This Is What A Pastor From Donetsk Told Me Today

Today I sat down with a pastor friend (name withheld for safety reasons) from Donetsk. He and his family fled the city over a month ago with hopes that they would soon be able to return. However, the situation has only deteriorated in the past few weeks and along with it their hope for a return to normal life in their home city.

Workers remove a body from a home that was shelled just outside of Donetsk (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)

When everything started in back in April my friend said he didn’t expect it to last long. The separatist had their gatherings to protest the new government in Kyiv and even though some of them were violent, it didn’t seem like it would go too far.

Then they took over the city council building and started storming police stations. When the referendum happened in May, everyone expected Russia to quickly accept Donetsk into the Russian Federation, but they didn’t. That’s when things started going bad!

The local separatists who had taken the city where quickly replaced with mercenaries, some from Russia, some from Chenya and other places, none of them local! The newly formed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) began to actively fight the Ukrainian army.

My friend’s church is not far from the Donetsk airport where much of the heavy fighting has taken place! He told me:

“When you see a tank come down your street, stop and then start firing, it’s scary and you start thinking about how you can get out!”

Just two weeks ago my friend made a quick trip back to Donetsk. He wanted to lead the church body in the Lord’s supper and to provide what help he could to those who stayed behind.

He told me about one young man who was walking to church when he happened to get right in the middle of an intense shoot-out. Not knowing where to run, he hopped a fence and tried to hide in a shed. Moments later a shell landed not far from him. Shrapnel flew in all directions and filled his back with bits of metal. A laptop that he had been carrying in his backpack caught much of the shrapnel and probably saved his life. Others weren’t so lucky!

Unfortunately the (DPR) is not very friendly toward evangelical churches. When I asked my pastor friend about the relationship between the DPR and the churches in town he told me:

“All evangelicals are American spies, that’s what they say!”

“They came into our church and searched for something but didn’t find it so, thankfully they decided to leave us alone after that.”

My friend has a small church of about 80 people. They rent their facility, which stands just about 30 feet away from a large DPR military camp that was recently set up for their soldiers. Thankfully his church still has a place to meet but many other churches have lost their buildings.

“If they (DPR) see that your church has a building that is well situated, on the street corner with a good strong basement, then they just take it and use it for their own purposes!”

90% of my friend’s congregation have fled the city. Those who stayed are mainly the elderly who aren’t physically able to leave or simply have no place to go. He told me:

“Caleb, our church is like it says in the book of James ‘scattered among the nations.’ Everyone has fled to a different city.”

Concerning the dire situation in the city, my friend told me that for the last couple of days there has been no water. However, the big problem now is that none of the elderly are receiving their pensions. Some people have a little money saved up but many live month to month. That means they won’t even have money to buy bread and other basic needs.

Please pray for Eastern Ukraine and if you’d like to help believers like my pastor friend and his church please go here.