Today was our first day on the field in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. Our medical clinic was held at what will soon be a new church plant called Love of Christ Baptist Church. It’s a church plant of Central Baptist Church here in Dnipropetrovsk.
The church was located in a central area of the city in a soviet era apartment building. There were several other similar buildings close by and the church had taken the time to heavily advertise in their community the opportunity to attend a free medical clinic. The emphasis was on a free check up and the opportunity to get reading glasses based on their need.
By the end of the day, nearly 150 people had been presented with the Gospel and medicines as needed for free after visiting with our two doctors. 135 specifically had vision checks and 111 had medical checks. I’ll confirm the numbers, but I know that at the least 6 people surrendered to Christ today, probably more! The church will now follow up with each of the people who attended.
In our time of prayer and sharing this evening Lawrence Phipps told of his general experience throughout the day. He found that everyone was very grateful that we came, especially with everything going on in Ukraine at this time. Many people were receptive to hearing the Gospel.
Howard Payne echoed this sentiment and shared a story of a Ukranian woman expressing her gratitude after being seen by Dr. Lee Franklin. “I didn’t have to understand the words, but I could understand the expressions” said Payne.
Debbie Rawlinson shared a story of when a woman came in to check on getting new glasses. The woman told her about having lost three family members in the past year in a half. Debbie was able to pray with her and to pray for a hedge of protection and strength.
During our last moments before returning to the hotel, we shared a time of prayer over Sasha, one of our translators. Sasha was a translator for one of the previous missions and was already close to the group. He was recently activated into the Ukranian army but was able to join with us for one day. I have included a video below of his story along with his prayer requests of how all of us can pray for him. Will you commit to pray for Sasha now?
Tomorrow we will be having our second clinic. Howards and my luggage are still racking up mileage and reportedly will be visiting Vienna, Austria tomorrow before hopefully returning to us tomorrow evening. Continue to pray that the luggage returns and for the remaining four clinics. As always, pictures should be loaded daily and you can view them by clicking below, or going directly to Flickr.