Messages from Timothy and Rhoda Sloan, Irish Christians who have led mission work in Lutsk, Ukraine, since 2002

22 February
This is quite possibly our last means of correspondence for some time. War is imminent and the consequences dreadful.

A state of emergency has been declared and this will be followed by martial law. Young Ukrainian men from 16 years of age are being called up to serve in the military and Ukrainians are being given the right to carry arms. A major cyber attack is happening just now as we write, which has affected Ukrainian banks as well as government websites.

Ukrainian citizens are being asked to urgently leave Russia and our local currency is in free fall. Rhoda and I are not leaving – how can we? As an elder in the assembly my responsibility is to shepherd at all times. It would be a terrible testimony to get up and leave the Lutsk believers. We have been preparing for this day. Rhoda and I have bought in generators, fuel, food etc as we would like to turn the Gospel Hall into a place of shelter to accommodate and feed the assembly believers who will face many a hardship. God is about to give us a great opportunity to show our Christian faith practically and reach out into our community with the Gospel.

Rhoda and I may have to move out of our apartment as we are close to the Lutsk military airfield, and on the 14th floor of our apartment block we have the central headquarters of the SBO, the Ukrainian secret police.

As we close, the military jets can be heard overhead and we covet your prayers! We are not any braver than you – but confident we are where God would expect us to be…

___

This is an extract from an article published in the April 2022 edition of Reform

To read the full article, subscribe to Reform