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Dear Friends,
Happy new year! I trust you all had a great Christmas.
The run up to Christmas was busy with many children visited as planned. The puppet theatre was very active, and children loved the new shows that were performed depicting the Christmas story. At the Centre many children and youth came along, and were given gifts as you can see from the photos below.
Christmas Day and Boxing Day were tough, as you might have seen the reports of heavy military activity within Ukraine, and especially Sumy. Power stations were targeted through the region, which meant that on Boxing Day there was no power for the whole day. Thankfully, at the Centre the bakery team had been able to bake lots of goodies and treats to take to the soldiers and their families on Christmas Day. They were so grateful for the support.
Nearer the border, Pastor Andrew in Samotoivka spent the two days in a bomb shelter. Water supplies were also erratic which made life more difficult. Power is back on now and for several of the last few days they have had power all day. Despite there not being a bank holiday day off for Christmas, their Christmas Day service was still held, and well over 200 people attended. Bohdan and all the team were so surprised - in a good way!
Despite the difficult conditions, they still managed to hold services and help people every day. Many soldiers are coming to church now to be prayed for before they must return to the front-line. Igor is one of those soldiers who came to church this past Sunday. He lost several of his fingers in the war, but the army insist on him going back to fight, so he came to church for the first time for prayer before he leaves.
Below is Leila. She is a military Medic who Bohdan said is constantly on the front line dealing with seriously injured people the whole time. What she has witnessed has caused much mental and spiritual trauma. She often has suicidal thoughts and came along for prayer before she leaves again. God moved in her life as she came to faith and asked that God would be her protector. Bohdan has asked that we pray for her.
I mentioned in previous reports before Christmas, that Bohdan and some of the team planned to visit different towns and villages with the puppet show and gifts to share the Christmas story. On Monday, they visited Mykolaivka. This town is just 30km’s from the Russian border, and it is very dangerous there. The school is still very large with over 500 children registered for school and online learning. The journeys were hard, and what normally takes 45-50 minutes to do took over 2 hours! There were many bomb craters to avoid and the checkpoints were tougher and harder than usual. Driving through one of them caused some paintwork damage to the minibus as it was so tight getting through.
The school were nervous about having them visit due to the dangers around and so they asked parents if they would like for this to happen. It was a unanimous yes, and they met in the bomb shelter. It was full up with around 80 children, plus their parents. Many of the children have parents fighting away, or are refugees from living right on the border where fighting is at its fiercest. The children were given presents along with a copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible. See the pictures below and at the top.
Interestingly, 3 of the young people in the puppet show team above are refugee children who have come to Lebedyn, and to the Centre for activities along with their parents. When they arrived in town, they were sent to the Centre for supplies and help, and have continued to come along.
However, on the way back at one of the checkpoints they did not ask for Bohdan’s papers but Valentin’s. They served him registered “call-up” papers which means he must go now to the military commission to try and fight for exemption. Valentine is only 22 years old, with the minimum age for fighting being 25. We hope that he will be freed from this “call-up” and Bohdan has asked that we pray for this as nothing is certain.
Today, they planned to visit another village closer to Lebedyn to meet with children to give gifts, aid and bring seasonal cheer with the puppet show. Please again pray for their safety in their travel. Next week is the winter camp. This will be more for the young teens and 50 are expected to attend, but as usual we are sure more will just turn up. These weeks are so impactful, so we pray that this will be able to be held, that there will be power, and there will be no sirens once again.
Bohdan shared with me on Tuesday that potentially there are new laws coming into effect that will protect Church Pastors and workers from having to go and fight. There of course will be caveats to how this will work, but it would be great to see this happen. I think the government is seeing how much the churches are doing to help communities. We again hope and pray that this might come into effect soon.
Reflecting on this past year, I think we all hoped and prayed that peace would happen and the killing would stop. The team in Lebedyn have been outstanding in their commitment to helping both physically and spiritually the needs of people in the Sumy region. They are living in extreme conditions, and as the year unfolded things have got worse. It would be easy to try and run and hide from all the problems around them. Instead, they remain committed to reaching out to those that are often abandoned, have lost everything, and have little hope for the future. Thank you all who have supported, prayed and donated through this past year. It has been humbling but encouraging to have your support, knowing that we are not alone in this journey. There is still much to do as we need to find more aid and supplies, find those that are living without any hope or contact with anyone else and to share the good news of Jesus through the pain and suffering. I’m sure 2025 will bring more new challenges, but we continue to pray most of all for peace and for this unnecessary war to end.
On behalf of the trustees of Hope Lebedyn - THANK YOU! And a happy and peaceful New Year!
Peter Martin
Founding Director of Hope Lebedyn
