Heart of Ukraine Ministries
Vinnytsia, Ukraine
Heart of Ukraine ministries is dedicated to meeting the needs of the homeless, needy, and addicted in Ukraine. Laura Bohanan is the sister of Living Hoper Brenda Stovall. There are many ministries associated with Heart of Ukraine, please go to their website to learn about all of them.
For more information visit heartofukraine.wordpress.com
Or contact Mark & Laura Bohanan heartofukraineministries@gmail.com
2/5/24
Dear Living Hope Church,
Greetings from Ukraine ! May God’s glory be evident to all !
Just a quick update from us and our ministry. Most of our updates are about the status of our clients, David’s House Rehab Center animals and gardens, our street feeding ministry, and Light of Life Church, but this time we’d like to share a few general ministry things that are affecting us personally.
Most sending missionary organizations require their missionaries to come home for a sabbatical every 3 or 5 years. We have not been in a position to do that until recently.
In late November 2022 – January 2023, we were able to travel together to the US on a short 5 week trip; the first time we’ve been able to travel together in over 12 years. Our newer volunteers, Steve & Jennifer Curcio, handled the ministry for us during that trip. It was a good exercise with good results.
Now that they have been trained and been through the fire, so to speak, they are open to staying at David’s House Rehab Center and running our ministry so that we can take our first ever sabbatical. . . . after 16.5 years of on-stie ministry.
As we shared during that 2022-2023 trip, we are pretty tired – physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Being in a very different culture with a drastically different language, while starting up a complex and difficult ministry, has weighed heavy on us. We don’t do our ministry and then go home, as our ‘home’ is in our ministry, and the rehab clients live with us 24/7. And, although our ministry brings lots of joy, it is not the easiest.
So, with Steve & Jennifer’s help, we are heading to the USA in April 2024 and will stay until September 4th, 2024, approximately 5 months. Although we will travel some, our main focus is to rest . . . physically from all the back-breaking work, emotionally from all the issues of the rehab clients, and especially spiritually as we are going to focus on being ‘fed’ since we are always ‘feeding’ here. And, we’ll be attending at least one conference in our specialty field: Gospel Rescue Mission Fellowship May 30th - June 2.
We would appreciate your prayers as we plan and organize everything, from reducing all our animals to just chickens, to planting only barley in all our fields, to who will record our Sunday services and post them.
12/3/23
Got a picture of Pastor Sergey, his wife Mya, and his new car. It was a bit of a chilly day here, -3 C.
We are working on a video!
12/1/23 Prayer Requests
A big praise ! Our senior client, Dema, has been with us almost 2 years. A couple of months ago he started a new phase and is now working a job, but returning to the center each evening. Tuesday he was notified by his supervisor that they wanted him to go on a business trip with his supervisor and another employee. Dema was really hesitant to go because this routinely leads to drinking and smoking by those going on the trip. He did not want to be tripped up and relapse. At the same time, he was concerned that if he refused to go his employer might refuse to pay him for the month (work he had already done), which is unfortunately common here. We went over some relapse prevention scenarios to help prepare him. He went on the trip and came back victorious! The two men with him smoked often in the car (both were up front) with the windows cracked. At the work site, out of the 3 workers, 2 were drinking. Despite all this, Dema was able to say "No". This is a huge first for him and he has been smiling all day, since returning home.
Prayer for Yura's eye. He was chopping wood and a piece flew back and hit him in the eye. His hematoma, outer side of his eye, has healed up nice. However, the injury has seemed to affect the cataract in his eye and has made his eye more cloudy. We'll be taking him to a doctor in the next week or so to get an evaluation on it. Yura also continues to struggle to walk on his improperly healed ankle (broke it in 2017) and takes anti-inflammatory medication. Hopefully we can get him in for a surgery to correct the ankle. Yura is coming up on his 1 year with us. Please pray for Yura to accept Christ.
Max is progressing in his rehab program, but he continues to stumble on pride, especially when he feels someone is not hearing (agreeing with) his opinion. Max is just reaching his 3 month mark with us and is working on his 12 Steps. Please pray that Max comes to understand that he is saved by 'grace' and not his own works, and that he doesn't have to be perfect.
Prayers for Mark and I: our health as we get older; our emotional and metal energy to work with the men; our personal spiritual walks with the Lord.
