{"id":5483,"date":"2015-05-26T23:47:25","date_gmt":"2015-05-26T20:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/?p=5483"},"modified":"2015-05-26T23:47:25","modified_gmt":"2015-05-26T20:47:25","slug":"what-you-dont-see-in-the-news-about-the-war-in-eastern-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sukofamily.org\/what-you-dont-see-in-the-news-about-the-war-in-eastern-ukraine\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Don’t See in the News About the War in Eastern Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

His name and several details have been withheld for security reasons, the letter comes form a man\u00a0who has chosen to stay in the war zone and serve in his local church. It’s both heart-breaking and encouraging at the same time.<\/p>\n

Eastern Ukraine may be relatively quieter on the news channels recently but don’t let that fool you into thinking the war has gone away.\u00a0Sadly, despite the Minsk ceasefire agreement, the intensity of fighting has risen to what it was before the agreement ever happened.<\/p>\n

\"Photographer<\/a>

A woman holds the hand of her sick friend in the basement of Kalinina hospital after shelling in Donetsk -Dimitar Dilkoff\/AFP<\/p><\/div>\n

Now, here’s the letter.<\/p>\n

“Thank you so much for your support of our ministry I wanted to tell you about some of the major things that are going on in the ministry. Each one of us has an inward peace and an outward peace let me start with \u00a0the inward peace. Inwardly everything is good for me. I have peace with God and with people. I sing to the Lord and I play musical instruments. In our church the woman who was responsible for worship \u00a0left for the Ukrainian town of _____ \u00a0so my family and I are responsibility for worship, no one is without something to do here.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Outwardly everything is sad. \u00a0The information war makes people become cruel, people are suspicious of one another and there is a lot of hate. Evil people seem to be multiplying around us more and more.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to some sources there are about 40,000 soldiers who came to fight here and 300 tanks as well as other heavy equipment. On the streets we see many soldiers in green uniforms with machine guns.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

People cannot find work because there is none here. \u00a0Businesses have closed. Men who are looking for work are offered a machine gun to go and fight against their brothers for money. Unfortunately many men have done just that.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Every day we can hear the sounds of war not far from us. The level of artillery fire has risen to the same level it was before the peace agreement. History is repeating itself, we are returning to the history of 100 years ago; Dekulakization, famine, and repression.<\/p>\n

Dekulakization<\/a><\/h4>\n

The separatists have seized cars from many people, businesses from some people, and church buildings. Not long ago an armed separatist came into my bedroom. \u00a0He demanded the keys from my car and made my son go with him in the car. My car is old and I haven’t really done a lot of repairs to it so after he did what he needed he gave the keys back and said if you leave your car on the street I’m going to come and shoot it.<\/p>\n

Famine<\/h4>\n

Our people are going through a famine, or don’t have enough food. \u00a0Businesses have been destroyed, there’s no work, people don’t have money, and prices here are 2 to 5 times higher than in \u201cfree\u201d Ukraine. People cannot allow themselves to buy even the most necessary things. As a result, many drink alcohol in order to forget and leave their problems behind, and stealing is frequent.<\/p>\n

Repression<\/h4>\n

Life is very dangerous. \u00a0There are many well-known situations where military forces have kidnapped young men and held them captive. For example, they kidnapped one man whose wife is a new believer and pregnant. For an entire month he was held captive and tortured by them. The first week they tortured him, that is they beat him, he slept on concrete floor, they fed him grain first once a day and then twice a day, and later they started forcing him work. They finally freed him from captivity only because his pregnant wife searched all the military battalions and found him. The leadership of the group where he was had mercy on her and promised to free him.<\/p>\n

Ministry in our church<\/h4>\n

We continue to preach the gospel and our evangelism is directed towards people’s needs. Each week 100 to 130 people receive help from our church.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n