January, 2023
Welcome to our newly renovated website. The address was changed because the last few years, we started working in Romania and Ukraine. These additions occurred, I am convinced, by divine intervention. There is no way anyone could have planned the connections that led to Helping Hands Eastern European Ministries helping thousands of Ukrainian refugees. A connection with the Lutheran Church in Romania was another unexpected development that enhanced that aid tremendously.
By God’s grace, we’ve been able to continue to pay the nursing staff at an orphanage as well as a daycare program for disabled children in Bulgaria. Also, we still provide aid to two nursing homes in Bulgaria and food packages for a group of families in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
Devotions, prayers and other materials continue to be translated into Greek for our Greek website. Use of these materials has increased as the Romanian pastor we work with has a congregation in Katerini, Greece. Materials translated into Russian have been used in southern Ukraine and by the Romanian pastor’s congregation in Moldovia.
Fifteen months ago, we began funding food packages for some of the neediest in Brashov, Romania plus in Micholiev and L’viv, Ukraine. Spiritual materials are also provided.
November of 2022 marked the fifth anniversary of the publishing of health articles with Gospel connections in one of the Bulgarian newspapers. Three years ago, with the start of the COVID crisis, we commenced publishing devotions on alternating weeks in the Bulgarian paper published in Chicago.
Many Eastern Europeans can recall communist government informants watching the churches and taking note of all the people that attended. Those noted to go into churches were often black-listed. Such memories have made many Eastern Europeans hesitant to set foot in a church again. It doesn’t matter if the church is in Canada, Germany, or the U.S. Thus, newspaper articles and computerized services are a much more acceptable way for them to hear the Word. That’s why these articles are such a critical part of our ministry.
The editor of the Bulgarian paper also publishes a paper in Ukrainian, so we decided to begin publishing the articles and devotions in the Ukrainian paper based in Chicago. Ukrainian Lutheran pastors still living (and ministering) in Ukraine are our primary translators. This established a link between the Ukrainian Lutheran Church and Helping Hands.
When the war broke out in Ukraine, all these connections were in place. The son of the Romanian Lutheran pastor we’d been working with quickly shifted to helping Ukrainian refugees crossing the border into southeastern Romania. He’s assisted approximately 15,000 refugees the past eleven months.
In 2022, we sent thousands of dollars for food, water, fuel, medications and other necessities to Ukraine and Romania. At first, we received quite a few donations. We sent as much money as we could. Many of the Helping Hands board members and regular donors gave more than usual. Sad to say, most of the donations have stopped the last half year.
Because our articles and devotions published in the Bulgarian and Ukrainian newspapers contain religious materials, they are considered advertisements so we pay $500 a month to have everything published. This is an expensive project but we estimate we reach about 15,000 people a month with it. For a population that isn’t in the habit of going to church, we’re hesitant to stop it. May God guide us as we seek to make needed cutbacks without compromising our mission of getting the life-giving Word and help to many living in Eastern Europe, U.S., or wherever they live and can access our website.