Christians in Lviv shared the gospel ‘from morning till night’ during the Eastern Orthodox Easter period (a week later than in the West).
The Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) writes: The people of Lviv brought Easter bread to Bucha and Gostomel. Volunteers from Lviv distributed 600 pieces of Easter bread to the residents of Gostomel and Bucha.
From morning till night, they shared the gospel with people and testified of Christ. Gryhoriy, the pastor of the Message of Hope Church in Lviv, said that many people were still living in basements. He went on to explain: ‘There are empty streets. Residents hang a white handkerchief at the gate, giving their phone number, and wait for help to come to them in the basement. People say that they are afraid that there will be shelling now. They are very frightened by the horrors they have experienced.’
This was the second trip made by believers from the Lviv church. They brought people gas cylinders, medicine, generators, mobile phones and Ukrainian food – all necessary and very welcome gifts.
A spokesperson for the Slavic Gospel Association adds: ‘In the throes of a vicious and unrelenting war, God’s servants are committed to their precious ministry of Christlike love and care for refugees whose lives have been scarred and traumatised by destruction and death all around them.’
Help is offered for ‘the whole man’ – body and soul – in obedience to the Scriptural injunctions to care for both the material and spiritual needs of those in distress. In a Christian printing house in West Ukraine, volunteers work tirelessly to prepare and pack food parcels, and to oversee the printing and production of New Testaments. These food boxes for both body and soul are then distributed where needs are acute.
Included in each food box is an adult and children’s Bible, as well as additional gospel literature explaining the way of salvation.
Each food box is designed to feed a small family for about a week. Many thousands of these boxes have been delivered to some of the most difficult areas in Ukraine. Each costs around 30 euros, which covers the cost of the food, literature, and transportation.
A correspondent in Ukraine wrote: ‘The greatest spiritual result we see is that God through these events has caused a spiritual hunger in so many people, a spiritual search for truth, peace, confidence in the future and for a foundation of faith. The nations are stretching out for the gospel, for the word of God, for the Bible. I personally haven’t seen such a hunger for the word of God since the 1990s when the Soviet Union fell apart’.
