PENNSYLVANIA, USA — Don Parsons is a Central Pennsylvania native now living in Detroit.
He and his family spent eight years living in Ukraine during the early 2000’s.
While there, he and his wife helped establish a church in the city of Kyiv.
“Our love for the Ukrainian people is very strong, very deep,” said Parsons.
Just a few days into Russia’s war on Ukraine, a residential building sitting a few hundred yards away from that same church was hit and severely damaged.
“It was that close to where our kids grew up, [where they] spent many of their younger years, that close to our church, so very quickly did the war become a reality in our mind and our hearts,” said Parsons.
As a member of Mission Eurasia, an organization which works to train and equip church leaders across Europe and Asia, Don is now heading to Poland to help on the front lines.
“We in the West, we all over the world, have to do everything we can to come alongside the Ukrainians,” explained Parsons.
Mission Eurasia has already worked to distribute 6,000 care packages—filled with food, medicine, diapers, bibles and more—all over Ukraine.
“They’re being shipped into the center of the country, into the east of the country, the south of the country, to the places that have been most heavily hit and are most heavily under threat at the moment,” said Parsons.
He says it’s the least they can do to help the Ukrainians, who he worked closely with during his time there.
“They’re not perfect, [but] they’re warm, they’re hospitable, they’re freedom-loving and in a matter of speaking, they wake up one day and their country is being invaded,” said Parsons.
Mission Eurasia is standing alongside 400 churches across Ukraine.
Parsons says while their denominations may be different, right now—they all believe the same.
“Evangelical churches, different stripes, Pentecostal, Baptist, bible churches, and so forth, they’re all coming together for these Ukrainian people who are in such desperate need,” he said.
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