Gift of Hope
Lena’s Testimony: Undying Faith in the Midst of War
There are over one million internally displaced people and refugees in eastern Ukraine today, each with their own story. There is so much pain and tragedy there, but stories like Lena’s show that God is still working out His redemptive eternal plan of hope and healing, even in the midst of circumstances that seem hopeless by human standards. Lena lives with her husband and son in a village near the front lines of the conflict in eastern Ukraine. When the war broke out, the family found themselves right in the middle of the violence. They were unable to sleep for many horrible nights due to the shelling, and Lena’s husband, Valeriy, witnessed several people die and had many missiles explode right above his head. When Valeriy began having psychological problems because of trauma and loss of sleep, the family knew it was time to leave their village. Recently, Valeriy also…
A Family Transformed by Gift of Hope
“My decision to serve Marina, her husband Sergey, and their five children rose out of my desire to be a doer and not just a listener,” shared Maria, one of our School Without Walls (SWW) students in Russia. “After realizing that there is a great need for evangelism in my community, I started praying that God would provide opportunities for me to share the gospel. And one evening, He moved me to start serving a family in my area. “The next day, I shared this revelation with my fiancé, Rustam, and together we visited the village of Sosnovo, where I had met Marina and her family while distributing Gifts of Hope during the Christmas season. Marina told us that her family was facing very difficult conditions, as they had been living without electricity for two weeks. They had fallen behind on their payments, so their electricity was shut off, and even after…