Thank you for your concern and for praying for Ukraine and the Ukrainian People
1. This week we have received a generous donation of over 10,000 cans of powdered baby formula. The best thing about this product is that it can be also used as a nutritional supplement for adults. This is a wonderful boost to our war-relief efforts as this will go a long way to help Ukrainian infants, children, and adults during this time of war when many are lacking the nutrition they need.
2. Ukraine has passed legislation that makes it much more difficult to send containers to Ukraine. This goes into effect on December 1. Under the new regulations, a total of 20 steps will be required to import humanitarian supplies. All the steps must be completed within 30 days, which is not realistic. Another new requirement required after December 1 is that organizations providing humanitarian aid will be required to provide the passport information of every recipient! Remarkably, Ukraine’s Ministry of Social Policy, which is responsible for this new legislation, claims that the new rules are designed to make matters simpler! Many organizations across Ukraine are speaking out against these changes. Please pray that the Ukrainian government will rescind or at least lessen these new regulations.
3. We are praising God for a group of volunteers from Heritage Baptist Church in the Chicago area who came to our headquarters with a load of clothing donations as well as wheelchairs, walkers, crutches, and other medical supplies. The group spent the whole day sorting and packing a large volume of donated items that had not yet been processed. In fact, they managed to process everything we had available! This gift of their energy turned out to be quite timely: shortly after they left we learned we needed to load a container immediately due to the circumstances mentioned above. Having all these goods packed and ready to go enables us to put them aboard the container this weekend. This would not have been possible without the timely visit of these folks from Heritage Baptist. Praise the Lord!
4. In the town of Lubyanka, Ukraine, Russian occupiers took over the church building and did much damage to it. But, as the pastor in the following video explains, God is still in control. Here’s the link:
https://vimeo.com/user37287229/incontrol
5. Thanks to a generous donation from a local supporter and friend of BIEM, Igor Fomichov and Vitaly Bilyak were each able to go on a shopping spree to purchase warm winter clothing needed by the soldiers connected with their churches. This opportunity came in time to add the warm clothing to the container being loaded this weekend. Once again, thanks to God’s timing, these items should reach their destinations before the coldest part of the upcoming winter.
Sam Slobodian
President - BIEM