Ukraine Update - August 2023 (Ethan)

This is a Letter from Ethan Johnston, a servant and a seeker of perfection found in our LORD Jesus Christ. To my brothers and sisters in the faith, may you be filled with hope, peace and Love in Jesus name. 

I am filled with joy that I can bring you a good report of the ministry the LORD invited us to partner with in Ukraine. Due to the severity and reality of the situation in Ukraine I will not use specific locations in sharing about my time. Thank you for understanding as there is still a team operating there that we desire to protect. 

To get to Ukraine we (Baylee and myself) had to travel up to Vancouver BC. We then took a flight to Frankfurt, Germany, followed by another to Warsaw, Poland. After all that we then took 3 trains, two of them being overnight to get to the ministry team. In our travels the LORD moved miraculously as he LITERALLY closed a door and put 3 people in front of it so we couldn’t get off a train which was at the wrong station. If we had got off at that station we would have gained at least another day of traveling. We would continue to pray that the LORD put people in our path with divine appointments and that we would remain interruptible. He did this as we had an English speaker at each bus station, train station and airport until we got to the base. I didn’t recognize how amazing that was until I had a conversation with members of “A Jesus Mission” (or AJM for short which is the ministry we partnered with). I heard about how some of them didn’t have any English speakers in their travels, and that English is not very common in Ukraine. As we went God provided people for us to feed, clothe and pray for. (None of that would be possible without your support. So thank you!!) 

Once we arrived at the base, we hit the ground running. We didn’t even get to drop off our things at the house by the time we had our first “run” out near the front lines. We were each handed a Kevlar vest and told “this is just in case”. That came right before we heard our first “air raid siren”. Which would happen anywhere between 5-10 times a day. This was the reality we just stepped in stride to. AJM’s main work in Ukraine is feeding people that no one else will. Oftentimes this means being mere miles from the front line of the war. During our time there we helped deliver nearly 25,000 LBs of water and just under 12,500 LBs of food. While delivering and offloading the food we would have the opportunity to pray for people and they would hear the Gospel from the Pastor we worked alongside. It was incredible to see people who live in the reality that they could die at any moment be so eager to be prayed for, even if it was in a different language. 

When praying about specifically why the LORD had called me to go to Ukraine I heard him say to “Encourage my people that I am their God and have not left them.” Immediately, I thought he was speaking about the Ukrainian people. However, once I arrived I had a deep tug on my heart for the team. It can be so easy to get caught up in the doing, because it’s so fast paced and there are people dying daily, that we could lose sight of the “why” we are doing it. I believe some of them had lost a little bit of this insight. The passage of scripture I have been meditating on is in Philippians 2:6-8. We read about Christ and how he took on the position as a humble servant. I desire to look more and more like Christ daily, so I began to encourage the team daily, mainly in individual conversations. I also was asked to lead the team in devotions for a couple days. I absolutely believe the LORD used me as an encouragement to the team and believe he will continue to remind them why they do what they’re doing. By the time we were leaving, the head of AJM Ukraine said to us “I’ve heard nothing but good things about you guys and you can come back whenever.” The leader of the team was also very pleased with us and thanked us for our “attitudes” and that he was “blessed” by us. I share that not to boast in myself but to share the impact the LORD made on the team through us. GLORY TO GOD!! 

I want to again thank you for your partnership in what the LORD is doing in and through me. I will return to Washington for 3 days before I start heading to Gainesville, Georgia to prepare for helping lead the next trip of 50 people to Cambodia, Thailand, South Africa and Guatemala. That trip will be 9 months and I’m sure that as I’ve seen the LORD move, I’ll see him move again and again. As I go, I will continue to have costs and need prayer. I know that the LORD will provide as he always has.

ReplyForward Add reaction