By Zach & Sergei
How do you pray in wartime? I do not know. I cannot. The answer can only be found by those who are in it. The desperation, the pleas, the panic, the resilience, the courage, the hope. I don’t think these things can be adequately described. They can only be discovered by those who trot the hard, treacherous path of experience.
So, as I sit down to write and arrange our August prayer guide focused on Ukraine, I will be slow to speak, very slow to write. I will step off the stage, take a seat, and let Sergei, our local Ukrainian missionary, show us the way in his own words. Let’s feel his grief and hope, as we listen in and pray.
So, it has been 500 days. Many, many destroyed towns and villages. Thousands of people have been killed, and not only soldiers. The biggest desire and dream of our people is just the same. We want peace and life. We want to stop the war. We didn’t start this battle but we have to fight to protect our land, our nation, our freedom, and our lives.
Prayers For Ukraine:
- Pray please for us and for our children – many of them have a burned childhood.
- Pray please for our soldiers – they’re tired, too.
- Pray for salvation in Christ for our people in this hard time.
- Pray for our churches – the part of Christ’s Body here in Ukraine. Nobody was prepared for this special ministry. From what I see, churches are mostly doing “today..for today.”
- Pray for our vision of God’s will now and for the future. I believe this war will end and we will have many problems in economics, society, demographics, and the mental health of our nation.
- The answer is only Jesus, so please pray for us nonstop, as you would for yourself, in the Love of our Lord – in Jesus.
Prayers For Ministry:
- I see in the near future more ministry for families who have relocated. The problem is that the government organizations who register relocated people don’t give out the information usually. Please pray for this opportunity. Right now, I can only minister to the relocated people I meet personally.
- Last month, I helped five invalid soldiers. I tried to share Jesus with all of them but only one was listening. Mostly, they are “offended” by God. We need to pray for wisdom to touch their hearts.
- We are planning to evangelize in August in the city center. Please pray for this!
- Pray Psalm 2 with me as I have remembered it often this last year. It reminds me that He controls everything and it give me His Peace.
God is good! Hugs in Jesus.
-Sergei
Psalm 2
1 Why do the nations conspire
and the peoples plot in vain?
2 The kings of the earth rise up
and the rulers band together
against the Lord and against his anointed, saying,
3 “Let us break their chains
and throw off their shackles.”
4 The One enthroned in heaven laughs;
the Lord scoffs at them.
5 He rebukes them in his anger
and terrifies them in his wrath, saying,
6 “I have installed my king
on Zion, my holy mountain.”
7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree:
He said to me, “You are my son;
today I have become your father.
8 Ask me,
and I will make the nations your inheritance,
the ends of the earth your possession.
9 You will break them with a rod of iron;
you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”
10 Therefore, you kings, be wise;
be warned, you rulers of the earth.
11 Serve the Lord with fear
and celebrate his rule with trembling.
12 Kiss his son, or he will be angry
and your way will lead to your destruction
for his wrath can flare up in a moment.
Blessed are all who take refuge in him.