Christmas for Many Hurting in Ukraine

Dear friends, I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year! We are just two weeks into the New Year and things seem to be unsettling around the world with news from Venezuela, Iran, and the on-going war in Ukraine. Can you believe that this war will be four years in duration next month?

Did you now know that the Russian’s aggression toward Ukraine has now lasted longer than the Soveit Union’s fight against the Nazi’s during World War 2? The Soviet military spent 1,418 days fighting the Nazi’s, however, as of January 13, 2026, the Ukrainians have spent 1,420 days trying to repel the Russians, with no end in sight.  

Last week, the Russians fired a hypersonic missile and destroyed a very vital/strategic reserve natural gas storage faciliy in Lviv, Ukraine (western Ukraine, near Poland). In our region of Kharkiv, the Russian military continues to target the heating and electricity plants, causing blackouts and very cold conditions. While the attacks are regular in Kharkiv, a missile hit a residential area killing several (including a 3 year old child) and injuring 28 more people on January 2, 2026. While very heart-breaking it isn’t all bad news … there is good news too!

As you may remember, we gave each of our ministry partners the freedom to choose if they wanted to purchase firewood and/or Christmas gifts, due to the dire energy situation. Most of our churches engaged in a Christmas program and provided small gifts for the kids, mostly candy. We were able to help bless between 2,600 – 2,700 children this Christmas with your generosity. As usual, there was a Christmas program at each church, food, candy, Bhbles given, and gifts. It was a wonderful evening for many kids. Thank you for your amazing generosity this past Christmas season!

Here is what pastor Vlad Kalin said from New Life Church in Kharkiv:

“Hello everyone at Slavic Christian Ministries! During our Christmas program, we had 200 children in our church for the event. As we usually do at Christmas, we organize a large-scale event for the children and their parents. We invited 40 families who are in very difficult life situations with no home church and not much hope in life, due to everything being taken from them one way or another. These families were dealing with divorce, abuse, living in extreme poverty, etc. Thanks to your generosity, our church was able to buy presents for all the children and put on this Christmas program for everyone. Thank you so much for blessing our church and these wonderful children!” – Pastor Vlad

Here is another tesimony for pastor Sergei of Good News Church in Kharkiv:

“Hello friends, I want to thank everyone from Slavic Christian Ministries and I hope you had a Merry Christmas and wonderful New Year. Thank you for blessing our children this year! In our main campus in Kharkiv, we had a big Christmas program for 650 children. Some were from our church and others were from the community and we were so delighted to see so many smiling faces and serve so many kids.

After this event, we then delivered 350 Christmas gifts and children’s Bibles to kids who are refugees and are living in various temporary housing around our city (that lived too far way to join us that evening). We also packed an additional 500 Christmas gifts for children in our satellite campuses around our region, who are just trying to survive each and every day. At these locations, we also had a Christmas program, but not as elaborate as within our home church, but all the children were super happy.

Lastly, we visited a village named Mirnoe, where many refugee families who left our city and have been living there for several years now. Many people here are the wives and children who have lost their husbands and father’s in the war and are going through a really difficult time dealing with extreme trauma, grief, and mental problems. We try to love on them regularly, but this Christmas, we were able to give out another 700 gifts and Bibles to these children too. Thank you for providing joy, if even for a brief moment to these beautiful children. We love you all!” – Pastor Sergei

Dear friends, thank you for making it another memorable year. We ended the year about $20,000 down from the year before, but we were still able to accomplish everything we budgeted for in 2025. Thank you so much for being a huge blessing to Ukraine and praying for our ministry regularly!!

In Jesus’ love,

 Ron