How to Pray for Ukraine

This is Hans Schile from the Finishing Well Podcast.

On Finishing Well, we help you make godly choices about Medicare, long-term care, and your money. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and choosing the Truth Podcast Network. This is the Truth Network. Shining the light to freedom. That's the ministry, the mission of Lantern Rescue. I'm in their world headquarters, not telling you where I am, but I'm standing next to Mark Smith, one of the leaders, the founder of this ministry. Mark Smith, can you tell us where you just came back from?

I just pulled this out because I had to hear the latest update. First of all, tell us what does Lantern Rescue do? What is the mission of this ministry? So many folks have heard your amazing broadcast, podcast. So many folks have supported you guys. Shining the light to freedom. What does that mean?

Hey, Stu. I know that we're blessed to be on the radio, and our focus on that podcast and radio broadcast is the fight we put against human trafficking. But a lot of folks don't know that we also respond really well with God's favor to conflict areas and wars. We just have a gifted group of people that are able to respond, mobilize, and aid.

And so when we get into a situation like Ukraine, from day one, we were providing safe passageway from the very front of the line to establishing a support center. In our center, we feed 500, 600 people every day. We're giving them therapy.

We have an art therapy situation where children are provided art therapy three times a week every day of the week. Incredible, incredible ministry. We have feeding programs in hard-to-get places, and then we have supply runs that go to the front line through our employees. So we employ people there, and their status is like chaplains with the Ukrainian military. So I was blessed to be there, see all that ministry, see the heart of the Ukrainian people. I've never seen a heart like it.

I've been in a lot of countries in my life, worked with a lot of people. I'm just going to say that the Ukrainian people have such a dear love for their country and their land. And I think a lot of that spurns from their love for God. I mean, there's really a revival happening in that country.

I mean, it's about the size of Texas. So I mean, I got to speak to soldiers after working with them at certain levels and doing things and tell them about Jesus. And man, they just, they're on fire for God. And God gives them, it's like that, it's that love for God and appreciation that gives them the patriotism they have for their country because they see it as, look, this is the land God has given us. We want to stay here.

We want to live here. And I've just never seen worship. I tell you, like the first night I get there, 101 missiles hit. And the people that I'm with, there were about 70 leaders, ministry leaders. Dude, I mean, no power, nothing. They're just singing to Jesus. They're just lighting candles and they're singing. And like, they didn't run. They didn't go into hiding.

They're just singing. And such a powerful faith that I saw in Ukraine. And we did a lot of good work. We helped in particular areas up front that have been occupied. We were able to help civilians who have been pinned down, which I can't speak everything that we're able to participate in, but it's all good stuff.

And we appreciate those who support Ukraine, especially if you have a heart for that, please help us. We have a women's shelter that we're trying to fund. It's just for single moms with children. A businessman gives us a facility there that has got 51 beds. So we can house about 20 moms and their children.

We provide them a six month program. So there's just a lot. I mean, we have fed over 45,000 people in our IDP center and internally displaced people center. We fed about 45,000.

Doesn't include the tens of thousands that we have fed around Ukraine in the area. So we're heading into winter. It's cold there. I mean, it's brutal. I spent the last month there, pretty cold myself working in the front.

It's a lot of snow, a lot of wet. So we need to pray for these folks. A lot of places with no power. I mean, pretty much the whole country doesn't have power.

And those that have it, it's rationed off to them. But they're not losing hope, man. I'll tell you, they're singing songs about God and how He's moving them forward to victory. And I just pray that people stay informed about the situation and how we can help them and help people there.

That's the voice of Mark Smith, the head of Lantern Rescue, lighting the way to freedom. You all have helped so many young people, precious little ones, out of the bondage of human trafficking and evil in our day. Even political powers are sadly imbibed in.

And of course, that's so covered up and there's so many lies out there. But you guys are doing what's right. Instead of cursing the darkness, you're shining a light, lighting the way to freedom. Of course, people hear Mark Smith about you guys. They think about all the stuff you're doing to interrupt these human trafficking cycles and chains in America. And then coming from the islands and all these countries over, we've talked to you about countries as far away overseas as Asia, parts of Asia, not mentioning anything specific, but the Ukraine. Whenever there's a war, whenever there's tumult or chaos, bombs dropping, displaced people, suddenly Lantern Rescue shows up.

Why is that? Right. We just have a lot of gifted people with God's favor that are able to to get busy. I mean, we do so much with so little. Our donors and people I meet all the time are just blown away. And we're just thankful. We're thankful we're able to accomplish so much with so little.

