We recently received an update from our colleagues in Ukraine and wanted to share some of the impact of your support:

Thank you for supporting service to Ukraine during the war!

We thank God and the partners who joined the “Winter is close” project, thanks to which YFC Ukraine helped the participants of the Day Centers to survive this winter in warmth and with light!

102 Day Centers were able to serve during the winter as access to heating and providing access to electricity.

31 Day Centers received 100% funding to cover all components of the “Winter is Close” project. Other Day Centers have created heating points with the active support of the local church and their partners.

We thank the YFC partners for the initiative, for being the first to provide resources and finances to equip the heating points! It was your example in helping that started the process, the results of which we can see! About 2,000 children and more than 450 families are covered by the “Winter is Close” project through Day Centers.

Due to Covid-19 and the full-scale war in Ukraine, Day Centers participants lost the opportunity to have access to a full-fledged education.

Thanks to the support of a foundation, Youth for Christ of Ukraine was able to provide 63 tablets to 12 Day Centers for children’s education.

For Ukraine, this is very relevant during the war because all participants of the Day Centers have no way to study due to the lack of necessary resources. Thanks to the fact that Day Centers received tablets, children can connect to the online school, complete school work at Day Centers meetings, and have access to various educational programs.

One of the Day Centers received tablets from YFC, and school teachers come and help the participants improve their knowledge of their subjects free of charge. Thank you for the opportunity to equip Day Centers with such an important resource. We pray to reach out to other Day Centers and provide the necessary resources for access to education.

Thanks to our partners, we continue to provide access to food to families from Day Centers who have long been below the poverty line. 778 families received food aid with more than 10 tons of food.

This is what Day Centers leaders write to coordinators about food assistance: “But God is amazing, just yesterday I was thinking about the fact that there are many requests from families, but there are no funds for food and here, oh, your message”

Cooperation with YFC partners

Youth for Christ continues to cooperate with seminaries and youth seminaries to educate young people and spread the ministry of YFC in the churches. In March, they had the honor of teaching at a local program, which is an initiative of the youth department and took place within the walls of a local seminary YFC had the opportunity to be in contact with 120 young leaders. We thank God for the opportunity to expand His Kingdom. In March, a YFC UA coordinator had a partnership meeting with representatives of partners who provide access to quality Ukrainian resources (study guides, New Testaments, etc.) to serve Day Centers. Thanks for the help already provided, told them about the activities of the YFC ministry and discussed further cooperation.

Despite the difficult time in the country, Day Center teams actively continue their activities and including celebrating their 7th anniversary. The children attended the holiday with their parents, played games, heard about Christ from the pastor of the local church, remembered all the blessings of Day Centers for 7 years, and had a festive dinner.

We recently received the following email from our colleagues in Ukraine:

“Let God’s law be the rule of your conduct and your goal. Going this way, without any doubt,
you will best serve the Motherland and the future of our people.”
Andrey Sheptytsky

We write this letter on the 210th day of Russia’s war against Ukraine. The team of Youth for Christ Ukraine is scattered across Europe, but some of them stayed in Ukraine. Despite everything we are still a team, listening to God and serving together with all God’s children around the world. This letter is an attempt to review the work that the Lord is doing through YFC in Ukraine.

Youth for Christ team in Ukraine

YFCUA regularly provided humanitarian work opportunities to 18 projects. The total number of people who received help for 6 months of the full-scale invasion of Russia is 3328 people. The assistance was provided in 5 regions: Khmelnytsky, Zhytomyr, Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk and Kyiv regions.

Humanitarian support was provided in the following areas: 

– food packages
– medicine
– hygienic products

Now the team that serves the work of Youth for Christ in Ukraine consists of four people who coordinate, administer and service projects including 150 volunteers who help on the local level. The Youth for Christ Ukraine team continues to coordinate the Day Centers in Ukraine.

Day Centers after the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine:

Total – 83
Active Day Centers – 50
Active projects – 7
Day Centers that have paused their work – 15
Are under occupation – 11
Children covered – 1618
Regular work is carried out with – 1124
Number of team members – 238

Youth for Christ UA team in Europe

Part of the YFCUA team left Ukraine after February 24 and are now in the following European countries: Slovakia, the Netherlands and Sweden. While in Europe they continue to serve Ukrainians where they are.

