The war in Ukraine is in its fourth year. Hard to imagine. I wrote about it first in War! on March 4, 2022, suggesting an organization to contribute to. I’m reminded again that the battle is ongoing and funds are still needed by my friend Ed Ward, Colonel, USAF (Retired). Ed and I served together both in Alabama and Colorado Springs. After his retirement, he served as business manager of First Presbyterian Church, Colorado Springs. Of late, he and his wife, Sally, continue to serve on short-term mission trips even though Ed turns 81 today. I’ll let him explain in a letter which I’m reproducing in its entirety:

Dear Family and Friends,

Yep! Can you believe it: 81 years old on Tuesday, July 8th!  And I’ve been blessed: married to my sweet Sally for 58 fabulous years, helped our Amy celebrate her retirement as a sergeant in the Sheriff’s Office this past week, as well as having a wonderful family and many dear friends. And I’m very fortunate to still be doing short term mission work in China and Mongolia. In fact, I leave for my 29th visit to China at the end of this month. I am blessed.

Not so for Ukraine. I’ve been to Ukraine twice since the unprovoked Russian invasion on 24 February 2022, so I’ve seen with my own eyes what’s going on. We’re all aware of the relentless and growing Russian attacks that continue to this very moment. Nothing is off limits: first responders treating drone and missile attack victims, children’s playgrounds and hospitals, any type of school, overcrowded apartment buildings, active medical facilities, busy shopping centers, churches, cultural centers, museums…absolutely nothing. The suffering gets worse every day.

Ukraine Power is helping alleviate that suffering. A 501(c)(3) founded here in Colorado Springs in November 2022, we raise funds in the US, and then purchase the needed equipment and supplies in Ukraine, ensuring that every item we source reaches its intended destination. We require photographic documentation of all deliveries. In fact, of the 45 shipments we have arranged so far, not a single item has been stolen or diverted. We have reached the Platinum designation with Guidestar, the gold-standard organization ranking non-profits. Further, we have been invited to a session of The Senate of the Colorado Legislature to be honored for our work in support of Ukraine for three consecutive years. 

Among other projects, we’ve supplied essentials to community hubs providing support to those who have lost their homes, livelihood and family members; we are supporting families who have taken in children whose parents have been killed in the war; and we are supporting a massive effort to furnish four University of Kyiv dormitories repurposed into housing for displaced persons from Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts, both sharing a border with Russia, and now overrun and occupied by Russian forces. Over 3,300 displaced persons will soon have a new place to live.

I hate asking for money, but this is a moment when I must just swallow hard and simply make the request. So I am respectfully asking each of you to click on the Ukraine Power website link (ukrainepower.org) and make a contribution. Today if at all possible, please. If you have already made a contribution (THANK YOU!), then please encourage others to support Ukraine Power’s work with a financial gift. 

Please help make my 81st birthday the best one ever by contributing to Ukraine Power as we strive to alleviate suffering in Ukraine.

With love and respect,

Ed

Ed Ward, Member, Ukraine Power Board of Directors

If you are able, and God leads, I hope you’ll contribute. I did.

By this we know love, because He laid down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need, and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth. (1 John 3.16 – 18, NKJV)

PS My blog Truth is Truth was written early in the war. It’s nasty over there as Ed wrote.