LifeNets International

Volodya helping with evacuation in Toretsk

September 19, 2024

The war is not going well in Ukraine. This is very hard for all of us who have close ties, friends, and family living in this inferno. We are in contact regularly, processing the news, sending aid, and planning what to do next. LifeNets is working with various entities throughout the country to bring relief. 

Here are some highlights. 

I have just spoken with Dr. Vasyl Pasichnyk in Chernihiv who directs a Center of Rehabilitation for more than 120 children at any one time. They are only 40 miles from the Russian border. They have up to eight air raid sirens each day. Whenever a siren goes off, meaning that missiles have been fired from Russia to Ukraine, all the children and staff are taken into bomb shelters. You never know when one of the hypersonic missiles will strike you. The targets have become indiscriminate – civilian and military alike. 

He says that the villages are empty. There are no young men around. They are all in the military or trying to keep from being picked up on the street. The fighting is fierce and the Russians themselves are taking the brunt of casualties as they assault assault assault. The Russians lose 1000 to 1300 men each day. Putin does not care.  

Electric power is sporadic as they may have only three hours of rationed power throughout the day. More than half of the nation’s power grid has been destroyed. I know that this news is becoming tedious to listen to, but it is the living hell that people are trying to survive in and cannot leave. They know well that the world is tired of hearing about their plight and fate. Some of my family lives in the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city and a big target. They are preparing for the winter by making bricks that will burn that they will use to heat themselves.   

The industrial city of Toretsk in the Bakhmut Raion of Donbas area of eastern Ukraine is in an ongoing conflict between the Russian and Ukrainian armies. The battle began on June 18, 2024. 

LifeNets helped send a mission from Khust in Western Ukraine to provide assistance to people on the ground.

Here is a report from Vlad Yurishko dated September 8, 2024: 

Greetings Brother Victor and thank you our brothers who serve God, 

From Toretsk we are evacuating people. We just evacuated a family of four who have suffered very much including a grandma who could not walk on her own. We met with the Donetsk Province Administration who say that there will need to be an evacuation of one million people from this region. It's a very tough situation  Very tense. But we believe and pray that God will take care of this. We are very thankful for your helping with this great service. 

This week, Brother Volodya from the Zhytomyr region carried out the evacuation of a family from Toretsk, Donetsk region which was done with LifeNets funding. In addition to the evacuation, they also delivered food and other supplies there. Volodymyr Chernukha, formerly a bodyguard for the ex-president of Ukraine, is now an evangelist and missionary servant of Jesus Christ. In 2020, Volodymyr Chernukha was diagnosed with cancer. The doctors were powerless to help him, and when he weighed just 50 kg and was in a critical condition, they sent him home to die. After hearing a sermon about salvation through Jesus Christ, he said, "God, if You exist and if You heal me, I will serve You!" 

God gave him a second chance, and since then, he has been completely healthy and is fulfilling his promise to God. Now he is a church minister, evangelist, missionary, and chaplain, serving people who are suffering due to the war.