. On Friday evening, we lodged 92 persons in two houses and the church house and Kaylee's apartment. By God's mercy, we had padded pews in the church house. We thought we had used every last blanket, but later we did find two old picnic blankets under the steps. So MIM's work began in Kyiv in July of 1993. My family was among the first sent over with an elderly couple, Edward and Sarah Miller from Kelowna, Iowa. Our children grew up in Ukraine.

Today, God has blessed us with 19 grandchildren. Our other children were not in the Ukraine at this time, only Michael and his family. So from 1993 to the present day, which is 28 and a half years, we have been serving in the Ukraine, not all the time, but 22 of those years. At present time, we have four Mennonite churches, one in the capital city, Kyiv. Two churches are located one or two hours from Kyiv, Kryvushchensy and Gorodetskoye. And in Sheep and Sea, we have our church, and that's 550 kilometers southwest of Kyiv. And just to give you a picture of the number of our churches, in September, for the CLP Church Directory of 2021, we had a count of 145 total members in our four churches and a total average attendance on a Sunday morning of 250 persons.

And each church operated a Christian school. So that evening, on Friday evening, we had a special prayer service in our church. We had one the evening before. And our church house was filled with fleeing brothers. And it was a time to seek God's face. It was a time to give encouragement. And it was a time to give encouragement to make decisions that our families would not lose their faith.

So everyone helped to cook food. I bought groceries in large amounts. And because of the stress and the trauma of fleeing, really no one ate very much. Maybe some of the children, but the moms and dads did not. Some were filled with panic and had fearful eyes.

Two families tried to cross into Romania on Friday. Sorry. Of the families that tried to get into Romania on Friday, two were declined exit because the fathers were military age, so the situation looked very grim. We had a brothers meeting on Saturday morning in the church house for all the brothers present, and we decided, what will we do? For Americans, at this time, we can easily cross the border either way.

Suddenly, as if directed by God, in an answer to our prayers, the Ukrainian government made a rule, a new rule, that fathers of large families can leave the country. Large family means three children or more. So this was just a door opened by God for many of our families to leave. We praise God for that. Women and children then and now can still easily leave.

At this meeting, I stressed that wherever they go, that they need the church. They will lose their faith otherwise. So I recommended that they go to Suchaba as a meeting point, at least. So that afternoon, four vans of Mennonites headed to the Suchaba Mennonite Church in Romania. More came, more continued to leave. Not all were allowed to cross the border. The young brothers usually were kept behind. At the regular Romanian border crossing that we usually take, there were 14 kilometers of cars through Abreast and probably thousands of persons walking across the border.

Some crossed into Moldova first and then into Romania. And my heart was filled with pain. I was observing the dispersion of the Mennonite Church of Ukraine.

God's work for 28 years seemed to go down the drain. I know God can turn evil to good, and I don't blame God. So more Mennonites kept coming to Sheep and See and going to Romania. And by Tuesday, most of them were gone.

Some of our families spent two days and nights in the vehicles just traveling to Sheep and See. There were traffic jams, police checks. They were emotionally shaken when they arrived at our place. In one incident, the Lord arrived, and I quickly needed to feed them. A whole family arrived. I put cheese and cold meat and bread on the table, and they just stood there. They just looked at me. I told them, "Put chairs to the table. Spread the plates out. Cut the bread." They hardly knew what to do. This family had planned they were going to stay. They're not going to flee. But when during the nights, the bedrooms of the children were lit up by the fire in the sky, they couldn't sleep, so they decided they were going to flee.

We saw this over and over. At our Sunday service, some of the village grandmothers told me that two men were arrested in Sheep and See. They had been caught or been seen painting targets on the ground to guide Russian missiles to bomb Sheep and See. And this is happening all over Ukraine. So there are Russian sympathizers among us, or they have slipped in. All the village signs on the roads have been removed so that the enemy cannot know where they are traveling or if they're walking, whatever. So I am just busy helping refugees at this time. Hardly have time to clean my own glasses and take my insulin.

