MINNEAPOLIS (BP) — Viktor Soro, a pastor of First Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Church in Minneapolis, believes it can be difficult for the global community to understand Ukraine’s pain of war.

“Sometimes it can be hard for us to put ourselves in the shoes of people who actually have close family there, or they see their hometowns getting destroyed,” said Soro, a bilingual pastor of Ukrainian descent who has lived in the U.S. from birth. “But it’s still close to my heart. My wife’s family still lives over there. It’s a scary time. It’s a very difficult time for all of Ukraine right now.”

As Russia intensifies its efforts to capture the smaller nation — striking an American factory in western Ukraine just days after U.S. President Donald Trump attempted peace talks — Soro believes all evangelicals can intercede sincerely on Ukraine’s behalf.

Soro is among many pleading for prayer on Sunday’s Global Day of Prayer for Ukraine, an initiative coinciding with Ukraine’s 34th Independence Day. The Ukrainian Council of Churches and Religious Organizations, an interdenominational, ecumenical group representing 95% of Ukraine’s religious community including evangelicals, is sponsoring the outreach.

“Pray. What we can do is just bring it to God,” Soro said. “One kind of specific thing that’s really personal to our church is to actually pray for those refugees that are here in America, as they’re running into some delays and roadblocks, potentially, of staying here. They’re not renewing the different programs that were allowing those Ukrainian refugees to stay in the U.S.”

First Ukrainian Evangelical’s membership has doubled in the more than three years of the war, climbing from 120 to perhaps 250 and driven by the influx of Ukrainian refugees, Soro said. He estimates average Sunday worship attendance of 350, often including injured Ukrainian soldiers in the U.S. for medical care.

“People are kind of in limbo of what’s going to happen next, so that’s a big thing,” he said. “A good portion of our congregation are those refugees that have come from Ukraine to flee the war and settle here.”

First Ukrainian Evangelical will hold a special service Sunday, incorporating special prayers for Ukraine as the nation celebrates its independence. Other evangelical Ukrainian churches in the U.S. will also mark the day, Soro said, including the additional 20 congregations of the Ukrainian Evangelical Baptist Convention in the USA, some of whom are also Southern Baptist.

Soro encourages Southern Baptists to pray for Ukraine.

“As Christians, obviously for us it’s very comforting to know that people are praying,” Soro said. “We believe prayer is really all the hope that we have in this case. God is the only person, the only (One who) can help in any way with this situation. So it’s all in His hands.”

Ivan Kunderenko, pastor of the Baptist Church at Kremenets in western Ukraine and head of apologetics for the Evangelical Baptist Union of Ukraine, is also appealing to Southern Baptists to pray for Ukraine on Aug. 24 and beyond. The Baptist Union includes 2,775 churches, 320 missions and 113,000 evangelicals.

“U.S. churches can pray about not just peace, but all the captured soldiers, all the abducted children, all abducted civilians, so that they would be freed, so that torture would stop,” Kunderenko has told Baptist Press. “Because when Russia returns some of the (abducted Ukrainian) soldiers, they look much, much worse than Jews looked in the concentration camps during World War II. Like they’re being unfed, they’re being, I don’t know, tortured in all the wild ways the wicked mind can think about.”

Pray that God will intervene to save innocent lives, heal the wounded, restore communities, and impart wisdom to Ukraine’s leaders, Kunderenko has requested.

Southern Baptists may support the Global Day of Prayer by committing to pray in 15-minute time blocks and by committing to corporate prayer in churches Aug. 24, with church resources including a short video and bulletin inserts downloadable at PrayforUkraine.org.

The Global Day of Prayer precedes the annual National Prayer Breakfast of Ukraine, set for Aug. 25 in Kyiv.

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)