And that's part of us that we haven't talked a lot about. We have the County Human Trafficking Task Force and that is represented in a lot of places, a lot of countries that we've built out. But the Crisis and Conflict Task Force are a group of people who respond.

We're not fighting criminals. We're providing aid and we're mobilizing and we're bringing hope and we're just seeing how do we help? How do we help?

How do we help? And so again, the way we do that is we provide safe passageway. We quickly establish a support center. We foster hope and therapy. That's like our art therapy and some other things that we provide. And then we develop these supply chains. You know, we have people, both American and foreigners, who we're not afraid and we know how to work up front.

And so it's been a blessing and honor to work there. We have a tremendous vision for the country. We have a vision for what needs to be done now while the war is happening. We have a tremendous vision that God has given all of us for what needs to happen after the war and how things need to be rebuilt. And I'm talking about rebuilding the souls and hearts of the people. And these are God's visions that keep coming to us and we just get so excited about them.

Because if it's a million dollars, we just know if it's God's vision, He's going to provide for it. So we just get busy. When we started in Ukraine, this is a testimony of the Lord, we were providing safe passageway to people, extracting them out. And then I was just praying, Lord, what do we do next? How do we help? And that was to establish the center that we have.

We actually have multiple warehouses, but one primary warehouse. And I was pushing on our people there to establish that. And we got a budget and I said, I got enough for six months. Let's do this for six months.

And maybe this will end. I really only had enough for two months too. I didn't have enough for six months, right? Enough money. That doesn't surprise me. But here's what happened.

We establish it one month in, we meet a gentleman who, God bless him, like so many of our donors, we meet a gentleman in Poland who we just meet for four days and returns to the US and he writes a check to fund it for a whole year. And so that's God. We just heard a vision.

It was God's vision. We were willing to step in faith and go, well, we're going to do this. We don't know how we're going to feed 500 people a day.

We don't know how we're going to do this. And then God provides for it. And we have no doubt that God cares about Ukraine because he cares about oppressed people. And listen, there's a lot of politics out there about, there's really a lot of propaganda out there about what's really happening in this war. And there's people who think Russia has some righteousness to this.

And I'm here to tell you from being there, living, eating and sleeping in this for months now, no. Russia is a terrorist evil right now. That doesn't mean there are not good people and good Christians, even in Russia. I've got friends. You and I, we're college together. We're ministers, Russians. But as a whole, that government is committing atrocities against the Ukrainian people and it has got to stop.

It's got to stop. And how can our listeners, so many of our folks, by the way, Stu Everson here, Truth Talk, thank you to all of our affiliates, so many people that have supported you. We are just so grateful for you.

I want to thank you on behalf of our listeners. When you hear those bombs blow off and you hear the smoke and you hear the terror and the cries, what I would tend to do is run away from that. What you and your team at Land and Rescue do, Mark, is you run toward that.

And I call up to, you and I are supposed to get coffee. You're on an airplane flying to Ukraine or Haiti or wherever there's the battle. But that's risking a lot. But it's all for the glory of God. It's all for Jesus. And that's what, you're getting the gospel to people, but you're trying to get them a little kerosene oil so they can, they don't have hypothermia before they hear the gospel, right? Yeah. They have a saying there and we're going to say it right here, slava boga.

Slava boga is to God be the glory. And we say that all the time. And for instance, part of why we were there, we were moving along the Black Sea area and sure enough, we were a target for Russian artillery, our convoy was.

And we took some artillery rounds inside of 50 meter even. So we're glad to be here and glad to be safe. But the people that I'm with, those nationals, those locals who employ, what bravery they have and we're just a catalyst for hope and some training and some knowledge, skill sets that we can give them to stay alive. But they're doing incredible work.

So God bless those people and definitely slava boga. You know, anyone interested in helping the Ukraine, anyone interested in helping displaced folks there, anyone interested in helping so many victims that are in bondage of human trafficking, brutal upon these precious little ones, Landon Rescue, any gift to them that God puts on your heart, forward this program, get on their podcast, go to their website. It's kind of the nucleus of all that they're doing. You can download their podcast, which is titillating. It's just intense of actual rescues and what's happening. What's the website, best way to reach, to learn more about Landon Rescue? Sure, lanternrescue.org.

It's L-A-N-T-E-R-N, the word rescue.org, lanternrescue.org. And I want to say slava boga. Did I say it right? Boga. Yeah. Boga. Glory to God, right? That's right. Amen.