Thank you for your concern and for praying for Ukraine and the Ukrainian People

1. Our Ukrainian brethren are reporting that, due to Russia’s continuing attacks on their infrastructure, they are losing electricity now more than ever before even though it is summer and not winter. Some of our folks say that they often are without electricity for 16 hours out of a 24-hour day. To date, we have spent over $250,000 providing generators for many of our people and churches that were totally without. However, running these generators for so many hours day after day is expensive. Please continue to donate to our war relief funds so we can assist with these extra expenses and provide generators to those churches that still need them.

2. The Christians who print our Challenger newsletter do a wonderful job, for which we receive many compliments. The current issue featuring last winter’s distribution of warm clothing and New Testaments may be their most attractive effort ever. We had so many photos and thank you’s that it was a tall order to fit a sampling even into 6 pages. Somehow they formatted a beautiful and informative issue featuring a creative, bulletin-board layout. We thank and praise God for the outstanding work on this newsletter. May it warm the hearts of all who gave and prayed for this project. If you haven’t yet seen this latest newsletter, you can view it online Here.

3. We have sometimes requested prayer for Oleg, the brother of BIEM missionary Sasha Petrenko, who is deeply involved in evangelizing through war relief. Oleg was captured by Russian troops shortly after they invaded Ukraine in February 2022. For a long while, his family did not know whether he was dead or alive, but they did not give up hoping and praying. Praise God, after 2 years and 4 months as a POW of the Russians, Oleg was included in a prisoner exchange and was returned to Ukraine. In this 3-minute video, he shares his gratitude for prayers and for God, who preserved him.

https://vimeo.com/user37287229/2years4months

4. Denmark now has a large population of Ukrainian refugees. These are mostly women and children. Sophia Buyko and the Buyko daughters have been invited to minister to these war refugee women for the second time. They are there now and report that 25 women attended their meetings, where they received counseling and Bible teaching. Groceries were also distributed to these needy women and children. Several of these women have now attended the church services.

In Christ,

Sam Slobodian
President, BIEM