Children in War-Torn Ukraine Get Chance to Escape to Summer Bible Camps

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Perhaps the people who are the most devastated by the war between Ukraine and Russia are the children. More than 7.5 million Ukrainian children have been impacted by the war, and over 75 percent have faced mental and emotional trauma and are in dire need of counseling and other support that can help them experience healing, according to Mission Eurasia.

Helping Children Walk out their Healing

Mission Eurasia and Slavic Gospel Association (SGA) are both working alongside local neighborhood churches in parts of Ukraine, the former Soviet Union, and Russia, so that children will have the opportunity to attend Bible summer camps and walk out their healing.

“Many of these children and teens have lost hope, and their hearts are broken,” SGA association President Michael Johnson told MetroVoice News. “Some have been orphaned by war, others abandoned, and others have suffered abuse and neglect.”

The Slavic Gospel Association is a U.S.-based ministry that supports local churches across 11 time zones.

“Local pastors are seeing more heartbreak, depression, and confusion in children and teens than ever before,” said Eric Mock, senior SGA vice president of ministry operations and a frequent visitor to the region.

“We have a generation of kids now who have grown up knowing nothing but air raid sirens and explosions,” Valentin, a pastor in Ukraine’s Odesa region, told Christian Newswire. “Summer camp is their escape, their refuge.”

Through the tool of the summer Bible camps, trained Mission Eurasia leaders not only build relationships with the children, but when the camps come to an end, they also invite the children to participate in small Bible study groups and connect them to a local church.

Russian Government’s Exploitation of War-Battered Children

Unfortunately, not all of the children have been so fortunate as to find mission organizations to help them escape the clutches of the Russian government. Russia has been kidnapping Ukrainian children between the ages of 18 months and 17 years. It’s now been 4 years since the 2022 full-scale invasion, and Russia has built a network of indoctrination and militarization facilities in the territories it occupies in Ukraine.
 
Russia then brainwashes the kidnapped children with a false history it has written, and teaches them that Ukraine didn’t exist. It also teaches patriotism toward Russia and militarizes the kidnapped children. They are forced to abandon the Ukrainian language, identity, and speak only Russian, according to The Hill.

 “Americans are not indifferent to Russia’s kidnapping of Ukrainian children. They are overwhelmed, misinformed, and confronting a kind of normalcy bias,” Meaghan Mobbs, Director of IWF’s Center for American Safety and Security, told The Hill.

“Even when people see the facts, the idea that thousands of children could be forcibly taken from their families and transferred to another country in the modern age feels almost impossible to absorb because it is so overwhelmingly grotesque,” she added.

First lady Melania Trump has been heavily involved in reaching out to Russian President Putin and persuading Russia to return the children they kidnapped to Ukraine.

“Her involvement directly resulted in returns of dozens of kids already, since last October. There are dozens of children and dozens of families who have been reunited together,” Maksym Maksymov, head of Bring Kids Back UA, told The Hill. “Her role is of paramount importance, and we hope that she continues to pay such close attention to this matter.”

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Sandsun

Elizabeth Delaney has been a freelance content writer for over 20 years and has enjoyed having her prose published in both the non-fiction and fiction markets. She has written various types of content, including Christian articles, healthy lifestyle, blog posts, business topics, news articles, product descriptions, and some fiction. She is also a singer-songwriter-musician. When she is not busy with writing or music, she enjoys spending time with friends or family and doing fun social activities such as hiking, swing dancing, concerts, and other activities.