April 2025 Australia, Ukraine, UK
AUSTRALIA
Brother Phil and sister Miri report wonderful news from Ipswich Queensland: "Saturday, 19 April, was a very joyous occasion. Bro John Chol Guet was able to baptise into Christ members of his own family. His mum, ELIZABETH, his younger brother KON and 2 sisters, AYEN and MONIKA.Our (Philip & Miriam Worsnop) ties began with this family approx. 2011. A local Ecclesia was holding a Read the Bible Course. A lady received a flyer in her letterbox and invited Elizabeth with her husband to attend. Unfortunately, the course notes were not suitable for ones coming from a refugee background & still learning reading & spoken English. Bro Ray Wheeler and ourselves then started going to their home, working through the wording of the study notes, the week before they would hear it again presented at the course.
We continued close contact, becoming friends and part of their family. Many may remember viewing on the Carelinks YouTube channel, Bro John Chol's baptism in April 2020, which came about after a serious accident 2018, and an amazing recovery journey with God's guidance and blessings. Bro John Chol calls himself an evangelist, and we have seen that change in his brain injury recovery. He has an ability to open up a conversation with 20 to 30-year-olds he meets in person or online or friends of friends. This results in Bible Study about 2-3 times a week at our house, also using Zoom, going to John Chol's contacts in other areas. John Chol uses an AI-created summary, and the Question & Answers of these studies are also posted to his WhatsApp contacts".
UKRAINE
We're deeply grateful for your prayerful support that has worked so much glory to the Father and Son this week in Ukraine. Mark, Daniel and Duncan were preserved time and again from being in the wrong places at the wrong times, missing the attack in Pavlograd by just a few hours, they arrived just hours after the attack; missing the devastation in Kiev by about 100 miles; and being preserved from car crashes after driving nearly 3000 km on roads not only potholed by drone strikes on the military convoys that pass along them, but are also increasingly full of dangerous drivers. The constant stress of sirens and drone attacks, along with most families having lost loved ones, has without doubt led to road rage and a fatalistic attitude to road safety. There are head one crashes everywhere. Quite apart from enemy action. We were able to give out a lot of welfare to many of those we visited. Our dear ones are mainly elderly and have various health problems including cancer and heart issues. Only emergency medicine is free, everything else has to be paid for, with medical staff demanding backhanders all the time. And then there is care for elderly parents with dementia and mobility issues... and tiny pensions. There's also the problem that most men have had their call up papers. But many are hiding, keeping off the streets, because the Police frequently demand ID documents and compare them against the call up database. If they catch someone who has been called up but hasn't reported for duty, they arrest them immediately, and after brief training, punish them by sending them to the front line. So we have several sisters who would move to other areas, but are left caring for sons or grandsons who haven't left their flat for over a year. A few highlights:
The baptisms of OLEG, YAROSLAV and LESYA. Oleg had once been a Catholic priest but spent many years working out all their many errors and seeks to persuade his former colleagues of the errors of the Trinity etc. He came to us from the Bible Companion app. Like many, he struggles with low income and the need to support elderly parents with dementia. Yaroslav and Lesya have had a tragic last few years, with close family members injured and killed in the war, with their daughter now needing institutionalized care for the rest of her life, and now with their son and five grandchildren all in Poland far away from them. They themselves receive a tiny pension, half of which goes on heating bills, and the rest on medicines. They're both diabetics, and live up several flights of stairs in a tiny flat, in a block that has no lifts. They both bravely struggled down the stairs to meet us "properly" and escort us up to their flat. Expectation of our visit had been the great joy of their lives for some time. But just going up and down those flights of stairs is a major missionary journey for them, and they have no family to help them now. No wonder they have turned to the Lord, but do pray for them in just a horrible existence.
Visiting dear sister Oksana who cares for her highly autistic grandson in her tiny flat... but has come down with pancreatic cancer. Her focus is totally on the things of the Truth. We gave major support despite her insisting she is totally at peace with falling asleep in the Lord. She too had been so excited about our visit. Where she lives in Dnipro is under constant bombardment. The constant sirens send her grandson crazy and are really having a hugely negative effect upon him.
