God Has Thankfully Preserved Lives!
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- May 28
- 3 min read
June 2026
Dear friends, I hope that you are enjoying this warmer weather and getting ready for the summertime, which is my favorite season of the year. There has been a significant amount of news from Ukraine and my ministry over the past couple of weeks - if you are not on my email list, you may not be aware of recent events.
In Ukraine, if you believe what you read in the news, the war is beginning to shift a bit in Ukraine’s favor. Drone warfare has really changed the dymanics of this war. In our region of Kharkiv, the news remains the same with daily barrages of missiles, glide bombs, and drones. There was a Russian offensive north of our city of Kharkiv, but it didn’t materialize into much and the Russian army was pushed back by the Ukrainian counter-attack. And all of a sudden, Putin conveyed recently that he believes the war can end soon, but many other news agencies are reporting that they believe the war will continue up to another 2-3 years. Only God knows the end date of this war, but hopefully it will end soon with no more destruction of life and property. Almost 3 million people have been killed or injured.
In our region, which is as close to the front line as possible, many of the pastor’s remain positive with me, but I believe it is hard for them to remain encouraged, when tragedy is all around you for such a long period of time. Most of the churches facilities we partner with have been damaged in one way or another, but the church I am discussing within this letter has been hit the worst.
For those who only receive our prayer letters by mail, I sent an emergency email earlier this week asking for prayers because our friends at Light of the Gospel Baptist Church in Balaklayea, Ukraine were mercilessly attacked by the Russian military. This has been one of our partnering churches for 25 years and we have done many evangelism projects together through the years. Just to remind you, this is the church where pastor Sasha was tortured to an inch of his life when the war began in 2022. Tragically, last week drones intentionally targeted this church and destroyed it with bombs that were attached to the drones. You can see a few of the videos of the destruction here:
Here is what pastor Sasha wrote me in the midst of him trying to calm the people and navigate through this emergency:
“Dear Ron, God has thankfully preserved the lives of our people and no one died. The drones did extreme damage to our facility - the roof burned down and there is much devestation inside of the building, due to the fire. Currently, we we are clearing the debris and deciding how we can rebuild the roof, fix our building, and begin worshipping God again! I want to thank you Ron (and everyone in America) who are standing with us in prayer and support; it means a lot to us!” – Sasha
I am going to make this a shorter prayer letter this month, because I really had not planned on highlighting pastor Sasha this month - until this attack occurred. But due to how recent this event is, I don’t have much to report right now. Please keep pastor Sasha, his family and this church in your prayers – there is much rebuilding that will need to happen over the next couple of months. If you would like to help out with this emergency, SCM is raising support to help with the rebuilding of the church roof. If you would like to help make an extra gift please write on the check or online donation, “Church repair.” The enemy comes to kill and destroy, but we will not allow evil to prevail!
Thank you for all of your prayers and concern in every way; I appreciate you so much! The next two months, I will be reporting on the children’s ministry outreach events that are now in full swing across many different locations. God is in control and I fully believe that his Kingdom purposes will prevail. Until then, we partner with Christ in this difficult situation.
In Jesus’ love,
Ron
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