But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto
me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 19:14

More than 500 children have been killed or injured since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine six weeks ago, Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said on Tuesday, while the United Nations’ children’s agency Unicef said more than 5 million have been displaced amid an escalating humanitarian crisis and reports of alleged war.

In the midst of the shift in this war we are realizing that there is a priority in feeding and rescuing people. At the same time Ukrainians are faced with a number of other challenges. Farmers need to plant there spring plantings. People need to go back to work in order to get the country back on an economy that will sustain them. And children need an education.

So many schools have been destroyed and so many teachers have been displaced. Many of these children and teachers are now in the border countries surrounding Ukraine. Presently we are in talks regarding partnering with a group that has a wonderful vision and has embarked on taking on this challenge

The Education with Values Foundation, which has created over 30 educational institutions in Poland in recent years, is opening free kindergartens for children from Ukraine. We have currently 6 preschools operating in Warsaw (240 kids) with another yet to open. The goal is to create several dozen kindergartens in Poland. This will make it possible to create places for hundreds of children and guarantee many workplaces for many Ukrainian teachers. What is more, children will be able to learn in their native language. In two institutions we have also first primary school classes. We have created two groups in each kindergarten, to take care of 40-50 children in each place. We will provide them with care from 8 am to 5 pm on working days. Thanks to that their parents will be able to find a job. Some of the children have dysfunctions like dyslexia, dysgraphia or various types of social disabilities. They are also severely traumatized by the war. In each institution, we will create jobs for at least 4 Ukrainian teachers and 2 Polish who teach Polish and English language. Moreover, we would like to involve volunteers to help them. This will give many people the opportunity to take on specific tasks and can help them regain mental balance. We are looking for the possibility of financing food for these children

Will you pray for this wonderful project and the multiplication of it and many more like it? Will you partner with us to see this happen?

Al Akimoff and the Slavic Ministries Team

Mariupol
A prayer has been answered today, the evacuation of civilians trapped in the Avzostal steel factory. Around 100 mostly women and children were led out by the brokering of the UN and International Committee of the Red Cross.
They were taken to the nearby town on the Russian side of Donetsk called Bezimenne. There they are being supposedly given the choice to go to Russia or be turned over to the Ukrainian side tomorrow. More are expected to be led out tomorrow.

Pray that these people will be sent back as many have not been given that choice and are said to be held in filtering camps in Russia. There are reports that many are being sent off to remote parts of Russia.

Pray for the many soldiers that are still trapped in the steel plant, they vow to fight to the death. Pray for mercy, pray for life…

Pray also for the almost 100,000 people still stranded in the city of Mariupol. There is little food and water available to them and it has been almost two months of siege that that have been under.

Mykolaev
Our teams are venturing further out into the war zone
Yulia
It is Sunday and I want to share few pictures of people being blessed through all of you who support Ukraine. Kids, families, women, men, grandmas and grandpas.
These past two days we distributed more than 420 bags.
We are praying and getting ready to reach out to new areas of aid given. We are planing to go out to Zaporizhya a city 3 hours away from Mariupol. Please pray with us for God’s wisdom and open doors. We will bring more aid there (food, medicine and hygiene) and will look for opportunities to evacuate people from cities and villages around Mariupol.

Here are some pictures of them in Mykolaev region…

There have been many questions regarding the 9th of May, the annual celebration of the victory over the Nazis in WWII. There are reports coming out that Putin may now declare war with Ukraine on that day. So far it has been called an “operation.” A declaration of war gives Putin the ability to draft soldiers as well as to formally take over Donetsk and Luhansk.
There is much to pray over these next days, pray fervently, let’s not lose hope.

Al Akimoff and the Slavic Ministries Team

Odessa
In these last few days the bombing has shifted away from the surroundings of Kyiv to the Black Sea cities of Mykolaev and Odessa. Weeks ago, it seemed as though Odessa was on its way to conquest when storms and other strange things seemed to force the invading army back.

My heart sinks as I think of this beautiful old city being bombed, thinking of Kyiv had the same effect on me. We have spent a lot of investment personally in these cities. My family comes from this area as they lived in the Mykolaev region. One of my cousins hid in a basement for some time as the city was being bombed before she was rescued, her son is still there fighting for its liberation.

My wife Carolyn’s family were Germans brought to Crimea by Catherine the Great and lived and farmed there for several generations before immigrating to the U.S.

Odessa has a spiritual historical dimension that bears telling. At the turn of the century a young man named Ivan Voronaev immigrated to the U.S. He found himself in the midst of a revival that had started in a little church on a street named Azusa in Los Angeles.

This encounter introduced him to the New Testament power and leading of the Holy Spirit, which led him to return to Ukraine with this message of revival. He came to Odessa. He began to share this message with the Ukrainian people and they responded with repentance and a welcome for God to be among them.

In the few short years that he preached, taught and sent out disciples, over 17,000 people were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. My grandfather was one of those. He was one of the first to respond to leave his home to take the gospel to Russia where he too saw the whole village he went to respond to the message and receive salvation.

It was shortly after this revival that Voronaev and his wife were arrested and sent to the gulag where he died. His wife fulfilled her sentence of 25 years. My grandfather too was arrested and sent to prison but was miraculously released and began his 25 year journey across the Soviet Union, Central Asia and China. In the next years Stalin removed millions of Ukrainians and spread them out across the whole of the Soviet Union to Siberia, the far east, the Caucasus and beyond. Little did he realize that he was helping to spread the revival to all of these places. It was these disciples of Voronaev that became the foundation of what we came to know as the underground church of Russia. At the same time Stalin replaced the Ukrainians with millions of Russians that has created the problem that we are facing today and the reason why there are breakaway regions all across the former Soviet Union.

Ukraine has been the spiritual center of Eastern Europe. It is estimated that 70% of the evangelical churches in Russia today have Ukrainian pastors. Ukrainian churches can be found all over the former Soviet Union. In fact they can be found all across Europe, the U.S. and the world. We have many Ukrainians in YWAM spread around the world.

So, you can maybe see why we Ukrainians cry when we see the news these days. When we see our beautiful old cities like Odessa and Kyiv being bombed. The city of my mother and her family being literally totally wiped off the face of the earth.
You can maybe understand why we feel that this is spiritual warfare from the enemy who is not pleased with the spiritual history of these places.

Will you join us in earnest prayer these next few days and weeks? Pray that this senseless killing will stop. These are young boys that are dying every day in both armies. Pray for the many thousands still under siege in Mykolaev without food and water. Pray for our young disciples today who are sacrificially going into these places rescuing people and taking food and supplies to them. Pray for miracles.

Al Akimoff and YWAM Slavic Ministries Team