Bibles given to Ukrainian recruits training in UK

Ukrainian servicemen and women training in Britain have asked for Bibles as they prepare to return to the front line. 

In recent weeks, Bible Society has been able to provide 226 Ukrainian Bibles, 15 Russian Bibles and hundreds of copies of Beyond Disaster, a booklet that enables people to look at the trauma that they have experienced through the lens of scripture, for Ukrainian recruits training in the UK. 

Captain Mark Kalvaitis, chaplain to The 3rd Battalion Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry who has been serving the Ukrainian recruits, said, ‘They were so grateful for them and there was a sense of preciousness to it. It was beautiful to be able to share faith together, even though there is a language difference.’

He added, ‘Communing with the Bible connects us to a community here on earth and with God. Asking for the Bible facilitates a desire to remain connected when so many things that they were connected to have been taken from them. It fills a need.’

Some 10,000 Ukrainian troops will be trained in the UK as part of Operation UNIFIER, joint forces’ training intended to build the Ukrainians’ ‘capability and capacity to repel the Russian invasion’. 

Captain Kalvaitis said that what the Ukrainian soldiers were facing ‘is not a game’. ‘People are facing dehumanising situations of violence,’ he said. ‘Lives are at stake. They are asking themselves questions as they prepare for something that could potentially end in death.’

In coming months, Bible Society will provide a further 200 Bibles for Ukrainian troops in the UK.