Prayer for safety on the road as the weather continues to be snowy and icy, and it looks to be a hard cold winter.
Prayer for the Chaplains in the trenches with the soldiers, as they speak of God's love, forgiveness and salvation. Some Chaplains we know: Anatoliy, Dema, Dema (another one), Stanislov, Marina, Olya, and others.
Prayer for the coming outreach to prison staff for Christmas, January 7th. That their hearts remain open to us serving them and sharing the gospel.
Prayer for our street feeding program - for peace and cooperative guests. This last Tuesday we had 2 drunk men and a drunk woman attack another man. The young man was shocked and didn't fight back. Since the attackers were drunk, their assault was fairly harmless (swinging in the air), but when they went to attack him again, Mark grabbed one guy and I grabbed the other, and then kept ourselves between the attackers and the victim. Thankfully, the victim ended up with just scuffed knees and palms. The drunk men tried to incite us afterwards and 'save face', but we were both very calm (which spooked them; too calm = more dangerous) and we were not deterred. For several feedings they will not be feed, so when we arrive next week and refuse to feed them they may get loud and aggressive again; if they cause issues, we will immediately pack up and leave (which we've done on occasion to send a message), and allow 'street justice' to manage the situation (those who don't get fed because of the problem-makers will not be happy and as a group apply some peer pressure), which has worked for us before in situations like this. We are pretty experienced in handling these situations and can hold our own, but we really don't like being pulled into situations like this and we don't like the other guests to feel afraid or unsettled due to situations like this.
Light of Life Church will have a few holiday events and we'll be inviting people, so please pray that God goes before us and prepares the hearts of those we will approach. Our church is very warm and is like a big family, and we really enjoy time together.
10/27/23 - PRAYER REQUESTS:
Pray that the spiritual awakening of Ukraine continues to grow as hopeless and despairing people hear of a loving and merciful God.
Pray for the Ukrainian soldiers and their families, along with the Chaplains that serve them; and for Ukraine’s military and country leaders.
Pray that Pastor Sergey finds the perfect car for him and his family, and his ministry. That he can see God going before him and setting out his path.
Pray for the spiritual protection of Pastor Sergey and his wife Mya, as church leaders are always a target of our enemy.
Pray that Yura and Sergey come to know the saving grace of Jesus.
Pray for the steps of faith of all our men, and that they would embrace the rehabilitation process fully and not just check off the boxes. That God would open their eyes to the issues in their lives and leading them through healing.
Pray that we all can get some well needed rest after the physical demanding garden and harvest work.
Pray that our sows are pregnant . . . the piglets are income and meat for us. Pray for our large boar, Porky, as he was neutered today (we can’t sell him until he has 2 months with no testosterone); he has been a wonderful sweet boar, but he has gotten too big to handle.
Pray for Mark and my spiritual walks and that we continue to seek out God on a personal level, and in our marriage.
Pray for Mark and his diabetes, with all its complications.
Pray for us to continue to improve in eating healthier; we often eat cheaper which isn’t always healthy (like potatoes as we grow them, instead of other veggies we have to buy frozen).
Please pray for our wisdom as we consider our first sabbatical/furlough home after 16 years in Ukraine, deep in the trenches of our ministry. We are thinking about 3-4 months next May to August and would come back home to the USA. Pray for all the planning and that some of our volunteers are available to handle the ministry basics while we would be gone.
Pray for our ministry’s funding as the cost of living has more than doubled here, mainly due to the war (things have to brought into a port in Poland then trucked into Ukraine, due to Ukraine’s ports being blocked by Russia). One consequence, is that we have had to limit the number of men we can house due to food costs (most of our gardens are for the animals). We continue to pray for God’s wisdom in this and for us to step out in faith when we feel Him leading
8/11/2023 - Prayer Requests:
- For our work at David’s House Rehab Center (clients, harvest season, animals, and projects) & prison ministry.
- For our health, strength and endurance to make it through the harvest.
- For the hearts of the men we serve at the street feeding, that they would come to trust us and want to come to the rehab center as a way to change their lives.
- For our wisdom as we deal with the men at David’s House.
- That we are good stewards of the things that God gives us . . . .donations, crops, equipment, time, etc..
- For our personal spiritual walks with Christ, as Satan tries to get us distracted in so many ways.
- For our marriage as being in ministry, especially this ministry, can really wear on us; that we continue to make each other a priority during the day.