Knowing that we are backed by a mission, people are calling for financial aid. They are fleeing, and sometimes they run out of money to buy fuel. So I transfer money from my bank account to their bank card, and then they continue on their journey. I doled out money for food. For some, the money that they had left was needed for fuel, so they had nothing left to eat. Sometimes they might spend two nights in the van to get across the borders. Some needed money for van repairs.

The journey was too hard on their vans, and they had to fix them before they could continue. But these were my brothers.

They had desperate needs. So MIM, that's Masters International Ministries, who organizes our work here, they organized a refugee fund, and the treasurer told me that the funds would come in, and God sees to that. The first days of war, we could withdraw no money from the banks. Now we can withdraw only small amounts from the ABM machines.

I was out of Ukrainian cash because I'd given so much out, but God provided in His grace. The first family that was here, Slavik Bodrov, he had brought with him 25,000 griven. That's like $900. And he couldn't leave the country. Well, he could leave the country, but it's worthless on the other side. It's not hard currency. So I changed dollars, and he was able to leave.

On Wednesday this week, there was a major change in our village. There were block posts set up on all the roads coming into the village. Men of the village guard these block posts and check every car entering the village. And I was called to the block post three times on Wednesday to release cars that were coming to us. One of these loads included an MIM delegation. That was Dan Smoker from Tennessee and my son, Conrad, from Canada.

They had come through Bucharest. All the airports in Ukraine, of course, are not flying presently. And they traveled to Suchaba and then crossed the border here. While they were in Suchaba, they were encouraging the Ukrainian Mennonite exiles. I'm not sure, but I think there's 100 or so of them, maybe more.

Dan and Conrad came to organize them as a group and to make plans for them to hold Ukrainian services and start a school for the exiles' children. And then Conrad and Dan came up to Sheep and See for a visit less than 24 hours, and we were overworked and worn out, my wife and I, so we really appreciated that encouragement. They went with me to the mayor of Sheep and See to offer aid for refugees. I told the mayor that we serve Jesus Christ and we don't go to war, but we will help from the other end. And the mayor knows that because one of the 19-year-old brothers of our church, Misha Kanatnikov, is doing his alternative service here in the village on the maintenance crew.

In our meeting, we decided that we would provide food and mattresses and bedding for the empty hotel in Sheep and See that the mayor is organizing to set up to have 100 refugees. The mayor refuses to receive any cash from us for fear that the villagers will think that he's going to line his pockets. So he wants us to do all the purchasing. We also went to another mayor in a neighboring village, and we had a similar meeting. We identified ourselves as the organization who gives out the seeds in our winter seed evangelization meetings.

He also had such needs, and he called yesterday saying he will take up our offer to buy mattresses for the refugees. Today, there are two men out doing that. And the greatest comfort that Dan and Conrad brought to me was the information that the Ukrainian Mennonite exiles are staying together in a group and that MIM will provide for their needs. I had a lot of pain in my heart because of that.

Because I know they will lose their faith if they're scattered.

I'm sorry for crying.

So to keep the exiles in Suchaba for a month or so, and if they cannot return to Ukraine, they plan to make a relocation elsewhere in Europe. It's not our intent to resettle any of our brethren in the United States at this time, but some might choose to do that.

So there are four of our pastors in Suchaba at the present time: Frank King, Laverne Wagner, Abner Staltzfuss, and Yasha Zuba. And there are still three pastors in Ukraine. That's Edwin Millers and Gorodetskoye. My wife and I are in Sheep and See, and Wayne Hirsch went to the mountains. The Bible does say, "Flee to the mountains," but they're planning to come back to Sheep and See to help me for a while. There are a few people left in those three churches, mostly the frail and the elderly, but there are some men who stayed back. There are great needs for food around us. Many of the big stores have empty shelves.

What you might know as Costco, we call Metro, and where they had pallets of flour and sugar, everything is gone. You cannot buy sugar and flour in those big stores because that's where people go to load up to feed refugees.

No rice, just macaroni. You can only buy it in little bags. Some of our stores have basic food items, but there are convoys of trucks coming from Romania and Holland that are bringing in food. I sent our van out to the mountains yesterday with a load of food for 160 refugees from Odessa who are being housed at a Christian camp. The camp had run out of food after four days of the refugees being there. So we transferred $1,000 worth of Ukrainian money from my account to their card. The load of food had come up from Romania.

