Shut your eyes for a moment and try to imagine killing someone. In front of you is a soldier who is under orders to kill you. That soldier has as yet done you no harm. That soldier has probably been forced, like you, to take up lethal weapons and to threaten your life against his will. Perhaps he or his comrades in arms have committed appalling war crimes. He may have driven your relatives from their homes. He may have killed soldiers who have surrendered. And in this perverse world, he may even be she. But you don’t know.

In a moment, you are asked to judge. In fact, you are not asked to judge because you are expected to kill.

And in the next moment…what have you done? How can you live with yourself? Is this your fault? That moment inflicts on you a psychological wound which is only the worse because of your belief in peace, in compassion, in justice. Suddenly you are in a new and frightening world of doubt and self-reproach, a step away from the world you understood and one step closer to Hell.

Dnipro Hope Mission abhors war. And for that reason, we cannot and will not stand by and let any victim of the war in Ukraine suffer alone. Soldiers are humans and deserve our compassion and support to help them cope with the dehumanising process of war and the enormous psychological burden it inflicts upon them. Soldiers cannot wait to receive the comfort of moral and psychological support, be they Christian or not. That support is needed continuously and immediately on the front lines. Those soldiers need to be told by a trusted companion that they remain human, despite the inhuman things they are ordered to do.

It is for that reason that Dnipro Hope Mission is proud to support 4 or 5 volunteer military chaplains, Church pastors known to us from before the war, who regularly travel in their own vehicles to the front line areas to meet soldiers and civilians, talk and pray with them, listen to their stories,  distribute home-baked food and deliver the odd treat.  Just to remind them that they are still human, still capable of loving and being loved.

It goes without saying that we do not and never will supply military equipment, or indeed tactical medical materials that are supplied by the Ukrainian military. Our war is against war and what it does to humans. We know what side we are on.

If you would like to help us pay for repairs and fuel for the vehicles the chaplains use, pay for the personal medicines and toiletries that the chaplains deliver to soldiers who can’t obtain them for themselves, or even help us organise a visiting hairdresser to the front lines, please send us a donation.

That way you help to save a mind and a soul.