For so many of us, February 24, 2022 was the day we woke up in a nightmare. The day when the unthinkable became our reality. After months of questions, the world finally had its answer. And as those first weeks passed, we all came to understand just how dark this war would be.
But there's a paradoxical truth about darkness: the darker something is, the easier it is to see light. (When we lie out in a field and stare up at the night sky, we notice the stars, not the black empty space.)
So even though our hearts were breaking over the war and its terrible consequences, it was unbelieveably encouraging to see people around the world respond with their hearts and hands, including—and maybe most significantly—the help we've seen come from among the churches.
UBI has always empowered disciples of Christ to serve in bigger and better ways. This has been true in the classroom as we teach faithful men and women to know God's word better, and it has been true in the field as our graduates serve their local congregations and communities. This year has been a year of empowering ministers and churches to serve their local families and love their neighbors in some of the biggest ways we've ever seen.
Thanks to the donations of brothers and sisters around the world, UBI has been able to provide unprecedented resources to the churches around Ukraine and to Ukrainians now scattered around Europe. The passion and endurance of the Ukrainian Christians has served as a strong example to the world about what faith looks like during dark times.
The help has taken many forms. We are proud of our students and graduates who have offered their homes, their cars, and often their safety in order to help their neighbors. Through the work of our staff, students, and alumni, we have been able to empower others to start and maintain ministries in dozens of places. Christians are providing heat, blankets, food, rides, hugs, prayers, and worship.
One such ministry flows through the Poznyaki Church of Christ, where they deliver food and other supplies regularly to over 30 different locations, including churches, hospitals, and to soldiers serving on the front lines. The hours of planning, purchasing and deliveries is innumerable, and yet these Christians work tirelessly through blackouts and air raid alarms and military escorts. And through this network we are able to get support to other ministers and churches who are then creating their own ministries. The work of UBI continues.
One year in, you might say Ukrainian Christians are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in their bodies. For they who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in their mortal flesh.
It is a great honor to have a front row seat to some of the most beautiful work in the kingdom. To all those who have given to the spiritual and physical relief work over this last year, thank you. Thank you for trusting us to get your funds where they need to go. To all our Ukrainian partners who continually offer their bodies as living sacrifices, we thank you for being the beautiful feet who are bringing the Good News.
May God bless us all with the endurance to keep the faith until our dying breaths. Not for our sake, but for His.
—Brandon Price
”…that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:15).