Our sprinter van couldn't traverse on the snowy and icy mountain road, so they had to reload into their jeeps for the last leg of the way. Other needs is that our Sheep and See brothers are out of work. The factories are closed. The construction sites are closed. How are they going to feed themselves? One of the brothers from Kyiv, Sergei Mikutelov, he is living with his brother in Sheep and See, who is one of our members. They did not cross the border yet. And Sergei works for Grace Press as the warehouse manager of their literature warehouse in Kyiv. That literature warehouse in Kyiv was sabotaged the other night. There was a great fire, and how much of the Christian literature was destroyed, we don't know.

Here's another example. Dr. Olga is a Ukrainian Baptist and treats my back. I have a herniated disc. She received 60 refugees in her apartment and in her contacts, and her church received 200 refugees. And these are believers fleeing from the Mariupol area, which is on the Black Sea, just beside the part of Ukraine which the Russian insurgents had taken in 2014. Dr. Olga herself is a refugee from that area in 2014. These refugees need food and medicine. And some of the refugees told Dr. Olga that while they were fleeing, their neighbors called them and said that their houses were bombed. Their houses don't exist anymore, and there is nothing for them to go back to.

So we're planning to meet with Dr. Olga's husband today to give him money to feed these 260 refugees. Literature. In the midst of all this chaos, we started receiving calls for Christian literature. Baptist churches ask if we have New Testaments. And just at that time, there was a lull in the refugees, and we started sending out Ukrainian New Testaments by the case, as well as our Path of Life evangelization magazine.

One example, I got a call from Pastor Valentin this morning who received eight cases of literature on Wednesday, and he's been with his church giving out New Testaments door to door, and the people are very thankful and receive the word of God with joy. This pastor said that they can now read the gospel instead of watching television all day. Some wanted literature to give out to the lives of people waiting in their cars at the border crossings. We sent about 16 cases of literature to our Ukrainian brothers in Suchaba to give out to the unbelieving refugees in the area. And Cam has set up a heated tent where some of our brothers are going to give out literature at the border.

That's all I have now. I just ask for your prayers.

Thank you, Brother Bruce, for sharing that with us. Our thoughts and prayers are with you there. It's hard to imagine that kind of an upset in life and regular routine, and it's heartbreaking. Are there anyone who has some questions for Brother Bruce or comments?

We can see other people.

We won't take a lot of time waiting for questions or comments. Maybe we'll move on. We can open it up at the end for some more general comments or questions as well. The next brother to share will be Mark Zuba.

Let's see. Mark, are you ready to go there? Yes. Can you hear me well? Yes, we can.

Greetings to each one, and thank you for taking interest and time to learn more about this crisis. I would like to remember the verse that Paul wrote in Galatians 6:2, "Beary one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."

I am Mark Zuba. Originally, I came from Ukraine, but I did not come to—I did not leave Ukraine right now when the war started, but I left Ukraine six years ago, and actually seven years ago, and for the last six years, I have lived in Romania, and I am a part of the Anabaptist Church here in Suchaba.

I'm part of a big family. There are nine of us children, and most of us are here in Romania at the moment, but my dad and mom and a sister and a brother, they're still in Ukraine. My dad is actually very close to where there was a bunch of bombing last night, and he's a very courageous man, but I would appreciate your prayers for them as they try to serve God there. They have been helping refugees, people that were crossing through the border. Because of the curfew time, they had to stop pretty much for the curfew when the curfew is in place. And since my parents live at the highway, they have the opportunity to receive people and to be an encouragement to them.

But today, I would like to share a little bit more about what the Lord has been doing here in Suchaba. The war is a horrible thing.

It creates uncertainty, panic, fear, and it seems like it just brings the worst cruelty of human race, human nature.

There's so many bad things that are happening. People are unsecure, and they don't know what to do. Thousands of people ran for their lives to relocate in Ukraine, and many came to Romania, other countries. Romania alone received over 140,000 refugees during this past few weeks, few days.

