Since 2022, New Life Ministries has sent out a total of 470,000 copies of Ukrainian Bibles, and at the same time, we have also sent out 81,000 copies of the Ukrainian Manga Bibles. These Mangas will be distributed by our mission partner active in Europe, Mission Eurasia. We have received reports from those who received manga and we would like to share them with you.

Sasha and Kira

School Without Walls (SWW*) leaders came across Tania, a mother of two children in the village of Zhdanievo in the Zakarpattia oblast of western Ukraine.

*This is one of the projects run by “School Without Walls Mission Eurasia”. They evangelize the young people and do discipleship training for those who will become next generation leaders.

Tania mentioned the following to the leaders: “About a month ago, I noticed that Sasha started taking a new book to school that he had received at church. The book is about Jesus and His life.”

Upon hearing this, the leaders asked more about the book and realized it was a Manga Bible. They expressed interest in meeting Sasha and asking him some questions, so Tania invited them to their home.
Tania and her two children, Sasha and Kira, used to live close to Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine. When the war started, that area was heavily shelled, so Tania and her children moved to the village of Zhdanievo to be safe.

The family was very happy to receive SWW leaders in their home, and Sasha was very happy to share about his interest in the Manga Bible: “I love to read Japanese comic strips in general, and I’ve been mostly reading the ones related to adventure and sports. When I saw a Bible in that form, I was intrigued and gladly received it! I enjoy it so much that I take it to school with me. Some of my friends were interested, and I let them borrow it for a few days… I remember the first day I brought it to school. My friends and I went to a library between classes to go through it… Many people don’t understand the Japanese style of communicating, but I think it’s fascinating because it is so dynamic and it’s easy to imagine Jesus relating to people.”

Sasha’s sister Kira also received her own copy of the Manga Bible and enjoys reading it, too. As a matter of fact, she enjoys reading it more with her mother since they discuss what they read.
Both Sasha and Kira enjoy music so when SWW leaders invited them to Christian youth meetings where they can use their talents and meet new friends, they were very excited and eager to come!

Dima and Nazar

Dima, 17, spends a lot of time with his younger stepbrother, Nazar, 9. They love to explore the streets of Grobyvnitsa, a village in the mountains of Zakarpattia, Ukraine, where they now live. At 17, Dima dreams of going to college and becoming a mechanic or engineer. This coming year, he wants to enroll in an engineering program.

The boys had to adapt and make new friends after leaving their hometown of Marganets in the Dnipropetrovsk region two years ago. They left because Marganets was not safe due to the ongoing threat of military actions.

Now, Dima looks back on his youth with gratitude to God for each new day. “I love my life, and I know it’s because Jesus helps me. I want my little brother (as he lovingly calls him) to feel how wonderful life is and understand the role God plays in our lives.”

Dima’s appreciation for life hasn’t come without challenges. He has a congenital hormonal disorder. He shares: “Growing up in Marganets, I remember frequent visits to the hospital. Almost every month, I’d see doctors, and after treatments, they’d share concerning news with my parents, and we would all leave feeling down.” So, the family has lived in fear about Dima’s worsening symptoms.

But when they moved to Grobyvnitsa, the family started going to a local church. Dima became interested in Jesus and how faith in God changes lives, including his own. He shared, “At some point, I realized I want to support others the way my family supports me, no matter what doctors say. I want to learn how to support others with actions and emotions, bringing God’s love and care to people.”

Feeling the impact of the Bible and Jesus on his life, Dima has long wanted to introduce God to Nazar and others in his life. He explains: “Nazar is only nine years old, and I understand he doesn’t fully know who Jesus is. I want to change that.”

But Dima didn’t know how to explain everything to Nazar. So, when he recently received a children’s Bible, he realized that this was the perfect opportunity: “We now read stories from the children’s Bible. Nazar is fascinated by the stories and really enjoys their comic form. We both read and imagine how Jesus lived back then in His time.”

SWW leaders who visited this family also asked Nazar about the impact of the Bible on his life. He said: “Seeing adults in church in their gray clothes, flipping through the pages of their thick Bibles, made me think that reading the Bible was very dull. But when we received these beautiful children’s Bibles, depicting many scenes from Jesus’s life, we want to read all of them!”

They haven’t read the whole Bible yet, but Dima says they are reading it, even in the midst of their daily activities: “As I mentioned, I want to introduce Nazar to Jesus. I’m thrilled that now we have the opportunity to read this Bible together and learn about God this way. For someone like Nazar, going to church and getting to know God might seem dull and uninteresting. But it’s a different story when we open the Bible somewhere in nature during our walks, or in the backyard during breaks between playing soccer.”

Thank you very much to those who are praying and supporting our Ukrainian Bible distribution project. At New Life Ministries, we continue to raise support for the Ukrainian Bibles. We are in need of 26,000,000 JPY in total, and currently 7,830,000 JPY has been covered (as of April 15th 2024). Please continue to pray and support us for the remaining fund to be met. Please also remember our mission partners active in the field.

・Mission Eurasia https://missioneurasia.org/