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IMM at work in Ukraine

The Mission has had links with the Donbas area in southeast Ukraine since 2005. This part of the country is noted for its anthracite coal and production of steel. Once part of the Soviet Union, it became independent in 1991.

As a consequence the Ukraine lost much of its market for the steel it produced and many of the coal mines and steel making plants are now closed or very dangerous because of poor maintenance. The outcome is a very depressed economy, many unemployed people and migration away from the region.

 

Following the first visit IMM linked up with a church in Yenakievo supporting work among young people in a community badly polluted by a steel works in the middle of town. This led to a further link in Artemivsk, a town associated with a large salt mine where IMM has been helping Pastor Vasiliy Dmitrev now for over 15 years. Vasily helped found this church which has been very active in all kinds of Christian service in the town and surrounding district including youth work and annual camps, ministry to drug and alcohol addicts, meals for those homeless and living on the streets, help for refugees as well as further church planting in the area. Our relationship has also been facilitated hugely by another young man, Aleksey Balakhon, from Kramatorsk. He has just been elected to be an elder in the local church there.

 

The scene changed drastically in 2014. First Russian annexed Crimea and then Russian separatists seized the cities of Luhansk and Donetsk setting up self-declared People’s Republics. This led to bloodshed and major disruption to everyday life with many families fleeing to neighbouring “free” areas of Ukraine. Sadly those brothers and sisters left behind are suffering loss of their church buildings and personal persecution.

Image 1 from Where we work | The International Miners' Mission

 

The churches in Artemivsk and surrounding area found themselves literally on the front line with fighting all around them. But Artemivsk, now renamed Bakhmut, finds itself still in free Ukrainian-controlled territory. The churches have thrown themselves into helping the constant stream of refugees and providing food and clothing for communities devastated by the fighting. Praise the Lord the ministries continue, people are being saved, the churches are full and new churches continue to be established. Sadly, IMM personnel have been unable to visit the brethren for the past eight years. Please support them in your prayers.

 

M G Jarvis

January 2022

 

Please pray today for
Macedonia
Praise the Lord that there is increasing integration as more miners are getting involved with the church and its activities. The wife of one of the miners started coming to church recently and another miner has been playing mini football with the children who come to the church. Thank the Lord for Robert’s and Krasi’s heart for the lost that the Lord will give him strategies and vision for the ministry of reconciliation to Father God.