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Carelinks | Ukraine
T
he miserable situation continues for the
average Ukrainian. The economy continues
in free fall and there seems no hope of any
easy end to the war in the east nor the loss of
Crimea to Russia. We snapped a video of an old
man and woman rummaging for food from rub-
bish bins, the woman had a knife with which
she peeled off rotten parts of vegetables and
put what was edible in a plastic bag. It’s at:
One of the many refugees created by the
conflict was Andrej, who fled to Russia and
lived there for a bit. He found the true Gospel
online and was baptized in Russia as previously
reported. He has now returned to Ukraine, has
got a job and is trying to rebuild his life from
nothing. Our brother is a great reader and
Bible student. His wife left him and he raised
their son, Bogdan. But this young man
followed his father’s passion for the Bible,
reading with him the daily Bible Companion
readings and a more suitable candidate for
baptism it would be hard to imagine. In an age
where youth spend their time glued to
ladies in this rather nice area, bring him food
and drinks in a kind of unconsciously devised
rota between them. He says he gets three
great meals some days and none the next. So
realizing his Bible was falling apart, he asked
Ann if she could post the coupon to us and get
the Bible sent to her home. She agreed, but
emailed us instead, as the advert had our
email.
He accepted the Bible with gratitude, but
when we started chatting about what the
Bible meant, he said he needed to ask some
questions, as he was sick and tired of Christian
‘do gooders’ (even though he depends upon
them!) who don’t really read or know their
Bibles. And he would only discuss with people
who do. So he fired a series of questions, such
as ‘Who was the father of John the Baptist?’,
‘When is Tyre first mentioned in the Bible’
and most interestingly, ‘Does the word Trinity
ever occur in the Bible?’. He was impressed
Carelinks | United Kingdom ... continued
with our answers and apologized for his arro-
gance and listened to us explaining our doc-
trines for about 30 minutes. It would’ve made
a fine photo - a homeless man wrapped in
sleeping bags intently listening to our preach-
ing, clutching his new NEV Bible in his hand,
nodding agreement or shaking his head at
times in disagreement. But it is somehow in-
appropriate to point a camera at a destitute
man who is very sceptical of his more ‘normal’
helpers and visitors.
On returning home, we emailed Ann and told
her. She was most touched we should care so
much for a homeless man, and asked if she
could be sent the Bible and our literature as
she’d be interested to read it, as we seemed
very sincere. We marvel at the ways of provi-
dence, which reflect the passion and active
device of the Father and Son to work with His
servants to, by all means, try to save some.
So… please pray for Ann and James.