Slovakia
For 6 months they have sheltered more than 600 Ukrainians on a permanent basis or in transit.  Namely, the assistance was provided in the following ways

– escort from the cities of Ukraine to the border
– search for transport from the border and transportation to the location of stay
– providing asylum in Slovakia
– assistance in obtaining temporary asylum and insurance
– preparation of documents for receiving benefits
– humanitarian help: clothes, food, medicines and hygiene products. 

In addition to physical assistance, spiritual and emotional support was provided: communication, prayers, pastoral care, excursions. 

Netherlands
A church in the Netherlands received and accommodated more than 100 people. Most of them are teenagers and families from Novograd Volynskyi, Zhytomyr region. Assistance was provided with documents, accommodation and admission to schools and universities. Providing clothes, food, medicines and hygiene products. In addition to the physical necessary components, special attention was paid to spiritual assistance, namely small groups for studying the Scriptures, pastoral care and prayers for healing.

In addition, they actively participated in city events dedicated to the coverage of the war in Ukraine. Just by collecting bottles, it was possible to send aid to Ukraine in the amount of 1300 euros and a lot of different help was received from people who were told about the war.

Sweden
God gave the opportunity to go to our DC coordinator with her 2 children and also to help evacuate 21 people from the DC Miropil in Zhytomyr region and the team. Through cooperation with the church, we settled Ukrainians in local Swedish families. They helped with the registration of benefits and the search for part-time work. For 6 months of staying in Sweden, the coordinator of the YFCUA was able to send humanitarian aid about 3 times to 7 DCs of Zhytomyr region. This is more than 100 families who received humanitarian help, exactly what they needed: shoes for children, clothes, food. Also, humanitarian help was sent for 200 refugees at a time.

YFC Canada is committed to assisting our colleagues in whatever way we can. We will collect funds to support YFC staff and their ministries in Ukraine and send it to YFC International for distribution. Please note – due to the emergency of this situation we will be waiving all administration costs so that 100% of your donation will go directly to Ukraine. To contribute to this fund, please click here.

Unfortunately, the war in Ukraine continues. The relief efforts in neighbouring countries are continuing, and everyone is settling in for the long haul. Adding concern is the energy crisis in Europe that will make it difficult and expensive for these nations to continue offering support through the winter.

On a more hopeful note, Sasha continues to work in the YFC ministry in Eastern Europe and with local youth. He shared two touching and hope-filled videos from local youth events.

This is a video of a youth retreat that Sasha spoke at. The video was shot and edited by his son Artur.

And here is a video of a youth group prayer walk. The footage was filmed by a friend and Artur added the subtitles.

Thank you for your continued prayers and support for our friends, colleagues, and the people of Eastern Europe.

As YFC in the surrounding nations continue to provide support for Ukrainians fleeing the conflict – the biggest need continues to be money for supplies. Food, medical supplies, clothing and transportation to safe places are the greatest needs at the moment. Funds will continue to go to YFC Eastern Europe where they will be distributed to relief efforts where most needed. YFC ministries in Romania, Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Moldova and Hungary are heavily involved in receiving and caring for refugees.

Staff from YFC Hungary are going into Ukraine to deliver aid supplies and coming back with refugees. YFC Slovakia staff are doing similar things. In nations a little farther away, Germany, Netherlands for example, YFC ministries are coordinating temporary housing with various agencies.

2 very specific needs. YFC Slovakia needs to purchase an empty shipping container so that they can have safe, dry storage of donated goods prior to distribution. The cost is $6,000Euro (Approx $8500 CAD) In addition to a shipping container they are trying to buy a 24 passenger mini-bus for transporting refugees and supplies. They have been renting, but the cost is prohibitive. A purchase will be much more efficient.

Please give through the DONATE button below. If you have questions, please email daryl.stogryn@yfc.ca.

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Since we last wrote, we have sent close to $10,000 to YFC in Eastern Europe to be distributed as noted below. More comes in each day and we will be sending funds to YFC in Eastern Europe to help with the cost of placing refugees from Ukraine through Europe and beyond.

All of our European YFC colleagues are engaged in this, however those in the countries bordering Ukraine are bearing the brunt of the initial work. We are investigating ways to get donated supplies to the area as well.