Well, the Mennonite Church in Suchaba, in joint effort with ICAM, Christian Aid Ministries, and BAM, Brotherly Aid Ministries, has made an attempt to help these people and to lift the burdens of our brethren by taking care of especially Anabaptist people from Ukraine and also some other sincere believers through our Anabaptist context from Ukraine.

Many of them just took whatever they could, left pretty much everything behind, and came here.

Many of them had no connections in Romania except for knowing some of us here that are from Ukraine and lived here in Romania. And of course, there is a connection with the Mennonite Church here. And so, as Brother Bruce said, that he also referred them here, and the church here has been very, very welcoming to the needs of the people.

Some of the stories of people crossing the border are very interesting and touching.

One of them is about my brother Yasha and his wife, Anya. They have two little children, two little girls, and Anya was pregnant with the third baby. They tried crossing the border last week. They had to walk by foot about two miles long. They came to the border. They stood there for hours, and eventually, they were turned back because during that time, as they were standing at the border, Ukraine passed a law that no man between the age of 18 to 60 could not leave the country because of their military obligation. So they stood there all that time to just turn around and come back. Well, next day, they have made an explanation to the law to where families that had three or more children could cross the border.

So the next day, they tried again. They came to the border, but this time, the line was four miles long, so they had to walk and waited even longer, many hours. They waited hours. Finally, they crossed the Ukrainian side of the border, and then Anya began to have serious pains.

She couldn't stand anymore. She just sat down and cried.

They thought they were going to have the baby right there on the sidewalk.

Yasha asked for the ambulance to be waiting on the Romanian side, but once they crossed the border, she felt better, and last night, she had a baby. So we are thankful to God for this. Another young man, a believing young man, 25 years old, he crossed the border through the fields because he was in the age of draft. He escaped the war and the threat of being drafted.

When he told me his story, it just touched my heart. He lived in Ukraine, which is an economically struggling country, so he was trying to make a living. He worked hard and finally developed a little business to where it was providing a sustainable income for him. And now he left all of it. He just paid that he had, the loan he had for this business. And now he's left everything, and he feels so discouraged.

He feels like there's almost no future, and he feels insecure and sad. Another family of eight children that came to us, they were also struggling financially. They were hardworking. They saved all the money they could. They made themselves a greenhouse and planted flowers.

So they planted about a half a year ago. They watered for this whole time. They invested hours of work and money to sell these flowers and have an income. Well, the flowers are almost ready to sell. Within a few weeks, they were going to sell the flowers, but now they left everything behind and lost all their investments. There are about three more families like this that have 50-some thousand flowers in their greenhouses that are not being able to be sold.

Well, through God's grace and the help of many believers, we were able to help around 350 refugees here in Suchaba. The generosity of local believers was overwhelming.

There were beds offered to accommodate over 300 people, refugees per night. People were just opening their homes. And in addition to this, Cam has set up a tent by the border, a heated tent where we were distributing blankets, and people can come in, warm themselves up. We're also sending our staff there to interact with people, to encourage them, and to make sure their needs are met.

Most of our Anabaptist people from the Mennonite churches from Ukraine have stayed within the Suchaba area. Brethren from Ukraine and Romania desire to keep our Anabaptist people together while they're in Romania, and we're working on meeting the needs of the church, even though they're increasingly challenging.

And just think about having 200 people move into a new area, the practicality of it, and the needs that arise is very challenging. You need a place for all of them, food, transportation, the legal issues that need to be taken care of when they come. There are school needs. Many of them have large families, and so we want to make sure that these children are still going to school.

And there are just many needs to try to even provide something for all of them to do. So in our church, in our community, there are actually a number of large projects that we were hoping to use some donated labor to get them done or a major part of these projects. And if sufficient funds are available, we would like to offer work for a number of these refugees rather than depending so heavily on donated labor.

And I know that Satan is at work right now. He tries to discourage people by providing these difficulties and flags, you can say, but my prayer is that God will revive the suffering and the heartbroken people, the burdened people. Satan wants to make people worse and bitter people upset and discouraged, but my prayer is that God can make these bad things into something more beautiful to where people can become better people rather than bitter people, and that God will make a beautiful character in us. I believe Jesus Christ is coming soon, and he wants us to be pure. He wants us to love him and to expect his coming any time. My prayer is that the Church of Christ would prepare itself for this.

