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A MESSAGE FROM UKRAINE AND A WAY TO HELP

7 March 2022

Support The TWR Russia-Ukraine Crisis Fund – donate here.
For continuing updates as the crisis unfolds, visit here – we’d appreciate your prayers!

As the war between Russia and Ukraine continues, we want to share with you an update from one of our colleagues deep inside the war zone. In addition, I want you to know about a new channel set up to support our partners on the ground and their ongoing ministry to this troubled region.
If you’ve been following our updates (see twr.org/russia-ukraine), you’re familiar with our beloved brother in Ukraine who leads our ministry team there and, for security reasons, cannot be identified by name.
The director – let’s call him Matthew for the sake of this blog – has borne a heavy burden since the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out. Amid the intensifying fighting, he’s struggled to keep the ministry in one piece, staying in touch with scattered staff members, planning makeshift recording facilities and coordinating with TWR personnel outside the country. And this has been done as he purchased and distributed food to those who needed it, all while trying to ensure his family’s safety.
We have now learned that Matthew has been conscripted to dig trenches for the local Ukrainian forces. To meet the crushing attack in progress, Ukraine’s government has banned men 18 to 60 years old from leaving the country so they will be available if needed to help with defence.
We don’t know how long Matthew will have to serve, what conditions he is facing or whether he is able to return to his family when not on duty. But we do know that he will be resolutely serving his Saviour in all he does and that we will be praying for him and seeking ways to support him and his family throughout this crisis.
We need your help
TWR has two primary objectives during this international emergency: to aid co-workers like Matthew as much as possible and to continue proclaiming the gospel to the people of Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. This is why we’ve established the Ukraine-Russia Crisis Fund.
Ministry during and after a man-made disaster like this is always extremely complicated. It’s unavoidably harder and costlier to support our partners on the ground, create programming, find additional ways to get the Gospel on the air as stations and transmitters are silenced, and interact with listeners.
But we can be confident that these objectives will be accomplished because we have a God who is ever faithful, team members whose sights are set firmly on Jesus and supporters who refuse to back down from a challenge.
It’s your support that will enable us to keep reaching out to listeners like this man in Ukraine who messaged us via social media in the midst of the pandemic. “I used to understand very little when reading the Word of God, but now my eyes have opened thanks to your programmes.”
Will you pray with us?
As much as your financial gifts, TWR’s outreach needs your prayers.
• Pray with us that broadcasts can continue uninter¬rupted. TWR has been broadcasting in the Ukrainian language since 1962 and currently broadcasts 23 programmes in the Russian and Ukrainian languages. Through these programmes, we pray that many will find hope.
• Please remember our team leader in Ukraine. He needs physical, mental and emotional strength as he digs trenches to help the country’s armed forces. During this time, of course, his ability to look after his family amid the hostilities surrounding them will be limited, and his devoted leadership of the ministry team will be curtailed or impossible.
• Pray for TWR ministry teams in all three nations caught up in this war. Despite the dangerous political differences dividing their countries, ask that the ministry teams’ unity in Christ remain strong, making them unambiguous witnesses to the power of God.
Thank you for standing with us in prayer.

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