Kids’ Offerings Provide Bible Storybooks in War-Torn Ukraine July 28, 2023

Throughout the 2022-2023 school year, the students’ mission offerings added up. Fifty cents here, a few dollars there… and soon the gifts from dozens of LCMS day schools and Sunday schools from across the United States became enough to print 3,000 copies of the Ukrainian A Child’s Garden of Bible Stories for families living in that war-torn country.

The newly-printed books are being distributed to churches and families throughout Ukraine, and LHF plans an additional printing to provide Bible storybooks to Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Europe and North America.

Rev. Dr. Slavik Horpynchuk, bishop of the Ukrainian Lutheran Church, writes:

“This little Bible storybook is very important for Ukrainian children who daily experience horrors of war. Almost every day they survive daily missiles or kamikaze drone attacks; they see remnants of the apartment block ruined by Russians, and deaths of friends and relatives or unknown people. They also hear reports from the front lines about our soldiers, who do their best to defeat the enemy so that the massacre of Bucha and other towns and villages would never be repeated by Russians again.

“War is a very dark period of time for every Ukrainian, especially for our children. In this darkness, rays of bright and gentle light shine. They shine through the Bible. This particular edition is filled with light of the Word of God! Even its pages are bright, colorful and breathe with God’s love to children. They read and they see picture of God’s love in Christ and they rejoice, and they see the light of Christ, they learn more of Jesus and their faith in Him grows.

“This book has also very plain language, yet it brings to Ukrainian children the immense treasure of heaven and strengthens us in our faith. Despite how things may turn in this world, no Russian enemy will be able to take the Kingdom of Heaven and our eternal life in it from us or from our children.”