And I'm sure that God has everything under his control, and he desires us to do what we can until he comes to build his kingdom and to fulfill the law of Christ.

Thank you for listening. I wish you all God's blessings. And thank you, Brother Mark, for sharing with us this morning. I think we'll open it up for comments and questions at the end, so we'll move on to our next brother, Brother Laver.

You can go ahead.

Okay. Hello from Poland.

So yeah, our experience with all of this isn't quite as dramatic as what Bruce was describing. We heard about the war starting in Ukraine, and yeah, I couldn't believe what we were hearing. And yeah, the first thing we saw was the refugees starting to come into the country. And I think it was, yeah, maybe even the first day or so, I was in Warsaw at the central train station and just seeing lots of people there and realized that a lot of them were in shock and exhausted.

Even they're in Warsaw, they're far from the war, they're in a train station, but they just were really in shock and not able to handle or think what to do next. So we've been going in there regularly and just helping people with simple things like getting their train ticket. Poland offers free train tickets to all Ukrainian citizens, so it's not about the cost. It's just a matter of figuring out where to go and how to get the right ticket. We buy food for families. We help them make phone calls, help them get a taxi to where they need to go, just practical things like that. My daughter loves giving toys to the children and just seeing their faces light up and giving them a moment of joy.

So just a lot of simple things like that that we can show them some love and some care and take an interest in their lives and their situation. And even if we can't always solve their problem, we can at least show them that somebody cares, somebody is here too. And also listening to their stories. A lot of them are eager to talk about what they've been through in the last few days traveling here, and it means a lot to them to have someone just sit down and say, "How are you?

How are you feeling?" And if you want to talk, I'm here to listen. So just simple things like that.

And as I mentioned, Poland has given a tremendous response. Polish people, Polish government. I saw a post on Facebook. Someone said, "Foreign journalists are asking, 'Where are the refugee camps in Poland?'" The answer is there are no refugee camps because all the Polish people, all the refugees are in the hearts and homes of Polish people.

And so that's a tremendous response, and that's an encouraging thing. And as we know and as we can see hearing these brothers talk, these are days of many tears, a lot of heartache. But when I see this response of Polish people and also Ukrainians who are here, Belarusians who are here, and all of Europe and all of the world is responding, and that gives us a lot of encouragement that there is a lot of good in the world.

John 16:33, Jesus says, "I have overcome the world." And the truth is the good will win. The good is winning, even though the darkness is fighting hard at this time.

We are actively involved in setting up a children's home to receive Ukrainian children from an orphanage that was evacuated. The children made it through the border, thankfully, yesterday. They're in Krakow now, a city in southern Poland. They need to sort out some things, and then they'll be heading up our way next week. This is an amazing effort of local people here, a wealthy development company in our town. The family owns an old Polish manor house, and they have renovated that. They put all their resources into it in the past. They started on Sunday, I think last Sunday or Monday, had like 30 guys out there working every day, and they will have it ready by Monday or Tuesday.

And we're working with an organization called International Host Connection from the US that's actually bringing the children here. None of us here in Poland have any experience running a children's home, so I have no idea how this was able to happen or will happen, but it looks like in less than two weeks' time, a few people who have no experience with this will have established a functioning legal children's home. And it's just I have never seen this kind of passion and motivation and selfless dedication to a project. So that's really inspiring to see in the face of the tragedy.

People stand up, people sacrifice, people work together to make something happen, to take care of these children that are coming. Right now, it looks like about 30 children coming with their caretakers, but I wouldn't be surprised if more would come. In this particular building, there would be room for up to 60 children with their caretakers.

So we are also involved with a bus provided by a German businessman that runs nonstop between the border and Warsaw, bringing refugees from the border. So a need there is for a Russian-speaking person on the bus to help arrange the lodging in Warsaw. So that's a constant need. It's a very tiring job. We have people here. A brother from the Baptist Church is helping, but it's hard to find people for that. So if there are any Russian-speaking people who would be willing to come here and help with that ministry, that would be a big help.

