Ion and Elena Gireada have been faithful at their ministry posts in Ukraine for many years. Recently, they felt the effects of the war in their country as many of the people have escaped the aggression by moving inland. Brother Ion has been laboring day and night to assist in the aid of the people. This month, he reports:
Blessed be God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, who has given us another day to live!
Today, March 19th, the 24th day of the war, I came home earlier from the Bible Center. I returned at 5:00 PM in order to get some rest and prepare my sermon for tomorrow. I would like to share with you a little bit about what brother Vitalii and I along with four other pastors from the Romanian committee have been doing. From the first day of war until now, we’ve been working from morning until night at the Bible Center. We’ve been praying, hosting refugees, counseling some of them, taking them to the border, offering humanitarian help and medical aid. We receive humanitarian aid from Romania. We unload vans and load other vans with food supplies, medicines, water and other necessary things and then send them to the war area. We are hosting 150 refugees at the Bible Center in Chernivtsi and in the surrounding area. The refugees are mothers with children, old people, and several men. Two of these men have already gone to fight in Kiev. Two young men that came here as refugees went back to help other refugees from cities where the battle has been more intense and where many people have been killed. More and more refugees want to stay here longer, while others want to emigrate to Western Europe. All men who are between 18 to 60 from our churches were enrolled in the army. We pray, cry, repent and ask for God’s mercy on us and our country. Phones keep ringing from 7:00 AM until midnight. We get calls from people in our country and from people abroad who ask for help or want to offer help.
We are grateful to God for performing miracles! He takes care of us in a wonderful way and also those whom we help. We have so many testimonies from believers that live in areas where hard battles are being fought. We told them to write down these testimonies, because we don’t have time to do it. We can see God’s hand at work in the nonbelievers’ lives and we keep praying that He would bring spiritual revival in our country.
Thank you for praying for us and for helping us financially! May the Lord reward you and keep you safe! I’m sorry I can’t write more. I am so tired and so is brother Vitalii.
We have church meetings only on Sunday morning. We are involved in helping refugees every day by hosting, feeding, counseling and supplying their needs. May God bless you!
With love in Christ,
Ion and Elena Gireada
