May 2023
Hello dear friends,
I hope all you moms had a wonderful Mother’s Day and felt appreciated and loved! On the subject of family, I want to highlight children this month. If you are new to our ministry, allow me to share with you that we have served Ukrainian children for 20 years. We have worked with orphans, disabled children, kid’s clubs, and taught English to kids in many of our English courses. God has been very gracious to use us in a variety of different ways. We were actively working with children when the war began last February.
Once the war began, all the kid’s clubs dispersed and the government moved the orphans we were serving to another undisclosed location or completely out of the country of Ukraine. To keep true to our calling, we began partnering with a ministry in Romania that was housing Ukrainian orphans. We did this until the end of 2022 (you may recall that we highlighted these orphans in 2022). The last to leave was a disabled orphan, but now all the orphans are gone from our area of Romania too.
We did engage in two Christmas programs this past December and in April, we sent almost another $3,000 and asked our ministry partners to please use these funds directly to bless children. Our friends were happy to do so! I am confident we will be helping out with summer camps in a few months too. But it breaks my heart how many children (and mothers) were unable to flee the country when the war began and have had to experience many things that most people should never have to face in life.
My mother-in-law was able to leave Ukraine after 5 months, became a refugee in Romania for six months, and she was able to come to live with us in Colorado Springs in January. It has been almost five months and she still cannot discuss the atrocities she saw in Kharkiv. Whenever we bring up the subject, she just shuts down and begins crying. Clearly, she is struggling with post-traumatic stress disorder. If this is what she is going through, can you imagine the children? And just in the areas we serve, there are still thousands upon thousands of children living through this daily hell.
Within the body of this letter are only a handful of the thousands of children you are helping keep alive in Ukraine. Your donations and prayers have helped give a small glimmer of hope – thank you! I will post many more photos of kids we are helping on our Slavic Christian Ministries Facebook page, if you want to see more of these tender souls.
Please continue to partner with us; there has been a huge drop off in donations. If you haven’t given in a while, please know the needs are still great and we need your help! Just because the news cycle doesn’t highlight Ukraine, as much as last year, the needs are as great as ever.
If you are willing to intercede with your pastor, I am more than happy to speak to your church leadership. But it takes advocacy from you to make it happen. Please share our story with whomever God places on your heart.
In the meantime, please keep all these beautiful children in your prayers! If you would like to donation to our ministry, please go to slavicchristian.org/donate. All gifts are tax deductible.
In Jesus’ love,
Ron
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