We ourselves are hosting some Ukrainians in our house, and our church is going to be renting an apartment to host people in. So that's on a much smaller scale than they're doing in Romania there. We are not a humanitarian mission at all. We have never done any humanitarian aid. I mean, I think I've bought soup for homeless people already, but we have never, as a mission, done anything like that. And sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Laverne Hirschberger, and I'm here with Anabaptist International Ministries.

Me and my family, we've been here in Poland for over 20 years. And the main thing we do is an English school. We teach English to Polish people. And we also publish a magazine, Seed of Truth magazine, distribute Bibles, organize some music programs with a choir called Hope Singers, and some other events, conferences, and things. We're a small mission. There's only about 20 or so of us here, Americans.

And yeah, we have zero experience with anything like this, as do most Polish people who are involved in this. But it's just amazing to see the cooperation that is going on. It's very, very inspiring. One thing we have been involved with somewhat is helping the non-ethnic Ukrainians, people who come from African countries or Middle Eastern countries, and they've been living in Ukraine for years. Some of them have Ukrainian residence documents, but they get here to Poland, and the wonderful care system that's been put in place by the Polish government does not give them any help because they're not Ukrainian citizens.

And so we have helped some of those. The Baptist seminary will house them, but it can be hard to find a place like that. My daughter the other night was out, took a group of 17 people from Afghanistan to the government center, and they just left them standing out in the cold, wouldn't take them, the children, wouldn't do anything for them. And so eventually, somebody said they would help them, but that is something we're trying to focus on and provide needs for those who are not cared for by the system.

And yeah, as Mark mentioned, most of these people have had to walk. I had one group of guys that said they walked 50 kilometers, almost 30 miles, to get to the border. The group of Afghans that my daughter helped, they were riding a bus, but the bus ran out of fuel, so they just got off the bus and walked and had to leave basically all their luggage on the bus so they couldn't take their stuff with them. Also, when the Ukrainians arrive here in Poland, they might have Ukrainian currency, grivna, with them, even a large amount of it, but most currency exchange places don't take it, or if they do take it, only a small amount, and it's at a very low value.

So all of their money is almost worthless here. If they have money in euros or dollars, then that's much better.

Yeah. So I think a need that could be met here is something like Mark mentioned, a tent down at the border, a warm place for people who cross the border to just rest. My daughter's actually going down there today to help with one that's run by Operation Mobilization.

But if any other organization would want to come here and start something like that, that would be definitely meeting a need.

As you pray for us, please pray for the long-term care of these people. As I mentioned, right now, there's a lot of vision, a lot of passion for taking care of people. But as we think ahead, three months, six months, one year, the need is for that to continue, caring for these people. Also, for us to make wise decisions. We have many opportunities, but we need wisdom to know where to put our energy, how to best meet the needs, and not to overextend ourselves because, yeah, it's hard to sleep at night with all of the things going on, the things on our mind. It's hard to get good rest, and it's hard to know how much to take on and still take care of ourselves and our families and be in good shape to meet the needs around us.

So thank you so much for your interest and prayers and care. God bless. Thank you, brother. Brother Nathan?

Yes. Last Thursday morning, I got a call from one of my former coworkers in Ukraine concerning, "Should we be doing something for our brothers and sisters that we've left behind in Ukraine?" And we started calling around to various others, and every one of us had the same feeling. We simply cannot walk away if our brothers and sisters are hurting.

Thus was born an organization, a new one, Anabaptist Ukraine Refugee Assistance. We have 11 members on our team, nine of which are actually former workers in Ukraine at some time or another for multiple years. And our goal was to open channels so we can help our Ukrainian brothers in their time of need.

Now, bear in mind, the organization is only eight days old, so it started from a grassroots thing, and it's been quite a journey. Our goal, as mentioned, was to provide aid. What does this look like? First of all, our focus is to provide immediate assistance inside Ukraine to brothers that have stayed behind.

