Ministry to Refugees
With great sadness, I should say that the war in Ukraine continues. It is not of a lesser scale than it was in the first month of the war. Our country is still going through massive bombing and shelling and hundreds of people die every day. About 20% of the country remains occupied including our home city of Kherson.
Moreover, the situation is getting worse, as millions of families are facing hunger and cold in front of the coming winter. With houses destroyed, savings spent, and lacking elementary medical supplies many people will not make it through this winter. That is why it is so important to continue the ministry to these people.
As you may remember, our ministry to refugees can be divided into three major categories:
- Ministry to people in occupied territories
- Ministry to internally displaces people (IDPs)\refugees
- Evacuation from a war zone and occupied territories.
Let me tell you more about what has been done in each of these areas.
Food Distribution in the Occupied Territories
Every month we see that the threat of hunger is growing in Kherson and the rest of the occupied territories. If Kherson is completely cut off from the south bank of the Dnipro river (where most of the supplies come from) the food supply will stop. Even now most of the food supply comes through boats.
That is why we try to distribute food regularly through the network of 20 partner churches in the area. We supply them with funds to purchase food from local producers and they distribute these products through church volunteers.
The average amount of people served each month is over 12 000.
Making Church Buildings Safe to Hide
Another big need is helping the churches to make their buildings safe and make basements usable for big crowds of people who come to hide during the bombing alerts. That’s why we help the churches to purchase bags with sand and improve their basement ventilation systems.
The Good news is that the churches in the occupied territories are filled with people who are hungry for God too.
Work with the IDPs
The food distribution also actively takes place in Ivano-Frankivsk, where TCI is currently located. There we are working through the network of local churches and our Refugee Center called Filter. Hundreds of people show up for food giveaways. Also, TCI is serving three meals a day in one of the churches of Frankivsk.
Refugee Children Receive Backpacks for School
Below you can find a short video of how 130 children were served thanks to the generosity of one school from the Netherlands.
Backpacks for Refugee Children
Bicycles for Refugees of Ivano-Frankivsk
Refugees Receive Bicycles Thanks to Our Partners from Poland
Another short video and two testimonies of refugees who benefited from this project.
Evacuation
TCI continues to help people to evacuate from the war areas and the occupied territories.
Though we saw that there was less number of people needing evacuation in recent months, now we see that this need is growing again. The Ukrainian government has announced forced evacuation from many war areas, as there are almost no chances that people will have electricity and heating there till the war is over.
Also, as more territories are liberated, more people have an opportunity to leave their destroyed property. The most difficult task is to evacuate people from the occupied territories, as that puts all the evacuees and the driver at big risk.
Praise God, we have courageous drivers, who take this risk. Please remember them in your prayers.
Recently TCI was able to make a major upgrade of its evacuation buses thanks to the generosity of our friends from IDES. It is a great asset to our drivers as their previous buses had over a million miles on them.