Ukraine Update: Despite War, God’s Work Goes On

UPDATE: JULY 07, 2022

The TWR Ukraine team and content creators continue to do their work despite the ongoing hazards and horrors of war. [images courtesy of TWR Ukraine]

If you’ve been following our updates about the war in Eastern Europe, you know that we’ve reported lots of providentially positive developments amid the ongoing devastation.

In fact, the courageous efforts of our contacts in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus continually bring to mind the words of Joseph in Genesis 50:20, that what was intended for evil has been used by God to bring about his good purposes.

That obviously doesn’t mean we should view the world or this conflict through rose-colored glasses, however. Missiles are still falling in many parts of Ukraine, and death, destruction and despair are ever-present burdens in the lives of believers and unbelievers alike.

The brief video seen here (left) makes the point. Sent by friends of TWR Ukraine team members, it shows what this family encountered when they finally were able to return home. Their home had been used by the military and then torched when the soldiers withdrew from the area.

Subject like all of their neighbors to the hazards and horrors of war, our Ukraine team members remain determined to share the hope they have in Christ with their countrymen. A new report from the team reveals that God continues to overcome wartime evil with his goodness.

Despite the critical conditions, the team is producing abundant audio and video programming that clearly is striking a chord with audiences. One video message called “Predatory Foxes and Good Neighbors” received over 137,000 views on Facebook, and another called “Is It a Sin to Protect Believers?” drew over 114,000 views.

After team members helped clean up rubble from a destroyed house of prayer in Bohdanivka, a video of the trip logged over 246,000 views. Many responded to the village’s tragedy and sent donations. Pastors of local churches have also stepped forward to support the Ukraine team’s ministry.

TWR Ukraine director Alex Chmut has been busy speaking at churches, where people frequently say they watch the ministry’s videos and share them with others.

“We have discovered a whole new audience that was not previously familiar with us,” Chmut said. “… I have received so many invitations to visit local churches that it would take more than a year to implement them.”

Of course, the great goodness in this report is not the statistics themselves but the opportunities they represent to touch the lives of listeners and viewers. Like this letter from a soldier who recounted that his mother took him to church, where he was baptized, but that he eventually drifted away into a life of sin.

“With the invasion by Russia, I am at the front, and I see God's mercy and protection every day, but I do not understand a lot of things that happen,” he wrote. “… We have no chaplain at the front, and it's bad. But I ask you to pray for me and ask God to forgive me for all of my sins and help me understand how to move forward.”

Although recent reports received from Belarus and Russia haven’t been as detailed as these from Ukraine, our friends and contacts there struggle against very different but still daunting challenges. The good news, though, is that they are managing to create and complete programs in their native languages to reach out with the gospel in restricted media environments.

If you feel led to get behind TWR’s efforts to keep Bible-based programming going out to this theater of war, you can do so with our Ukraine-Russia Crisis Fund.

Join Us in Prayer

• While the most heated fighting is happening today in eastern Ukraine, attacks can come almost anywhere at any time. Ask the Lord to protect our team members, their families and the studios.
• Praise the Lord for the inspiring donations mentioned above from pastors and audience members and pray for additional support for our partnering teams and program creators in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus.
• Ask God to bless the unnamed family whose home was burned as they deal with their losses and seek to rebuild. And then please expand your prayer focus to take in the thousands of other families facing similar and worse disasters.