The Triumph of the Gospel: Ministering to Ukrainian Refugees

By Péter András Szabó - Posted at TableTalk Magazine:

You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place,” says our Lord in the Olivet Discourse (Matt. 24:6). I have read these words numerous times, but they sounded very different when the war between Russia and Ukraine broke out. War was not a distant reality anymore but became a part of our lives. Trouble, worry, and panic are natural reactions in such times, but the words of Christ show us another way: with Him we can fight anxiety. As Leon Morris put it, “[The disciples] have one thing going for them that the general public has not: they know that God is over all and that his purpose will in the end be worked out.”1 The gospel of Christ will triumph even in the midst of war.

We witnessed this triumph in the past five months. I am a pastor in Budapest, Hungary. Our church is part of a small, confessional Presbyterian denomination, the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Central and Eastern Europe (RPCCEE). The RPCCEE has sixteen churches in Hungary, Romania, and Ukraine. Since both Hungary and Romania are neighboring countries of Ukraine, all our churches were affected by the war directly or indirectly. As a response to the horrors of the war, our relief ministry targeted two main areas. First, we wanted to aid the people who stayed in Ukraine. Even in Ukrainian areas farther from the actual war zone, there is a shortage of food, fuel, and medicine. Many people lost their jobs and cannot survive if there is not some help from outside. Second, we needed to help the people who left Ukraine and looked for shelter in Hungary or Romania. According to recent data, 6.1 million individuals have left Ukraine since the start of the war. Of this six million, around one million refugees fled to Hungary and another eight hundred thousand to Romania. As our churches were engaged in helping the refugees, we experienced the power of the gospel to strengthen in faith, hope, and love.

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