We prayed for peace and justice, for a world in which all children can play, for personal participation in saving lives (we were reminded that one blood donor can save several people). We hold in the light victims of all wars, in Ukraine, in the Gaza Strip. We are upholding in the light the human rights defender Jürgen Menzel, who is being persecuted in Germany because of his help to those who refused to kill Ukrainians and participate in criminal Russian aggression.
Ministry of Artem Denysov
Let’s pray for our friends and other people participating in the donation of blood and its components, both in Ukraine and in other countries of the world. According to statistics, one donation can save life up to four people, and blood and its components are also used in the production of medicines. And this is extremely important in the third year of the Russian Federation’s full-scale aggression against Ukraine, due to which civilians are wounded and suffering, and they need blood transfusions. Let’s pray for everyone who takes an active part in donations, for their health and life.
Ministry of May-May Meijer
Dear Friends, you are in my heart. I am thinking of you. I feel your suffering, and I wish I could do more for you to help you. I really love you, and I really love all people who are suffering. And my heart is crying for the children in the war in Gaza, but also in other parts of the world about which we don’t hear much in the news. And I really hope that love will reign soon and to see a world in which all children can play.
Ministry of Yurii Sheliazhenko
Friends, why do sirens at night make us wake up in fear? Why do bombs and rockets fall on homes? Why are people viciously called and brutally forced to kill and die? Why are those who raise their voices in defense of those cruelly oppressed, care about the destitute, help them find asylum, are persecuted with double cruelty? Where does this madness come from on all continents? Sure, Putin is a lunatic and he’s causing Ukraine a lot of grief, but one lunatic can’t turn the world upside down, even if he finds a bunch of lunatic allies and a bunch of lunatic enemies to help him turn planet Earth into a lair of maniaks.
Madness surrounds us because people have stopped honoring the commandments of God, first of all the commandment “thou shalt not kill”. When people broke the covenant and peace with God in the times of old testament, God said: I will put my law in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts (Jeremiah 31:33). Then Jesus came and preached the laws of love.
But during wars, people forget the laws of love. So it was during the war in England, when George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, lived. He listened to many preachers of his time who lured people into military camps, and from none of these preachers did he hear a sensible word of hope and love. And then he climbed the hill, silently listened to his heart and heard the voice of Jesus. He recorded in his journal: “when all my hopes in all men were gone, so that I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could tell what to do, then, oh then, I heard a voice which said, ‘There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak to thy condition’, and when I heard it my heart did leap for joy.” Every person can experience this feeling, because every person can and should find the law of love in heart and mind.
Therefore, let us rejoice in the kingdom of God within us, let us keep in the light those who suffer from the violence of madmen, and let us try to gradually transform life around us with reasonable peaceful efforts according to teachings of the Sermon on the Mount of our Lord Jesus Christ.
As the Ukrainian philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda said: “Do what you were born to do, be a fair and peaceful citizen, and that’s enough of you.”