Dear Friends,

With the tensions rising once again in Ukraine’s Eastern Region, we are reminded that the kingdom of Jesus does not wage war with coercive, carnal weaponry. Our Creator comes inconspicuously, as a child, to an oppressed people, without an agenda to dominate, but to divest and serve humanity by taking on the form of a servant.

In our Spring Update, I hope you are encouraged by some of the ways our families and mission is engaging Slavic culture, creating Jesus culture, and taking on the form of our most glorious Servant King!

Thank you once again for your continued care and support 🙂

Bruce & Deb Crowe
Mir Ministries | Ukraine | Belarus | Russia

What do we do?

Each month, we are posting Widows Care ministry stories from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Click here to visit our Widows Stories page for the most recent stories of redemption and love at work!

Our Vision

Our vision is to train and mobilize Slavic believers to join the Father’s heart in reaching desperate widows in need through monthly food packages, visitation, and soul care.

Most of our ministry takes place in remote villages where the need is the greatest and many grandmothers have no family or outside help and rely on a government stipend of $50/mo or less.
read recent widow stories>>

80% of our ministry budget goes directly to material products for the widow, including food and medicine. We have a team of 3 part time staff, and a growing base of volunteers and partner Slavic churches. Once we train how to operate a food pantry and reach the widow, we encourage the local church to take up the ministry on their own, and slowly decrease dependencies on our program.

Present-Future

We are now focused on deepening the volunteer network through online prayer, and Lord willing resuming in person conferences for further mentoring and soul care resources. As a next phase, we hope to empower the healthier, younger widows with missional resources to create jobs, and participate in God’s missional heart too! We did this in Belarus last year when some widows were given funds to purchase material and sew winter clothing for local orphanges.

Serving Now

  • 350 Widows
  • 45 Volunteers
  • 30 Villages
    • Belarus (14)
    • Ukraine (12)
    • Russia (3)

Our crowdfunding platform is designed to provide educational and technical resources for emerging Slavic believers to turn their business and ministry ideas into reality.

Culture Making

We believe that the only way to change culture is to make more of it!

Crowdfunding in the Russian and Ukrainian speaking world is still relatively new and is taking some time to both educate and train concepts of risk-taking, business plans and team development. However, we’re slowly growing and now providing services for the Baptist Union, the Assemblies of God, and Mission Eurasia.

Check out some of our active projects!

Please allow me to highlight our own Lighthouse Ukraine team’s summer project: Youth Bike Club!

I’m so proud of them. They dreamed up the idea to take our youth on area bike rides and have produced all the fundraising content themselves. They’ve already started this and been borrowing our own kids’ bikes, but they would like to go too!

Most of our students are very poor and don’t own a bike, and some have never ridden one. This mission is simple.. to take groups of youth on weekend rides, sharing lunch and the love of Christ. But first, they need a few bikes and safety equipment! You can view this project and the details of their $1,500 goal here on our RazomGO site – (Click Here)

If you’d like to try to give through our RazomGo Website please do, we need some testers from the US! If you’d prefer to give through our Mir Site (Click here), that works too!

So we have more exciting news! Through a series of interesting events, we are hosting our cities first running race – we’re calling it “Life Givers Marathon” (logo above, by Tucker our son!).  It will take place on Sunday, June 6, 2021.

We’ve met with local officials, and also hosted our first regional meeting among some running reps, marketing minds and had a wonderful time dreaming up and planning together!

We’ll be promoting local at-risk families, and raising support for a few local families with disabilities. More soon!

Meet our city mayor, Christina. She’s a wonderful lady who fully supports Lighthouse and all our activities in the region – what a blessing!
In other news, our new Mission & Innovation building project is about to start back up next week! Thanks to our generous sponsors we’re able to now continue with the walls and roof.
Meet Aliona Savchenko is 31 and lives in Ukraine. She works as a youth administrator for a private charity. Through visiting Lighthouse, and some of our area events, she’s come into close friendship with our missional community. Recently, and to our surprise, she joined our 90 Day Bible Reading challenge, and for the first time read Scripture for herself.. the entire New Testament!

God has been opening her heart to His, and we are delighted for you to hear a bit of her story – she is a leader and emerging light to her generation!

The following untranslated and unpolished testimony is from Aliona. I asked her to share how God worked in her life over the 90 day bible project and our Zoom meetings:

Three months of immersion in my soul and looking to God had a miraculous effect on me. It was as if I looked at my life and what and who surrounds me. I felt incredible joy from what I have in my life. And also I felt the comfort and strength that I have long tried to find in my heart. I felt a constant and uninterrupted love.

The most impressive thing is that even when it was hard and painful for me, and when I didn’t want to notice it – God was always and is with me, He did not disappear anywhere, but was always near. This thought gives me extraordinary strength and inspiration. I read the New Testament for the first time and I was so impressed by the simplicity and at the same time the depth of its content. I looked from the other side at the church as a social structure in our country and began to review my life in parts.

The weekly meetings added inspiration for the development of spirituality and the study of life. The atmosphere that prevailed at the meetings was filled with trust and love. It was nice to feel united with the whole world, because the participants were in different parts of our planet. I enjoyed discussing interesting topics about leadership, development, the spiritual path of each of the participants, as well as common prayers. I plan to continue studying the Bible and start reading the Old Testament. And also, I continue and try to put into my life the things that are said in the Bible. And easierly, I try to love more.

Thank you for these wonderful days together!  ~ Aliona

A few weeks ago Deb and I were able to fly to Florida and visit our first grandbaby, Byron! We had a rich time with our eldest son and Kristin our daughter in law. We also were able to connect in living color with Bronwyn and Brent. Thankful for Diana who stayed at our house and watched over the younger crew in Ukraine.

Prayer For:
– Eastern Ukraine, tensions and peace!
– Belarus and opportunities despite opposition.
– Widows staff, volunteers, and the widows!
– Funds for Bike Club, Marathon Event.
– Lighthouse challenges with Covid, currently in lockdown again.
– Bruce’s continued improved health.. 75% there!