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Dear readers: you are the protagonists of this story if you gave a donation to EMF's Ukraine Emergency Appeal, launched in February 2022, or prayed for us as we tried to support aid work in this war-ravaged country. Even the UK Prime Minister wants to thank you! So how did Rishi come to know anything about a very small Christian mission agency like ours? That is a good question: we are pretty astonished ourselves.

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When Martin Tatham, along with Andrew Birch and his wife Vivienne, visited western and central Ukraine back in April 2023, all three were overwhelmed by the expressions of gratitude from everyone they met: Olena in Kalynivka, for instance, who gave heartfelt thanks for how appeal funds had helped the church in southwestern Kremenets to take in her family, who were fleeing from Russian bombardment. Staff at the Irpin Bible Church near Kyiv told us that new churches were forming in centres originally used for food distribution. Your donations helped buy some of that food! In Ternopil, western Ukraine, the head of social services showed us around their support facilities. Without aid sent from our appeal fund through Volodia Kostyshyn and his friend Ivan Hontar, this worker said, the town's resouces simply could not have coped with the flood of displaced people. Everywhere the EMF team visited, many folk beat upon their chest and (some of them through tears) said 'Дякую, Дякую' : 'thank you! thank you!'

And then there was the meeting with the Kremenets town council. Sitting around the long oblong table, the mayor and his colleagues told these EMF representatives that  the town would have witnessed a humanitarian disaster without the support of the Kremenets Baptist Church (this congregation had received a great deal of help, channeled through EMF's Volodia Kostyshyn and his friend, Pastor Viktor Pugach; the mayor himself had turned up at a Sunday service, unexpectedly). Now this head of a struggling town council couldn't say thank you too many times. Could EMF please pass on the town's gratitude to all donors? Of course they would! The UK people also needed to be thanked, the mayor and his colleagues stressed. Could Martin and his colleagues tell the Prime Minister and all the people of the UK that they were inexpressably grateful for support received in Ukraine? Martin, Andrew, and Vivienne found this request highly amusing. That was a huge guarantee to give, they replied. But the only female present (somewhat rashly, she felt after the event!) gave these men a guarantee that EMF would really try to get that message to the government. It was the kind of promise you make when the eyes of sincere people are upon you, the solemn eyes of people who have have reached out to fellow citizens so selflessly, who have seen themselves in such dire straits, and who have with unspeakable relief felt keenly that they were not alone. Out there, people cared.

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So a letter was duly written to Andrew and Vivienne Birch's MP, Jane Hunt. No-one expected a reply, but at least EMF could tell the folk in Kremenets, Ternopil, Kyiv, and other places, that we had endeavoured to keep our promise. Much to our surprise, not only did Jane Hunt write back very promptly; she also published the news of EMF's fund-raising on her web-site, and later passed on news about the Ternopil warehouse fire, asking her Facebook readers to consider supporting an appeal to restore aid work in Ternopil. Best of all, Jane gave her promise to pass on our letter on behalf of grateful Ukrainians to the UK government.

That was where we believed the story had ended. On the desk of a minor civil servant, who would type out a standard acknowledgment sentence. At least we could show that we had done what we'd said we'd do. But one normal work-day morning, an email from Jane Hunt's secretary dropped into Vivienne's in-box, with a letter (see photo) attached. To Jane. To EMF. To you. So to all who have donated to our appeal funds, thank you once more, on behalf of all who have benefitted in more ways than you realise, and who under God, have been helped to a greater extent than you may ever know.

And: thank you from Rishi Sunak!
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PS: People in Ukraine still need your help, especially with the hard winter approaching.

Can you help us continue to support them?