August 2025 Australia, Ukraine
AUSTRALIA Just a reminder of the huge efforts bro Phil & Sis Miri Worsnop are making all around, not only in Indonesia but also in all the classes they hold at their home for so many, especially folks from South Sudan and elsewhere. Several have already been baptized as we've reported, and others are being prepared. Every week... Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday nights look like this... plus others on Zoom at the same time. Let's pray for their great efforts:
UKRAINE
AS YOU WILL SEE FROM THE FOLLOWING REPORT, THERE IS MAJOR NEED AMONGST OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN UKRAINE. WE NEED YOUR PRAYERS AND ALSO WELCOME YOUR CONTINUED DONATIONS TOWARDS THIS WORK, BECAUSE IT IS ONGOING AND THE NEEDS ARE EXPANDING. PLEASE DO CONTINUE TO PRAY AND DONATE. ALL THOSE BEING ASSISTED ARE INDUSTRIOUS AND AMAZING EXAMPLES OF WHERE EVERY BIT OF SUPPORT GIVEN TO THEM HAS BEEN WISELY USED TO GET THEM TOWARDS SELF SUFFICIENCY, HAVING LOST ALL THEY HAD. PLEASE DO DONATE AND PERHAPS ASK YOUR ECCLESIA TO TAKE A COLLECTION FOR THE WORK.
You can hear brother Mike Flaherty summarizing our work in Ukraine over the past week and making this appeal
at https://youtu.be/nXaxbBGaBws
Deep thanks to God and the Lord Jesus for the work they are doing in Ukraine, and for so far preserving Mike and Duncan. With a lot of providential things happening to keep them in one piece.
Duncan writes that Mike has been a great, spiritually minded companion in the work, and that he has just the right skill set. Not only with his first aid and fireman skills but also giving advice and relevant encouragement to all those we met who have lost their homes and are now living pretty much off grid in previously abandoned or derelict homes and trying to survive on what they can grow. Mike and Betty also live relatively off grid in rural Queensland, and Mike was able to advise how to use various herbs and even weeds for medicinal purposes, what is best to feed goats and chickens with etc., showing folks how to identify wild jarrow and use it. He has a wealth of knowledge about these things that suddenly became relevant to former urban dwellers who are now having to get food from the land around them, and are often far from any medical attention- in a country whose medical service pretty much only offers emergency medicine to civilians, due to the war:
We travelled extensively throughout Ukraine seeking to assist our brethren and contacts. Everywhere we saw fresh graves and newly erected memorials to the dead; very few men around, women doing heavy work, a lot of grieving for the dead. Scenes like this:
Every family we visited had been deeply personally affected. Air raids, death and destruction are a regular occurrence for everybody, and nervous health is severely impacted for everyone. Through all the misery one can only see God's hand- everyone we met gave accounts of amazing Divine protection and the hand of providence. We too could add multiple examples. Just one will have to suffice. We had an appointment in a town at 18:00 [6 PM] to discuss with and baptize someone. We were delayed due to the bad state of the roads, traffic and military check points. We texted to say we'd not arrive until 7 PM ... GOD WILLING, as you learn to always say in Ukraine. We in fact made up time... but stopped to refuel at a petrol station just outside the town. And beep-beep on our phone, there was the air raid warning, telling everyone in the town to take cover:
We bought some more coffee and stayed outside of town until it was over. Time and again we learnt that major air raids had hit the towns we were in just hours or less after we had left:
There are times when you only realize afterwards how God saved you. One night we saw a nice hotel advertised extremely cheap on the app we use for bookings in Ukraine. We arrived there after dark and stayed there. And it was nice and it was very cheap. At night there was the sound of a mobile anti aircraft battery firing nearby. We awoke to discover it was so cheap because it was in a location right next to a bridge which is a military object, which needs constant defence from drones which attack it:
SISTER OKSANA
Thanks for your prayers and support for our dear sister. She is supposedly "in remission" from pancreatic cancer, although the health service is barely functional apart from for emergency medicine. She also cares for her invalid grandson. She is now safely out of the frontline town of Kramatorsk and is now out of Ukraine with her grandson with her, currently in Moldova. She will likely need lots of ongoing support. Please do pray for her.
