URGENT NOTE: More updates on our efforts to ship relief items into Ukraine are coming! We have authorized a container from Norway to ship 20-23 metric tones of medical supplies and equipment into Ukraine. The cost was $4,070.00. At this point our funds to ship have been depleted. Please pass the word to other congregations and individuals who are willing to help the Lord’s Church respond to this crisis. A full update on all shipments will be sent ASAP.
Mike Lawson and I arrived back in the USA last Saturday evening. I have meant to send out this note but returned to find a number of greater “urgencies” needing attention. I am working on the trip report and will have it in the October UKRAINE MISSIONS newsletter. A special mission trip report package is being prepared to mail to supporters. Mike is also working on a report to his mail-list and supporters and he and I will combine our reports so readers will have the most exhaustive report possible.
Upon my return I received a call saying that news seems to be better and the crisis in Ukraine has lessened and there is no longer such an urgent need. This is simply not true.
I asked Mike Lawson to give a report on the current situation in Donetsk, Lugansk, and in other areas where the terrorists supported by and populated by Russia are active. Here is what he sent…
“Near the end of the mission while in Kyiv, I received a call from a very dear friend who lives in Dzerzhinsk, Donetsk, Oblast. She was coming to Kyiv for a symposium on caring for war traumatized children. I was very happy to hear from her as I did not schedule a visit to Dzerzhinsk on this mission. So we scheduled to meet on my last night in Kyiv.
Early in the conflict, she left Dzerzhinsk amidst a rebel invasion that left much of the city in a state of ruin; including her school. She returned just recently to start a new school year only to find that the Russian backed rebels were not satisfied with just fleeing the city, the rebels destroyed whatever they could as they retreated when the advancing Ukrainian Army closed in. Her school received considerable damage, but it reopened thanks to a fund drive to repair broken windows, doors, and bullet damaged walls. Classes are smaller now with many new faces from Donetsk and Lugansk. Many of the familiar faces are now gone…perhaps to never return as their parents fled for safety in other parts of Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian Military sat up an artillery battery in a wooded area not far from School #10 where our summer camp for children was usually held.
“Today, many parents keep their children at home fearing for their safety. These parents have little money and nowhere to go and so they stick it out hoping for the best. Shells fired from a rebel emplacement located in Gorlovka some ten kilometers away fall near the school.
“The rat-a-tat-tat of automatic weapons occurs throughout the day and night as rebels test the Ukrainian military defensive positions around the town.
“A story was told of two young boys who found an unexploded shell near the school. These young boys are no longer with us as the shell exploded as they tried to move it. Other reports of badly wounded soldiers arriving at the hospital near the town center are common.
“There is no cease fire… there is only a slow simmering hate as each side prepares for the next assault.
“The Ukrainian Military will be better equipped to stave off new advances from the Russian backed rebels, but I fear that the superior forces of the Russians will prevail.
“All of Dzerzhinsk, Donetsk, and Lugansk is a hell-hole. Vladimir Putin will not stop until he has subsumed what he sees as belonging to the former Soviet Union. It makes no difference to him if the fodder of human life gets in the way…the Motherland must prevail at all cost.
“The West has done little to help these people as our own President tells President Poroshenko that Ukraine is not a priority. America was once a great nation of compassion holding up the rights of the defenseless…Ukraine is not asking for other nations to shed blood on its soil it is only asking for defensive weapons help.
“America, what has happened to your backbone and compassion? I have drawn my conclusion…
“I fear that we will never have another children’s camp in Dzerzhinsk. A camp that existed for thirteen straight years before Putin intervened. He was content as long as Russian style corruption ran Ukraine leaving in a horrible state of underdevelopment; worse off than other former Soviet-block countries.
“The rebels have publicly vowed to recover all the territory lost to the Ukrainian Army: this includes Dzerzhinsk…another hell-hole created by an evil dictator who sits in his palatial home built off the backs of his people; a people who have meager belongings at best. What does it matter to him if innocent men, women, and children are killed? After all, the State must survive and provide a luxurious life style to the politically elite.
“The Ukrainian people have one advantage…resolve.
“Mr. Putin has galvanized the people of Ukraine against him. It is a sad reality for many Ukrainians who could not and would not believe that Russia would prosecute a war on its Slavic brothers. Loss, tears, anger, and now resolve as reality unfolds.
Please help. You have the power to make a difference. Please pray for Ukraine and may God’s Glory reign over the world.”
Michael Lawson
Ukraine Missions
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