Likewise sister Nana and brother Alexei, who lost their home and everything they had in the Russian occupied territories, and escaped with their lives across the front line. They ended up living in an abandoned house in a field far from anywhere... which Alexei has insulated and done a great job of. They live on crops they grow and on the chickens and rabbits they now keep. They say we are their closest people in the world... They seem on the flight path of the drones and missiles heading towards Kiev most nights, and they hear them above them. One fell on their local village. Nana says she has memorized Psalms and quotes them as the missiles whoosh overhead.
Sister Nina likewise is in a remote spot, moved there to live in an abandoned house, her husband has heart problems and she is mobile only on crutches. But being near the Russian border, they too experience the whoosh of the missiles and rockets above them, including the Ukrainian missiles sent up to destroy the drones and missiles before they land on urban areas. Debris from all this has fallen near them. She is as ever full of God's word, and has written a message addressed to her neighbours and to any Russian soldiers who might reach her place, assuring all of the Lord's protection of her and urging them to come to Him as she has done. The potatoes she has grown are now finished so we were able to give major support. Her elderly mother, also baptized by us previously, is living with her... the care home she was in has been taken over by wounded soldiers and she was simply thrown out onto the street.
Everywhere we went, ordinary folk are really struggling. We baptized sister Ludmila over 30 years ago. She is so thankful that, as she put it, we brought her to faith. At least, we were the instrument. And that faith has lasted. As you can see from her message, she lives in an area under constant bombardment, and although she should be well into her retirement, she still works as a teacher:
She showed us the bomb shelter where she spends much of her time with the children:
There are such shelters everywhere. We were able to break bread with her, and as with so many, reminisce of the years of the Bible Schools we attended together in Kiev, Moscow, Kharkov and so many places. We know our connection is eternal, for we shall eternally live in the Kingdom.
Such memories of the Bible Schools, which started in 1992, dominated the memories of our dear ones in Pavlograd. There is still quite a group here, although smaller than the large ecclesia there once was here. Thanks to the faithful work of brother Maxim. Pavlograd is the next major town after the front line town of Pokrovsk, which has been literally blasted to the ground. Bombardment is very heavy and just hours before we arrived there was a major attack that left around 20 dead and wounded. And another one just after we left. But in those few hours we were there, in between the attacks, we were able to break bread and be encouraged by sister Ludmila expressing how she prays each morning to accept with joy whatever the Lord sends her, living one day at a time with the Lord. Lena said she had counted 11 shaheeds [Iranian made drones] that morning alone. In the midst of so much chaos it was almost surreal to experience the joy and peace of breaking bread together in the middle of it all, and the messages of gratitude afterwards just kept flooding in from them:
Then sister Galina, baptized very many years ago, now in hospital, barely alive, with care for her falling on her daughter sister Lena, who herself has health issues and two young children and no job. She can't leave where she is because she can't abandon her mother, who has no other care. The schools don't work because of the bombing and so the children have lessons online at home, but young kids at home all the time, with glass shaking in the windows from the blasts, sirens wailing, a sick and needy mother... it's an awful life. But you could never doubt our sister's deep faith and spirituality through it all.
It is really a joy to help such dear ones... and we will continue doing so, with God's strength and your help and enablement. Many we have know since the break up of the USSR in 1991 and their baptism soon afterwards, and now is their time of need and it is only natural to continue to stand with them.
UK
Just before leaving for Ukraine, we had a super large turnout for our Easter Service at the Orchard Pub in Croydon, which was based on 1 Corinthians 15: The Lord's resurrection means that we will likewise certainly be resurrected, we have an amazing future with a resurrected body;
sermon at https://youtu.be/SzaTNbS2uPo
And then afterwards a few came back for the baptism of ANN, mum of sister Samantha and grandma of Jasmyn. And their neighbour came along too to witness it. An amazing witness from Samantha. What a wonderful Easter; and all glory to the risen Lord.
PRAYER POINTS
-For those recently baptized
- For those living under constant mental stress in war zones
- Thanksgiving for so much blessing given to all spreading of the Gospel
- For those struggling with cancer and other health issues without adequate health care
- For those struggling to care for elderly parents
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks