Our church was finally able to release its first kids worship song after about a year of work. David was a big part of recording the demo, arranging the song, working with the producer, and getting it published on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and other music streaming platforms.
You can listen to the song here:
Please pray for our worship team and for our recording ministry in general. One of the things that we would like to buy to record live groups for live music videos is a Fender Quantum LT16 (or something similar). They cost around $600 in Ukraine including import taxes, though this fluxuates. If you would like to support this ministry in particular, please check out our giving page or message us directly so that we can set up a gift over PayPal.
Katya got back from serving in a missionary hospital in Ghana a week ago. It was an amazing trip where she was able to serve and help not just patients there, but also support one of the missionaries from our church, Anastasia Furtak, who is a missionary surgeon that has been traveling to Ghana from Ukraine for several years, sometimes staying for years at a time. Katya’s original reason for coming to Ghana was to translate for another Ukrainian doctor; however, she ended up assisting with physical therapy and even surgery. Please pray for the hospital there, that more doctors would volunteer to come and that God would raise that area out of poverty and help them to become less dependent on foreign aid. Most of all, please pray for a revival there in the Gospel, as so many still serve pagan gods and even sometimes sacrifice their children to idols.
Our worship team had the privilege to be the featured band in an evangelistic concert at a camp in Chernivtsi, which is about five hours away from Lviv. We played eight songs and David got the chance to do the altar call. There were about 250 youth there, and some did respond to the call; however, many were still skeptical. Please pray for them that the local church would know how to reach them. Here are some highlights from the concert:
Our worship team is growing and getting better and better with the quality of music we can put out. We have also recently released an original song on Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube Music, etc. called «За Ним іду» (“I follow Him”). Be sure to check it out if you’d like to hear original Ukrainian praise music.
“Youth” or “youth group” in Ukraine means something ENTIRELY different than in America. “Teen group” is for 14-18 year olds, but “youth” starts at about 17 and goes all the way to 25. All of that to say, we had a youth camp for 17-28 year olds last week, and it was amazing. Along with our teen camp, seven people got saved and many more said that they were interested in some kind of discipleship (whether believers or unbelievers). Here are some pictures from camp:
We had SO much fun playing games, hiking in the woods, worshipping together, discussing the Gospel, and becoming a mini Christian community for the week. Please pray for everyone that was there, especially for those that got saved and will now be discipled.
David recently got back from a short trip to the front lines. This is the first time that he’s had an opportunity to go with the church’s chaplain, and he wants to continue this kind of ministry in the future. There are not many who can travel and share the Gospel with soldiers or encourage our brothers and sisters who are fighting, so it’s a huge privilege to be able to do this. We can’t share a lot of photos, because we want to protect the faces and identities of those that are protecting us, but here are a few shots that will give you an idea of the atmosphere near the front.
David got to pray with several groups of soldiers as they were going through boot camp just miles from the front lines. Please pray for those men to know that God is with them and the He loves them, that Christ died so that they could have eternal life in Him.
The rifles of the soldiers that we served in the previous picture—David washed their clothes, another church member made them tea or coffee, and the two chaplains with us took care of their other needs.
This is a bridge that was destroyed during the fighting in 2022 in one of the cities we ministered in.
This is an apartment building that is damaged by the fighting and constant russian shelling and drone attacks—this is from Izium, where russia massacred civilians and buried them in mass graves. The closer you get to russia in Ukraine, the fewer civilian buildings are left that have not been destroyed or at least damaged in some way. It’s almost funny that we can actually be thankful for the ugly, brutalist architecture of the early Soviet Union, as it seems to hold up the best against shakhed and missile attacks, especially in cities like Kharkiv and Sumy.
This church was hit by a medium-range missile in the first few days of the russian attack—the pastor was on the second floor in the same room where the missile hit; however, it pass through the wall and then the floor miraculously without exploding.
The civilian highways closest to the front are outfitted with anti-FPV-drone nets, which made it especially unnerving when we had to stop and wait to meet one soldier just by the road on one of our waypoints.
One of the main purposes of our trip was to encourage believers that are fighting on the front lines, so we brought “mobile communion” to them, prayed with them, sang worship songs, and read passages from the Bible, having “mini church services” in David’s car, on road sides, and even in cafes over coffee. Please pray that God would continue to give us opportunities to minister in this way. This is just the first trip that David took, but we are hoping for several more (if the war continues that long).
David & Katya 