“ The Zaporizhia region is not very well provided with humanitarian aid.”
” There are many families left with children, low-income, and they really don’t have anything to eat.”
” Ordinary people who suffer from Russian aggression are left alone with their problems.”
Not far from the front line in Zaporizhia region is a village whose name we cannot write for security reasons. It is inhabited mainly by pensioners, widows, and displaced persons from neighboring settlements occupied by the Russians. There is virtually no humanitarian aid. Shops and pharmacies are not open. However, there is a church. In a tent. And it was this tent that became a center of support and a kind of place of rest for locals and residents of surrounding villages. “This tent was given to us for use. We hold meetings here and feed people if necessary . We study the Bible from scratch with people of the older generation, not with children,” says Lyubomyra Obolontseva, who has been serving in the church with her mother Lyudmila since day one.
To listen to the Word of God, people walk 7 kilometers. The distance and the risk of shelling scare them less than loneliness and confusion. In the church they find something that helps them hold on during the war. This is evidenced by an elderly woman whose son is fighting in the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine: “I come here for the sake of communication, not because they will give me something. I repented, I believe, I have hope. My son has been fighting for three years and, thank God, he is still alive. I myself pray for him and have asked in church. I believe that God is helping, He is protecting him until now.”
The church, which emerged during the war, knows the needs of people. Everyone is welcomed into the tent and helped: displaced persons, military personnel, and simply needy fellow villagers. They feed, resettle, and find the necessary medicine or clothing. It sounds easier in words than it really is. After all, bringing the necessary humanitarian aid to this area is a great challenge and risk. “ We have people flying in here, it’s noisy here, and not everyone wants to go here and bring something, so the prices for food in the frontline zone are simply cosmic , ” Lyudmila Obolontseva painfully shares about the realities of life near the front line. “ Shops are not working, buses are not running, there is nothing to get to the pharmacy. There is only one minibus to the city a day.” A local resident, a single mother with two teenage daughters, shares about a difficult year and a poor harvest: “There were frosts in May, and in the summer there was a drought, there was no harvest at all. “I only grew 11 beets from a ten-acre garden . “
For villagers, the garden is often the only source of something edible. And when it is not possible to stock up even on vegetables for the winter, it becomes truly difficult and scary for people. Few people dare to take the risk and bring food or medicines here. Therefore, in such villages, people live in constant anxiety that one day no one will come to them at all. Therefore, it is the local church that supports people and inspires them not to give up and believe in tomorrow. “Without faith, a person cannot. We trust only in the Lord. So that He will help us with His love through the hands of good people,” says an elderly woman who is preparing for water baptism. Already at a very respectable age, a person opened up to God and discovered His boundless love for himself. That is what He created the true Church for.
Having learned about the church in the tent, the team of the “Mission of Good” project set off to the danger zone to see these incredible people, bring the local residents the necessary help and assure them that they have not been forgotten. This project has been around for over 2 years and during this time has gathered around it many caring people both in Ukraine and abroad. This time we were helped by our regular partners from Sweden, the charity organization “Star of Hope” Hoppets Stjärna . Together with partners from the NGO “WE CAN!” and its media project, the TBN UA channel, we collected food kits, winter clothes for children and sweets, as well as children’s Bibles for the residents of the front-line village. The trip turned out to be quite difficult, but the risk paid off. Seeing the light in the eyes of war-weary people is a special joy. “ We believe that this help will be like a hug from the Lord for people. “They will feel His love and this will bring them even closer to God ,” the pastor who accompanied us on this mission said very aptly.
“ I saw in the church that there is still goodness, because people help, try to be kinder to each other, I thought that it had been wrong for a long time .” This confession of a ten-year-old boy struck us the most. Children are the litmus test of what surrounds them. And so that children whose childhood is stolen by war can see kindness and feel care again – that is why we are working, getting ready to set off, looking for partners for the next humanitarian missions. Such as “Mission of Good” from the NGO “WE CAN!” and the TBN UA channel. This project was created to carry the light of God’s love through deeds of mercy and to help Ukrainians in difficult times of trial. Join our mission. Become with us the answer to the prayers of those in need. May our faith be alive, and good deeds be sincere. As long as we help each other, we are invincible!
You can support the project financially at this link: Partnership
Let’s band together for good deeds!