While the world is focused on the war in Ukraine, I look for ways to provide eyewitness reports for Charisma readers. So, when I got a text a few days ago from my longtime friend Mike Evans, who had just returned from Ukraine, I asked to interview him for a recent episode of my Strang Report podcast.
I was astounded by what I learned and want to share it here.
In case you don’t know, Evans is a bestselling author and longtime advocate of Israel. His interesting career has had him rub elbows with world leaders like Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. I’ve known Evans since the 1970s, and I like to call him “a force of nature.” His many accomplishments garnered him a recent nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize, the first Pentecostal I’m aware of receiving this honor.
I asked Evans for an eyewitness account just hours after he arrived back from Ukraine.
“We brought a food truck in to get to the survivors because they’re suffering terribly,” he says in our interview. “When I went in there to bring food, I started getting calls from pastors. Their congregations are absolutely starving right now because they’re cut off from food supplies.”
“It’s a disaster,” Evans continues. “I saw miles and miles of women and children waiting at the border. No men. Just women and children. They’ve spent two or three days on the road and 14 hours on trains that are totally dark. There’s no water on the trains so these people are coming off the trains in total shock. I’ve been in 41 war zones. This is the worst I’ve seen.”
Evans says this situation is worse than others because of the women and the children who are leaving the country, not knowing if they will ever see their husbands and fathers again.
“And Putin is hitting everything,” Evans continues. “Now he’s hitting civilian targets. The U.S. is talking about the airspace, and Zelenskyy is talking about the airspace. Most people don’t know, but the Russians are not firing over Ukrainian airspace. They’re firing their missiles over Russian airspace. Thirty missiles hit where I was and killed 34 people and wounded 125, but they were fired from Russian airspace by planes.”
Evans woke up when the shelling when missiles hit near him at 5 a.m. Sirens were going off, and people were yelling in Ukrainian to go hide.
“I said to myself, ‘Well, I’m going to go hide right now,'” Evans says. “‘The only place I can hide is in Jesus. He’s my hiding place.’ And I’m in this tiny little room, and I just drew my strength from Corrie Ten Boom’s words, ‘Jesus is my hiding place.’ And God gave me peace. I didn’t know if the bomb was going to hit the building or not, but it killed 34 people and wounded over 100.”
“The pastors have been astonishing,” Evans says of the church in Ukraine. “They’re staying there for their congregations. They’re in terrible straights right now, but they’re believers. They’re strong. They’re praying. They’re positive, but it’s tough.”
Evans then offers a way to help them. “I think believers have to step up to the plate and unite with our brothers and sisters in Christ in Ukraine. They are hurting right now. They need all the support we can give them.”
Charisma Media has set up a Ukraine fund and has raised thousands of dollars going to various ministries who are helping in Ukraine. Visit our nonprofit partner, christianlifemissions.org, at this link, and 100% of your donation will go to Ukraine.
I asked Evans at the end of the podcast to close in prayer:
Lord, I pray believers will get serious on their face. And they’ll realize this [Putin] is just a man, like Nebuchadnezzar was a man. But God, You raise up kings and You take them down. And Father, I just pray that your Holy Spirit, the power of the Spirit, would bind these demon spirits in Putin that would kill, steal and destroy these precious Ukrainians, especially these dear Holocaust survivors.
They feel like they’re going through another Holocaust right now. They feel that way because of the bombs, the food deprivation, no water and no electricity in the churches. So Lord, we intercede. We know You’re on the throne, and there’s no panic in heaven. And as Corrie ten Boom said, and as I prayed, “Lord, You are our hiding place,” and we do put our trust in You, in the name of Jesus. {eoa}
For more of Mike Evans’ eyewitness account from Ukraine, listen to the entire episode of the Strang Report at this link and subscribe to the Strang Report on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform.
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Stephen Strang 
