office@breadtrust.com
Barnabas Community Church
Shrewsbury SY3 7DN
Enabling Churches to Help the Poor
Ukraine
As BREADtrust works through the Ukrainian churches, a vital part of what we do is supporting and encouraging those churches, as part of the world wide family of God. For our linked churches based inside the occupied zone, 2014 was a year of significant change which continues to be a challenge. Post the 2014 civil war other churches have been planted throughout Ukraine and existing churches added to.
The highlighted towns and cities on the map show where our partner churches are.
As well as supporting the distribution of humanitarian aid, those pastors and believers are now planting new churches in the places they now live. God is at work building his Kingdom in even the darkest of situations.
War Response
We have been responding to the present crisis with humanitarian support in the following ways:
- Food & hygiene parcels, clothing and bedding
- In country accommodation for internally displaced people
- Soup kitchens
Our partners are running four humanitarian centres doing the above and more, they are also visiting remote towns and villages to distribute food. Through these centres thousands of people are being helped and cared for.
Our Lead Partners
Igor and Tanya are the team leaders of our partner churches. Although the team face significant challenges there is good news. The church leaders that we work with have taken bold decisions and personal risks to keep themselves involved with their local communities and help the poor in whatever ways they can. BREADtrust as a charity support them with financial aid to enable them to do this more effectively.
Feeding Programmes
The vision to ‘Share your bread with the hungry’ is at the heart of BREADtrust’s work in Ukraine. In a country with significant numbers of people in extreme poverty there is a real ongoing need for basic food provisions. This is especially true in the eastern war zone which is under the control of pro-Russian separatists and in which the economy has been severely hit by the ongoing civil war. Basics food supplies are very expensive, wages are low, pensions have been cut and many are unemployed. Our local church partners in the eastern war zone focus significantly on feeding programmes in the form of food parcels and the provision of hot meals to the most vulnerable. Many of those being helped have also been drawn into the life and faith of the churches involved.
Enabling Churches
The work of BREADtrust is based on partnership with local churches. Our project co-ordinators seek to visit them regularly and establish longterm friendships with them and their leaders. We work through trusted partners. A team from BREADtrust visits Ukraine at least once a year and seeks to monitor what is happening on the ground. Our teams also seek to encourage the churches in whatever ways are possible. We are aware of the huge challenges they face in living out an effective Christian life in a complex, needy and economically divided country. Our partner churches are now spread across the whole country and new churches have been planted recently by internally displaced refugees from the east in other parts of the country. From time to time we gather church leaders to encourage and support them.
Care of Refugees
BREADtrust is focused on helping refugees wherever we can through our partnership with local churches in different parts of the country . Our partner churches are often helping individual families or working in community centres for refugees.