And the next goal would be to assist other missions and individuals in the neighboring countries as the resources and the needs arise. Possibly, some of these would be the ones you just heard from, but that could also be expanded. Now, down the road, we don't know. Possibly, we'll be assisting these believers in returning to Ukraine if returning becomes a feasible possibility.

And if not, then assist them in resettling in other countries if that becomes the best option for them. Either in the surrounding countries in Europe or possibly a few might relocate here as it'd be their choice. Currently, that is not an option for many because of the visa situation.

And thus, we are also maintaining contact with our own government, what we can do to alleviate this roadblock in their way. No success with this yet, but the Lord is still working. So what are the conditions in Ukraine today? What are we hearing from our brothers and sisters that are still there? And when I say brothers and sisters, these are evangelical people. By and large, they are non-resistant. They don't want to help in the fighting. But what are their needs?

Well, actually, the conditions, the location seems to be one of the keys. Now, in very general terms, west is better than east. The further west you are in the country, the better conditions are and probably safer. Also, we have noticed a difference in what we're hearing from them. The rural areas, the smaller villages seem to be better and safer than the large cities. However, this is in generalities. It does vary considerably from situation to situation.

As was mentioned, all the men 18 to 60 are forbidden to leave the country unless they have three or more dependent children. And while I do understand the government's premise in doing this, it makes sense so that these men are available to fight. It does make a lot of heart-rending decisions for various families.

Do we all stay together even if it's dangerous to stay together? Or perhaps we will send mother and the children abroad and we'll leave dad behind so families can be separated. Some families are sending the children abroad and the parents staying there, especially if they have relatives or friends in other countries.

And probably one of the most difficult decisions that many of us probably would face, what if I have sons that are of draft age? Does the rest of the family leave and leave these sons behind? And what about their faith?

If we leave them behind, are they going to lose out? So there's a lot of heart-rending situations, and we've actually seen various families make all of the above decisions. It just depends on what's right for them. Now, some are too poor to run, so leaving isn't even an option.

And what about the invalids and the sick and the elderly or the orphans? A lot of these can't leave. Meanwhile, all over the country, conditions seem to be rapidly getting worse. Worse in what way? Well, food supplies are starting to run out, especially in the large cities. And the problem is, in many places, they can't be restocked because it's not safe for trucks to be on the road.

And now this is reaching down even to some of the smaller towns. Food is running out. Well, of course, our American way of doing that, well, let's bring them more. Let's truck it in. And I was happy to hear that in some cases, this is happening, but many of the borders or the highways are not safe for imported food to even be there, and thus, the stores are running low. As you might imagine, when supplies start running out, prices start skyrocketing.

I had one brother tell us that a loaf of bread that two weeks ago, a small loaf of bread, he could buy for around 35 cents. He said today, that same loaf of bread, if you can find it, is $4.

Tremendous food inflation. So what can the Christians do? I have been blessed many times by the verse in 1 John, "Whoso hath this world's good and seeth his brother have need, and shuttheth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" Well, that's kind of the negative connotation, but if you think about it, that verse also implies that if the love of God is in our heart and these two conditions are met, there's some wonderful things can happen.

It's a picture to me of seed laying on dry soil. It can lay there for quite a while, and you don't really notice it, but as soon as you apply water, it just sprouts and grows. It's just the natural result of the love of God in our hearts when we see our brother has need and we have the ability to help.

It's just a natural thing to do. And we think of that from an American sense, "Okay, then I will give and send money overseas." That is true. But it's even more true in the sense of in the field in Ukraine today, we see countless brothers and sisters just sharing willingly from their heart with people in need.

And even though it's probably going to put themselves in hardship before long, but if the love of God is in your heart, it's just a natural result. It's what happens. So what are they doing? Well, many are finding ways to reach out and to help others.

And not just to believers, of course, that is a primary, but they're reaching out to ungodly neighbors or even to strangers that they've never met, people just passing through. And our contacts in various places of the country, this can take on a different look.

It depends where you're at and what the need is. Now, depending on the location, many have opened their homes to shelter refugees that are fleeing. And this can be a transit thing. They help as needed with food, maybe with an overnight lodging, helping them find transportation, money for fuel.