November 2025 UK, Ukraine
UKRAINE We received some worrying messages from brother Lyesha, son of elderly and blind sister Elena who lives up many flights of stairs in a front line town, with power out [which means no lift working in the block], no heating and no water. She totally depends upon her son to bring her water and food and look after her. He messaged us that he has been arrested by the Military Police who prowl around looking for men to arrest and pressgang into the army. He was grabbed from the street and taken immediately to the Army Medical Commission. Last he messaged us he was waiting outside the door waiting to go in and be assessed. If taken, he will be punished for not having responded to call up, briefly trained and sent to what is called "zero", the front line, from which few return in one piece. Our messages to him since then have apparently not been received. Meanwhile we are concerned as to how sister Elena will cope. So we appreciate your prayers, there are many such cases where it's hard to do anything from a distance "apart from" to pray.
Here's a photo of our brother and his mum taken on our latest visit, to focus your prayers:
You may have seen on the media that there has been very heavy bombardment of civilians and energy infrastructure this week. Sister Lena writes from another town near the front line:
No water and electricity [Google wrongly translates as "light"] and stuck in an apartment with your son who can't go out for fear of being arrested by the Military Police... quite apart from the constant shelling and sirens... is pretty much unbearable. It's very hard to see a concrete way to resolve all these many issues, but we appreciate your efforts as we try to in His strength.
We've sent quite a bit of money out to Ukraine this week.
UK
Carrotty Wood is booked 13-15 March Lord willing for our next retreat. So keep those dates clear in your diary and do plan to come!
We thought our new location for Church in a Pub would result in a temporary drop off of attendance. Not so. Attendance hit a new record... Thanks to brother Peter and our Australian visitors Steve Robin [Cindy's parents] for helping out with the food:
This week we're happy to report the baptisms of CARL, EMIL, JANE and SHANE. Again these are all ordinary British folks who have responded to the Gospel. Doing jobs like being a chef, a hotel manager, running a neon sign business from a village in Norfolk...
As one of them said over coffee, "These days atheism is just the religion of old cranky blokes" and that is so true here in the UK now. We might add, "old cranky blokes who were embittered by bad church experience when they were young". There has been an amazing shift in attitudes especially amongst young people and our open, Biblical and non "religious" approach seems to be exactly what so many are looking for having already made the step of faith in their own hearts.
Carl and Emil seem typical. They work together at a hospital, and one lunch time, they and another man were chatting in lunch break. Emil said he'd like to be baptized into Jesus but was sceptical of churches he'd visited. The other man said that he follows Croydon Church in a Pub online and they preach the Bible and baptize people with no other agenda. And he recommended Emil follow us. Then Carl said that he too had turned to Jesus Christ and would like to be baptized, but was also sceptical of churches having had a family member become a JW many years ago. And so Carl and Emil followed us and contacted us. Then with the help of the app and online contact, decided for baptism. The initial plan had been to do the baptism in the sea near where they live, but the cold snap was really bitter so we gave in and after some hours discussion in a coffee shop, with joy we baptized them in a swimming pool [no cameras allowed in public swimming pools so no pics]. Here we are after our three hour session in the coffee shop on that bitterly cold day:
This is how things go these days in the online world of social media. We thank God that His hand stretches out through all these things and that more and more people are responding, throughout the UK.
The amazing alcohol free Christmas party will be God willing at The Event Rooms (the Venue) CR0 1RE on Monday 1st December straight after lunchtime church starting 1:30 PM. Presents for all, not to mention Xmas dinner. This has been a great event in previous years and we ask for your support this year. You're all welcome to come along! Cindy is busy making up gift bags for our folks, many of whom are homeless. Socks and things like that. We'd need to prepare say 100 gift bags which at say 4 £ each means £400. It'd also be nice to give everyone a £ 5 gift voucher for Gregg's, the low-end fast food chain where they can get a steak bake and coffee for that £5 voucher. As we write this, it's snowing in South London- many of our folks live on the streets or if they have a room, can't afford to turn on the heating very much. It's a bleak time of year and all these folks are to some degree responding to the Gospel message being preached to them. So our kindness to them is rather like the Lord's gift of loaves and fishes, not random acts of kindness but rather backing up the repeated and consistent teaching of the Bible to them which we are constantly engaged with. So we're aiming to raise £1000 for this event. Please do donate if you can and pray for our efforts to take the Gospel to ordinary British folks in South London who without doubt are now so responsive. Indeed it seems true that in the UK "These days atheism is just the religion of old cranky blokes" and there's a real groundswell of interest in the things of God and His Son and His Kingdom.
Here are some pictures from last time [especially of the bingo]:
PRAYER POINTS
- For the elderly sisters in Ukraine living in high rise apartment blocks, prone to being hit and also lacking water and no lifts as no power
- For our brothers living in constant fear of being pressganged into the Ukrainian army and sent to the hottest parts of the front
- For those recently baptized
- For sister Evia as she takes over responsibility for the feeding on Sundays
With love from your brothers and sisters of Carelinks