Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale military invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggered Europe’s largest refugee crisis since World War II. According to the UN refugee agency, more than thirteen million people, or nearly a third of Ukraine’s prewar population, have been displaced since the invasion. Of that, more than five million are internally displaced, while over eight million are refugees living in neighboring countries.
Forced to flee extraordinary levels of violence and destruction, they have left behind their homes and often their families, leaving them shocked and traumatized. HART and our church partners remain committed to meeting the tremendous physical and spiritual needs of families in crisis. Our network of partnerships throughout Ukraine is bringing help and hope to Ukrainians who have lost everything. The incredible power of partnerships — will continue to shine the light of the Gospel amidst this season of darkness.
OUR IMMEDIATE NEEDS:
Because of your prayers and financial support, HART can resource our network of partner churches throughout Ukraine, to provide hope and help to tens of thousands of Ukrainian families impacted by the war. When you give to “Refugee Aid – Ukraine Crisis,” you are supporting the following:
- Church heating/electrical costs (gas, electricity, fuel, generators, coal & wood-burning heaters, firewood).
- Church repairs or renovations caused by refugee influx or shelling.
- Costs of converting churches into hostels.
- Assistance for (IDPs) displaced persons/refugees (food, clothing, housing, hygiene products, medicines…)
- Church assistance for IDPs – for apartment rental costs
- Charitable assistance (material, food, medical) for large families, orphans, widows, the elderly, and the disabled in the Church’s community.
- Organizing ‘points of heating,’ hubs for warmth and feeding people, when infrastructure has been destroyed by shelling.
- Funds are used for purchasing generators, propane heating elements, and power stations for hubs.
- Support for children’s, adolescent, family, women’s, and evangelistic ministries.
- Assist Church with Aid for the military (food, clothing, medicine, first aid kits, etc.)
- Assistance to families whose husbands and sons are currently at war or have died (food, medical, material, moral support).
- Organization of daycare centers for IDPs, single moms (husbands in the military), and poor children in the church’s community.
- Humanitarian aid for people who live in ‘liberated’ territories.
- Repairing vehicles that transport food & supplies to those near the front lines and used for evacuation of people near the conflict zones or de-occupied regions.
- Evacuation of people from occupied, dangerous, or recently liberated territories.
- Costs associated with the evacuation of people to the borders of European countries.
- Evangelization services among Russian prisoners of war.
- Support for military chaplains serving soldiers.
- Church volunteers visit wounded soldiers in hospitals and share God’s love.
- Food packages, and hygiene supplies for hospitalized/recovering soldiers.
- Church Media Ministries (social media, newspapers, brochures, textbooks…) to organize volunteer projects.
- The spiritual development of ministry leaders thru seminars and training.
- Short-term retreats for ministry leaders (and spouses) to recharge their physical and spiritual batteries.
Thanks to everyone in HART’s community in Canada and USA – here is what YOU helped us accomplish since the war began:
FINANCIAL: We provide financial aid for churches serving refugees, helping them convert their churches into hostels, and purchasing food, clothing, and medicines for these traumatized people from Ukraine’s war zones.
DISTRIBUTION CENTERS: Our team has organized & coordinated truckloads of humanitarian aid supplies from Germany to Distribution Centers in Ukraine. From here, teams of volunteers fill up smaller vans for distribution to Central & Western Ukrainian churches who are serving refugees.
FOOD: In the first four months of the war, we sent weekly semi-truck shipments of life-saving food from Poland into the conflict zones in Ukraine, where grocery stores no longer exist. Church volunteers create food packages and deliver them to thousands of families in surrounding villages, towns, and cities, wherever the need is greatest.
VEHICLES: We purchase vehicles in Poland and send them into Ukraine
1) to distribute relief aid and food to 10’s of thousands of people and
2) to evacuate civilians from war zones and get them into safe territories.
AMBULANCES: We purchase ambulances from Poland and Germany to provide emergency medical care for civilians and soldiers in war zones. Because the Russians have destroyed over 300 Ukrainian hospitals, these ambulances (mobile medical clinics) are effectively ‘hospitals on wheels.’ They are looking after the medical needs of those living close to the war zones. The ambulances also allow doctors to go to smaller villages and bring children born outside the hospital under professional care. One ambulance doctor said, “It is very important that we help not only to save the lives of soldiers defending Ukraine, but also the lives of their children.”
WATER: We provide drinking water for communities near the conflict zones whose water supplies have been cut off because of damaged pipes due to Russian shelling.
ORPHANS: We assisted in the evacuation of 1,500 orphans from Ukraine to several European countries.