One story: Lena, a YFC staff from Ukraine and our WakeUp Deborah (A prayer ministry) leader in Ukraine, gathered on a bus some of the children and mothers from the day care where she serves and left Ukraine. They drove across Poland and Germany to arrive in the Netherlands. Working with YFC and the Wake Up Deborah leader in the Netherlands they are planning how to provide spiritual and material support to Ukrainian mothers and children.

Finally, just in from Ukraine. 5 Day Care Centers (Chmelnicki, Ternopol, Lutsk, Lviv, Korosten) will be a transit place for 40 refugees daily each one to stay for a night, to eat and to have a food package and basic medicine box to move further. Total number per day is about 200 people. During 7-14 days it will be at least 1400 people. And also in the western part they develop a logistic transportation service to bring refugees to the borders.

The Day Care Centres are now “care centers”. Everybody they know from YFC Ukraine staff and volunteers are alive. This is what they know as of Thursday March 8th

Please continue to support this as you can. Stay tuned for updates.
Daryl Stogryn – Global Engagement, YFC Canada

By now you are aware of the events unfolding in Eastern Europe and the invasion of Ukraine. Youth for Christ in Ukraine has a long and strong history of providing services to children and youth, especially through their day-centres ministry, where youth can come for safety, meals, and fellowship. In addition, youth can find support when going through traumatic family circumstances. Over the next weeks and months, if the news reports are any indication, the situation in Ukraine could continue to deteriorate.

YFC Canada is committed to assisting our colleagues in whatever way we can and so we have set up an emergency fund for that purpose. We will collect funds to support YFC staff and their ministries in Ukraine and send it to YFC International for distribution. Please note – due to the emergency of this situation we will be waiving all administration costs so that 100% of your donation will go directly to Ukraine. To contribute to this fund, please click here. 

Even though we are hearing that people are leaving Ukraine in large numbers, in a recent communication from our colleagues there, one was quoted as saying, “We will stay and keep the doors open for the youth and children.” This takes courage and conviction as they are all facing war.

Here is some information from the National Director of YFC Ukraine:

Greetings dear friends! Thank you very much for your prayers for Ukraine! You all know that the situation in Ukraine is now very difficult!…

Now the people of Ukraine live between life and death. God sent me to Slovakia to prepare a place for the Youth for the Christ of Ukraine team, their families and volunteers, as well as for refugees from Ukraine, now these are women and children who are scared to death. Men and boys from 18-65 years old, cannot leave Ukraine, they can be called in to defend our homeland Ukraine. 

We are very grateful to God for Youth for Christ Slovakia, as they are ready to receive 75 people and provide for them:

A warm and clean bed, clean water for drinking and hot water for washing and hot and good food during the day, which many children and women of Ukrainian refugees now dream of, who are standing on the border sometimes even 75 km in line.

One month of accommodation and meals for 75 people will cost 40,000 euros at the Ranch in Slovakia. YFC Slovakia is stopping their activities to help people. We want to start for help to collect at least for the first month, and planning for three months. 

This is in Slovakia, but we are also connecting with our brothers and sisters in Romania, Moldova and Hungary who want to help. We will continue to coordinate and support the way in which these nearby YFC nations assist Ukraine. We don’t know what will happen in the near future. We will start with the support for the first month. There’s a lot of insecurity at this moment. Also if (national) governments or relief organizations will or are able to help us. We want to start with helping our YFC family to offer a safe place. Please consider your support.

Please pray for:

1. Stop shelling and killing people and children.
2. For refugees who are trying to get to the border.
3. For people with children and older people who do not have the opportunity to leave.
4. For stopping the WAR.
5. For Christians who have remained and continue to serve the people.
6. The prayer list can be large. Please pray for Ukraine.
7. Pray for our brothers and sisters in Russia and Belarus who don’t want this war. Pray for boldness of these Kingdom-people to reach their generation with the gospel.

May you always have Peace of the Lord God! May God bless you.

Andriy Kostyshyn

Please pray for safety, peace, and a swift resolution to this terrible situation. Please also pray for our colleagues in nearby nations. We have YFC people there as well – they are dear brothers and sisters and they are in pain with these events.

If you have any questions – please reach out to our Director of Global Engagement, daryl.stogryn@yfc.ca