‘God came to me in the horrors of war’

For more than 600 days, our colleagues in Ukraine have been taking aid, medicine and the Bible to people across the country, and increasingly to areas of fighting. 

Recently, Deputy General Secretary Anatoliy Raychynets returned from a trip to visit troops on the front line in woods outside Bakhmut. They met soldiers who were manning a cannon, but also reading Psalm 91. 

‘We were interrupted by shell explosions,’ said Anatoliy. ‘When I found myself in a trench next to a soldier called Kyrylo, he told me that two weeks ago we had come and given him a Bible.’

Kyrylo told him: ‘I have never been to church, never read the Bible, because I never had one. Here, at the combat positions, in short moments of silence, I started reading prayers from the Book of Psalms, as you advised me back then. 

‘I feel warmth inside me while reading. I have never experienced anything like this in my life. I realised that it was God who came to me, a sinner, at the age of 57. He came here, to the swamp, to the horrors of the war, to find me. Thank you for the Bible. It revived me to a new life, a life with God.’