Hi -

My wife's church sends out a "blast" to all members, with prayer requests, announcements and the like.  This just came out:

PRAYER REQUEST

From Ross Anderson: Many have asked about my brother, who is helping in Ukraine.  We've been in contact with my brother more by phone this week than ever before. My parents talk to him while he is presumably in Bakhmut. I know all of us can relate to moms worrying about their sons. Especially when he goes off to war.

From what we understand, there is no official support system, as he had in the US army. Volunteers like Stuart who have paid their own way to get to Ukraine, have purchased what they need through the black market there, and are seeing a world in ruin. Ash and smoke and ice and fog and bombed out rubble like something out of World War II Europe. The Russian bombardment of missiles goes on day and night, unrelenting, and the woods may be the only place to retreat from its intensity. Sleep is hard to come by.

My brother has used all his savings, he tells us, to buy whatever goods he can by whatever means, for Ukrainian families in need he comes across. The fighting is bitter. It's carnage of the worst kind between Russians and Ukrainians. The Russians keep coming, and Stuart speaks demoralizingly of the hated Wagner group. At first It seems like he was needed to train Ukrainians. But the war has gotten so bloody, he now fights on the front lines. Everywhere there is mud, and he and his battle buddies hope for a deep freeze, so they can at least walk on the saturated soil. He is able to receive our family's financial donations, which he has used to purchase a thicker jacket. But all the rest of it he has given to those worse in need, tells us. He has always had a big heart for those struggling to live.

What we hope for most is prayer for his protection and morale, but also and especially for his dependence on God. He, as far as he lets on, does not have any time or trust for any real divine power. We pray for his emotional wounds to be healed, for his nightmares to stop, for his broken body to be knit back together by God's hands, and for him to find peace in the Lord.  (Jan 16)

I don't know if this guy was a recruited mercenary or what.  It appears he is not a believer.  He may also (with his family) be a victim of mainstream media dis-information.  Don't know how recent this is, as I was under the impression that the ground in Ukraine is frozen.  That may not be true in Bakhmut.

Regardless, it sounds bleak.  I'm not passing this on as a prayer request, but simply for its value as presumably first-hand information on the situation in Ukraine.  I'm fairly confident most of you are in prayer anyway.