SISTER SVETLANA
We have spoken in previous reports of the growth of a group of Jewish believers whom we've been baptizing one by one. Based around sister Svetlana, who was originally from a front line area. Her home was destroyed and she is now with her adult children in western Ukraine, living in a once derelict house with quite a bit of land [which had gone wild]. She's cleared much of the land and sown it with various fruits and vegetables. Her industriousness is amazing. She also has goats and chickens. Pensions are tiny or not paid, so it's a case of being thrown from an urban lifestyle into subsistence farming. And she has done admirably. This time it was our joy to baptize her mother LIDIA and a friend she had met at the synagogue where she is OKSANA. Her neighbour where she once lived, Ludmila, also wanted to be baptized. But the day before we came she got news that her house had been hit and burnt down and her son had been killed. This has distracted her from getting baptized. Let's pray she somehow pulls through. Svetlana is just amazing in her knowledge of the Truth and devotion to the things of the Lord Jesus. She has a very clear understanding of all doctrines. She does sometimes go to the synagogue where she is and discuss with the Rabbi as she says he has a great knowledge of the Old Testament and is open to discussion. Whilst debating with him about the meaning of the sons of God who married the daughters of men in Genesis 6, she met Oksana who also attended the synagogue. Oksana is from a long established local Jewish family, who had first come to Ukraine centuries ago when all Jews were banned from living within a certain radius of Moscow, and many settled in Ukraine just beyond that radius- this is where the phrase "Beyind the pale" comes from. Oksana was very attracted to our non trinitarian approach and has accepted the Lord Jesus with her whole heart. Such an hour to baptize her, further down the river from where we baptized Lidia. Let's pray this very small movement amongst Jewish folks in Ukraine becomes ever stronger, as the repentance of Israel is definitely significant in God's timetable.
Video of the baptisms at https://youtu.be/mC1zqechTzI
On the long drives, we took the opportunity to make a brief video of Mike explaining why he is not a trinitarian- https://youtu.be/h0y2p6dBJd4
Mike was able to share a lot of his knowledge about plants and herbal medicine with sister Svetlana, and she shared too what she had figured out, as an urban dweller forced suddenly into subsistence farming and basic survival:
We had such a lovely breaking of bread together, longing for the coming of "Yeshua Ha Mashiach" [as our sisters refer to the Lord] to Jerusalem.
SISTER NANA AND BROTHER LYESHA
Nana and Lyehsa were baptized by us many years ago, and like Svetlana and so many others, they have lost everything- their flat, car, livelihood etc. as they fled from an area now occupied by Russian forces. Lyesha says he has heard that their home has now been given or sold to a Russian who is now renting it out. And he muses as to who is now driving his car. His adult children and grandchildren have suffered terribly. Nana's son was at the front and badly wounded, has been in hospital, but has been sent back to the front. His wife now lives with Nana and Lyesha. Nana and Lyesha literally walked across the actual front line to escape, finally reaching Ukrainian held territory on Nana's 70th birthday. Their hard work is just amazing. Thanks to your support they have rebuilt the derelict house they were given to live in, put up fences, made enclosures for rabbits, ducks and chickens. They as urban dwellers found the need to survive drove them to abilities and talents they never thought they had. It's just that they're in their 70s and located so far from anywhere. After a great meal from what they had raised themselves, we broke bread. They have staying with them an old school friend who has been bombed out. Everywhere we went we met people who had suffered first hand from the war. Truly the only light in all this darkness is that of God's grace in the things of His Son and His Kingdom. Again, Mike was in his element both learning and advising about such off grid living.
Every bit of support and welfare has been used so amazingly well by all those we visited. And that is a great encouragement to us to keep on.
BROTHER RUSLAN
Ruslan came to us from using the Russian Bible Companion app. There are gangs of military Police going around literally dragging off any man up to the age of 60 to the front line. All men have been called up to fight, so any who are found not having reported for training are liable to be arrested and immediately taken. We have posted videos of this in earlier messages. Ruslan lives with his parents in an apartment in a city. The apartment block is next to a factory where his father had worked all his life. His father was grabbed by the military Police whilst walking from the factory back home, a path he had walked for decades as he's in his 50s. He was grabbed and pressganged into the army. Ruslan now never goes out of the apartment. But he was so excited we were coming that he did come out of the flat to meet us, and to see us off afterwards. He literally ran back inside afterwards. It's not healthy just staying in a flat all the time, being continually fed by a very distressed mother who thinks the best she can do is keep feeding her son high carb meals. Two years hiding inside has clearly taken a big toll on his mental and physical health. But it's given him the chance to study the Bible. He was so very much longing for baptism. Their block has twice been hit by the air raids, and there was one going on at the time we were due to arrive. So we called him and said we were delayed. He says he broke out into a sweat and was so worried in case his baptism might not happen. But all was well and we were soon feasting on borshch, eaten with wooden spoons, the one family heirloom they have, handed down over several generations. Ruslan's confession of faith was lengthy and very moving. We baptized him in the bath tub and Mike sung a song afterwards, "Knowing you, Jesus". Truly where two or three were gathered together, their the Lord Jesus was in our midst. We all marvelled that we should be gathered together in such difficult circumstances to help Ruslan to come to the sure hope of eternal life in the Kingdom, when all the things shall be no more. When there is an air raid, Ruslan fears to go out of the flat to the shelter because of the risk of being grabbed. He showed us where he sits, beneath a bench in their hallway, beneath the strongest part of the building. The resultant lack of working age men is evident everywhere.
