The following is copied and shared with permission and reflects a deeply personal  perspective forged amid the daily suffering and sacrifice caused by the war in Ukraine.  This update is offered to inform and encourage your prayerful support for all who are affected by this tragedy.

If you would like to help us with humanitarian aid efforts you can donate through our  website https://ipministry.org/donate/. The needs are growing as we keep helping thousands of people to move west within Ukraine and also helping those who want to leave the country temporarily. We need funds most of all for gas, but also for food and various supplies (medical, bed linens, mattresses, etc). Thank you.                        

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Uman Church "Resurrection of Christ" Update:

Uman church "Resurrection of Christ" did a special Easter celebration for kids. However, that day Uman had several air raids and people could actually see ruzzian missiles flying low over the city - those missiles hit Vinnitsa region. But seeing missiles kept many people at home, so not as many kids came to church as was expected.

Low flying missiles are new tactics ruzzian use to avoid our anti-missile defense. Dima Krotik, the pastor of the church said that the missiles were flying so low that it was possible to see their color and read numbers on their sides.



Distributing kid's shoes and much more - Uman church "Resurrection of Christ"






Kyiv Church in Partnership with Cherkasy Church "Spring of Hope": 

Irpin is a town in the suburbs of Kyiv. As soon as you leave Irpin and get on the highway you can see the skyline of Kyiv at a distance. A 30 min ride in a car will bring you from center of Irpin to the downtown of Kyiv, This is how close ruzzian invaders were to reaching what they so desperately wanted – the heart of Ukraine. Our trips to suburbs of Kyiv that were liberated from barbarians remind us to be grateful to God and our defenders that the horde was destroyed on the approach to Kyiv. The destruction they caused wherever they came is still hard to comprehend. It still looks unreal to us – how beautiful towns like Irpin, Bucha, Vorzel have been disfigured by ruzzian artillery, tanks, the very presence of ruzzian troops.

We took humanitarian aid today to villages that were neighboring with Irpin (Mihailivka-Rubezhivka, Mriya and Buzova). This was a joined trip of our Kyiv church team with a team of volunteers from Cherkasy church “Spring of Hope”. Of course, our Uman church also contributed jars of canned meat and other delicious bonuses to food packages. It was a partnership of 3 churches, but really many more churches and individuals who helped financially and with prayers.

In four vans we were able to deliver 490 food packages. In Mihailivka-Rubezhivka there must have been close to 400 people waiting for us. This village is 5,000, or at least it was before war.

Just like during our other trips we saw scars of war on the houses and building and heard stories of how scary the occupation was. Just like in Bucha many civilians were killed in Irpin. At least 300 deaths have been already recorded. The count might continue going up as some of the people who are considered missing might be found not alive. Some bodies have traces of torture. The mayor of Bucha said the other day that a lot of people who had been shot by ruzzians were not random victims. Ruzzian invaders had lists of people they took, tortured and killed.




Maia's Update: Day 66 of ruzzian invasion:

Air raids in Kyiv are becoming more frequent again though they continue to get not much regard from Kyiv citizens. It’s not like in the early days of war when during air raid the streets would get deserted. Now it’s not unusual to see playgrounds full of kids, people walking in a park or busy shopping all to the accompaniment of air raid siren. I imagine when people hear the siren they might be saying a silent prayer asking God for protection or just saying to themselves in their mind, I hope the missile is not going to strike here.

Couple times when I had to address some kind of issue with my bank, I would write to an agent in Messenger chat and would be getting my answers from bank representative. But if air raid starts, he would write politely, “I am sorry, air raid just started and I have to go to a bomb shelter. I will help you as soon as I can.” Overall, not surprising message to someone who lives in Kyiv, though I am sure it would sound strange to you if you are outside of Ukraine. In any case, last time when I got a message like that, I wanted to say skeptically, “Really? You might be the only one going to bomb shelter right now!” But I know it might be a bank’s policy.

I’ve said this in my posts before, here in Kyiv and probably in many other places people get annoyed, not scared of air raids and don’t follow strong recommendation to go to the nearest bomb shelter. But a day before yesterday Kyiv got hit by the ruzzian missile again – another residential building. Ruzzians had been complaining that we destroyed their war ship Moscva because in their twisted minds it’s against the rules of their special military operation – how dare Ukraine to fire at a ruzzian war ship in time of peace! Their “military operation” is not war after all! But of course, it's totally within the ruzzian rules to destroy residential buildings and kill civilians!

Pentagon is estimating 1900 ruzzian missile strikes on Ukraine since the invasion started on Feb 24th, Forbes published today that by their count it’s 1300 missiles which cost ruzzia $7,5 billion. 1900 or 1300 – either way it’s a lot! In comparison ruzzia threw 100 missiles at Syria over a period of 5 years! It looks like ruzzia is doing voluntary demilitarization of itself in Ukraine. With their economy being strangled by sanctions and not having access to western technology they will not be able to rebuild that arsenal. They are also leaving a lot of their tanks, armored personnel vehicles and artillery as piles of trash on our streets and fields. We saw many of those yesterday during our trip to suburbs. I’ll share those photos in a separate post soon.

Meanwhile we don’t get tired of thanking God for keeping us safe. Seeing destruction of suburbs and some of the destroyed buildings in Kyiv we know it could have been us, but God still has some plans for us.




PS. the photos in this post are the from the most recent missile strike on Kyiv

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Please share these updates with others. I have added direct links to our email, our website, and to the IP Ministry Journal on YouTube to the bottom of this page. Your prayers are precious to us. Thank you!

In Christ,
Brandy Ezzell
International Partnerships