Ukraine Update: ‘A Great Spiritual Work’

UPDATE: JULY 21, 2022

TWR Ukraine Director, Alex Chmut, addresses audiences during an interview posted to social media. [image courtesy of TWR Ukraine]

Life is not only dangerous, but the pace is frenetic for people serving with TWR in a time and place of war.

“There is only a very limited private life,” reports Henrietta,* the coordinator for TWR in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. TWR Ukraine director Alex Chmut “visits other churches and has many talks, including counseling talks.”

Meanwhile, Alex and his team continue to broadcast good news to Ukraine and beyond through radio and through social media. In fact, they’ve found social media to be particularly effective given the current situation.

You can get a taste of this through TWR Ukraine’s Facebook page. (Most of the content, naturally, is in Ukrainian.) It’s not unusual for Alex and his team to post two or three times a day, sometimes with a few words of encouragement and other times with a fully produced video. On July 9 and 14, this included Alex’s two-part interview with a chaplain who has been ministering to Ukrainian soldiers. At last count, the two programs had drawn 6,400 and 2,300 reactions (such as “likes” and “loves”).

Numerous viewers also share their comments, often a simple “Амінь” (Ukrainian for “amen”), but sometimes expanding their agreement and gratitude. One person addressed his comments directly to Alex:

What a great spiritual work you do, Alexander. You strengthen our faith, return to faith those who doubt, you settle God in human hearts.

Also responding on social media, another viewer noted the long-enduring quality of TWR Ukraine.

I loved listening to you on the radio as a child. Now I’m glad to have found you again. … May the Lord bless your work, in God’s field.

Meanwhile, war news remains grim. Russia appears to be expanding its aims farther west and north into Ukraine, BBC News reports. Aside from divine intervention, a near-term end to the war doesn’t appear to be in sight. We’ve seen that missile strikes can occur virtually anywhere in Ukraine. You’ve prayed, and God has protected the TWR Ukraine team as they’ve continued to share life-giving truth. Your prayers are needed now more than ever.

Will you pray with us?

• Father God, would you continue to protect Alex and the TWR Ukraine team and give them strength and endurance to continue to serve in your name during these troubled times?
• Lord God, we know that this is a difficult time for our contacts in Russia and Belarus as well. Would you give them wisdom and sustain their work?
• We ask, Almighty Lord, that you would change the hearts and minds of leaders to give them a hunger for peace instead of an appetite for war.

*A pseudonym. We are omitting her real name for security reasons.