After the baptism service, Mike sung "Knowing you, Jesus" acapella... very moving. Video at https://youtu.be/CX75447DuzM
SISTER NINA
We made a quick visit to brother Igor and sister Nina and her mum sister Vera. Vera was in an old folks' home but was moved out to make space for handicapped wounded soldiers. She was effectively made homeless by the state so she went to live with her injured daughter Nina, who herself lost her home on the Ukrainian-Russian border and was given a derelict house to live in very far from anywhere. There is now no bus service anywhere near her. The Military Police came even to that remote place pressganging men into the army. One young brother whom we had previously baptized was thus taken, given a few weeks training, sent to the front line and within weeks had been killed... now asleep in Christ. Her husband brother Igor had heart issues but they ignored them. During his military training he had a major heart attack and was released... but it's so hard for them to make a living from subsistence farming. Of course we gave food and cash welfare but their long term situation is very bleak.
SISTER VERA and family
Sister Vera and her family likewise lost their homes in the Russian occupied areas and were given a derelict rural house to live in, again in a remote area. And again they have been most industrious doing it up and keeping animals and planting crops. But like some others, now they've improved the property- the owner is interested in having it back. All wars end sometime, and this is going to be a major issue with all our brothers and sisters in this situation. We are praying for wisdom as to how at this stage to plan for this- there could be a significant number of brethren and sisters, many elderly, made suddenly homeless. Sister Svetlana recalled with tears how once they decided to flee once the Russian soldiers took over their village, she pruned everything in the yard, thinking for sure they would return after 6 months. It's now three years and they are coming to terms with having suffered the loss of all things.
They are very industrious and have planted up a large plot of land, growing what they can to survive and have conserved much against the Winter:
The thing is, this isn't their land and they can be driven from it at any time, But they have to survive for now. As usual the bread and juice were on the table for the breaking of bread; without doubt the Lord is at the centre of their lives.
Another problem they have is water. Their well is dry and they are having to buy in water. They wash outside in buckets, no fun in the Winter [remember that next time you have a shower at home], and need water for watering the plants and cleaning out the chickens, which are the basis of their survival. Things really aren't good for them. On previous visits we had had to engage with their small army of geese, but they say they have now been driven to eat them all. The lack of water is significant- the family need several 5 liter bottles / day and water is heavy to carry. Wells drying up was mentioned by several others, a result partly of climate change but also from the heavy bombardment of reservoirs and breaking up of bedrock, which has caused water levels to sink. They have buckets everywhere to try to get every drop of rainwater.
BROTHER YURI
Our elderly and infirm brother is holding on strong in faith despite being near Kiev and suffering nightly bombardment. He has such a strong faith and enquiring mind, and recalled some English to have a chat with Mike. Being almost bedridden now, he is totally dependent upon his devoted wife
SISTER NATALYA and family
Not all of our planned meetings were possible, nothing goes to plan in the middle of a war zone. But there is also the huge mental stress of the unending air raids and other bombardment. Sister Natalya is typical of many:
"Forgive us dear Duncan and Michael. But the current circumstances with health and shelling do not allow me to meet with you tomorrow. I am undergoing treatment now... Thank you for your prayers. You are all dear friends in our thoughts and prayers. May the Lord keep and bless you... I planned our meeting on Monday, cooked borscht for you, but by the end of the week, due to shelling and stress, my health condition does not allow me to see you tomorrow. I hug you and pray for you always"
So please do pray for all like Natalya enduring this constant mental stress.
PRAYER POINTS
- For those recently baptized and for more Jews to turn to the Lord Jesus
- For all under mental stress in Ukraine
- For those in Ukraine who have lost everything, have been rehoused in derelict houses far from anywhere
- For those who having started a new life are under threat of being moved out of the properties that have now become their homes
- For those with wells drying up facing major problems with lack of water
- For the amazing work of Phil & Miri Worsnop in both Australia and Indonesia
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks