Thank you for your concern and for praying for Ukraine and the Ukrainian People
1. Last week we mentioned an urgent prayer need concerning our container headed for Ukraine. It’s important for it to arrive in Ukraine by December 1 due to stricter regulations coming into effect that day, which will make it harder to receive humanitarian-aid status for such shipments. The prayer request involved the striking Polish truck drivers who have blocked truck border crossings. There is no sign of the strike ending and the lines are now thousands of trucks long. Therefore, we are trying to arrange to transport our container from Poland to Ukraine by rail. Please pray that this can be arranged.
2. Last week we mentioned that our church planter Vitaly Bilyak had completed his 13th trip to distribute aid and preach the Gospel to those living in the war zone. Accompanying Vitaly was Andrei Eliseev, who directs the church’s Drug and Alcohol Rehabilitation ministry. To see and hear glimpses from that trip, please click the following link for the video, Donbas 13: Serving for Civilians:
https://vimeo.com/user37287229/serving
3. As many of you know, each of our church plants in Ukraine has members and close relatives serving in Ukraine’s military. Many of them are in battle, and all of them will soon be facing freezing winter temperatures. Praise God, a friend of BIEM is especially burdened to help as many of these Ukrainian soldiers as possible with warm thermal underclothes and socks. He’s considering making a large donation for such a project if we can produce a realistic plan for procuring and distributing such items. Please pray that God would direct our thoughts concerning this important, potential project.
4. Igor Fomichov—who pastors the church on the military base in Desna, Ukraine— has recently returned home from a trip to the US, where he was sharing about BIEM’s war relief efforts with American congregations. He reports that more and more of his men are being called up for military service. One of his deacons and the director of their drug and alcohol rehabilitation center have both recently been called up. This reduction in manpower will slow down the church’s ministry of distributing war relief. Igor has been told that he may be next. Please pray that Igor would be spared military service as this would be a huge setback for that church’s overall ministry.
5. Yesterday a local charity sent us 8 pallets of medical supplies as humanitarian aid we can ship to Ukraine. We praise God for this huge blessing! Some friends have asked whether the new regulations will prevent us from continuing our war-relief shipments. Although continuing such aid will involve more work than in the past, we believe we will be able to continue shipping containers to Ukraine. Doing so may take a bit of time as our people adjust to the new regulations. However, we believe they will be able to adapt and continue despite the new, tighter regulations.
In Christ,
Sam Slobodian
President, BIEM