Special Request to Help Evacuate a Global Scholar’s Family
The Need
One of the privileges we have had over the years in our work with Global Scholars is to meet other academics from other countries, people who love the Lord and want to glory God through their academic studies.
One such person is Slavik Lytvenenko from Ukraine. His specialty is the study of Patristics, the early Christian Fathers of our faith. Before moving to Prague, he taught at a Christian college in Eastern Ukraine. When we met Slavik, he was working on his Ph.D. At the same time, we met his wife, Oksana, and their three children who attended the Christian International School of Prague. Over the years, this family has become dear friends of ours.
They have remained in Prague as their kids have grown and Slavik’s teaching ministry has been in Prague as well as Belgium and the US.
However, their family remains in Ukraine. Born and raised in the Donetsk region, Slavik and Oksana have been quite concerned for their family. Let me use Slavik’s words that we received this morning in an email.
I am trying to raise support for our family in Druzhkivka who are about 30 miles away from the war zone and about 40 miles from Donetsk. Our government is now recommending for such people to get evacuated in light of what is going on there right now. So, my Mom will be moving to Kyiv, and we have friends who can host her there for a while. Oksana’s Mom has decided to stay because she is suffering from cancer (for a couple of years now) and is too weak to move anywhere at this point. We’ll keep helping her where she is. Oksana’s sister with her husband and three kids will be relocating to a town near Lviv (the most western region in Ukraine).
Since the beginning of the war in the fall of 2014, that area has been struck with poverty, and we’ve been helping our family ever since. However, our resources are quite exhausted, and I’d like to look for some support to help them at this critical time. According to our estimations, we need about $4,500, and I have more specific figures if needed.
Because Slavik is already a supported Global Scholars, we have asked and received permission to send out the link to his support account. No money will come through us at all. It will all go directly through Global Scholars to Slavik and his family.
Would you prayerfully consider supporting Slavik in helping his mom and sister-in-law and family get evacuated from the Donetsk region, as well as help Oksanna’s sick mom get to a safe place near her home?
If you are open to helping, please use the link below to the Global Scholars giving page. There is a dropdown menu to find professors to support in alphabetical order. Look for Lytvynenko, Viacheslav Slavik and Aksanna. Click on that name and then add whatever you feel led to contribute to help this family.
There is NO pressure here. We know this is a tight time financially for many people. Give only as the Lord leads.