Dear Friends:

I hope you are well on the beginning of what appears to be a chilly pre-spring weekend. Today, I’d like to share some very important news. We have an amazing opportunity to help the suffering people of Ukraine.

Ministry on the Front Lines: UKRAINE

In both of our worship services this Sunday, we will be viewing a Zoom conversation with a Ukrainian friend of mine, a pastor who is on the front lines of this horrible war in Ukraine.

Pastor Andrei (Andrew) Babiy is the pastor of Vinnytsia Grace Baptist Church in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. Vinnytsia is strategically located in the center of Ukraine, right on the crossroads from east to west and from north to south. The geography of the church means that every day, they are helping hundreds of refugees fleeing the bombings and the Russian army.

Andrew’s church, along with other Baptist churches in Vinnytsia, are housing, clothing, feeding, comforting and even fixing cars of countless people everyday. They are sharing God’s love. Grace Church is a church of 300 people, so you can imagine the tremendous effort of helping so many with so much.

In our Zoom interview this Sunday, Andrew shares what his congregation is doing, along with the many needs they have and will continue to for the extended future. Most of the stores in Vinnytsia continue to have some supplies, so he and the church can purchase needed items each day. However, the costs continue to rise, and the needs continue to be overwhelming.

Your Help

Therefore, our church staff, our FBCD Missions Committee along with our FBCD Finance Committee, would like to ask for your support in this humanitarian crisis. As a church, we would like to provide funds for Vinnytsia Grace Church so that they can purchase whatever is necessary to bring comfort in the wake of this tragedy.

A Live Interview in the Coming Weeks

We hope to have Pastor Andrew on a live Zoom call in the coming weeks so that we can all hear the latest update, and perhaps hear about any additional needs. For now, I hope you will listen carefully to his words this Sunday, and will allow God to prompt your generous spirits to offer this much needed assistance.

We finally ask that the gifts you share be above and beyond what we all would normally be giving to our MAP or overall church budget commitments. Ministry here does not cease and our own community needs your ongoing support. But ministry there in Vinnytsia is a clear necessity for us to contribute above and beyond for these extraordinary times.

Bless you, my friends. And thank you for the joy of serving as your pastor.

David