Our ministry partners from Zaporizhe Mennonite Church have led a series of training sessions for their young people to help them learn basic first-aid skills. These skills will be necessary in the event of a major armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which, sadly, now looks like a very real prospect.

As mennonites, these Christians do not believe in taking up arms. The mennonite community is a pacifist group of Christians. Mennonites believe in following the Peaceful Way of Jesus in suffering service service and they take literally Jesus’ command to love their enemy and to turn the other cheek.

Yet this pacifist posture does not prevent them from serving and ministering to soldiers, even though they would never carry or use a weapon themselves. They don’t take sides in a national or geopolitical conflict. They simply serve and show God’s love to people in difficult situations.

Our friends from the Mennonite church in Zaporizhe often travel to the front line to minister to the soldiers, most of whom are either teenagers or in their early twenties, spending months away from their families in very difficult conditions, not knowing if or when they might be killed by the enemy forces.

We are praying for peace and for God’s protection for the people of Ukraine and we hope that these young people will never have to witness the horrors of war first-hand.

We are raising funds to help the church to deal with the emergency situation in Eastern Ukraine.

There are a number of ways to give, including through Stewardship or through a standing order or one-off payment to the DHM account:

Sort Code: 30-90-91 / Account Number: 68149860

“Then the nations will make their swords into plows. They will make their spears into hooks for trimming trees. Nations will no longer fight other nations.”