By Norah McLaughlin | FaVS News Reporter
A Spokane pastor and his Ukrainian counterpart are building a partnership to support elderly Ukrainians left vulnerable by the war — starting with monthly food packages in Bucha and a goal to expand aid to 100 people in 2026.
Matthew Edminster and pastor from Ukraine Fyodor Raychynets began a partnership with Alongside Ministries International (AMI) to provide support for the Ukrainian people. Edminster and Raychynets met while working on their doctoral dissertations.
This partnership gives a $1,000 stipend to Raychynets per month to help him minister to his people. Its operational range will be an estimated $43,000-$104,000 annually, depending on the scale of the support. The goal for 2026 is to raise $100,000, which would help feed 100 elderly people in the Bucha area, explained Edminster.
Edminster has been a missionary for AMI since 1999 and has been a pastor since 2012. He began pastoring in the capital city of Estonia in early 2025.
AMI is an organization based in Europe that focuses on responding to churches and serving their needs. AMI values missionaries having immersive experiences into the cultures they are serving, valuing skills such as learning the language, according to Edminster.
“We’re a fairly small grassroots organization … flexible and able to adapt easily to whatever circumstances we’re being called into,” Edminster said.
Supporting a community that’s ‘been through hell on Earth’
Raychynets is one of the pastors of the Baptist Church in Bucha. He and his church have been supporting members of the community who have been impacted by the war, but the church had limited resources to do so.
“Ministering in that kind of place is a challenge in itself because you are ministering to the people who have been through hell on Earth,” Raychynets said.
When Ukraine was invaded, Edminster, his church and AMI housed many refugees and helped them get back on their feet in Estonia. They assisted in getting them into shelter, getting them basic necessities, helping them learn the culture and getting the refugees into the job market.
“The last wave we anticipated, but we had no way of knowing when it was coming, was about repatriation,” said Edminster. “How do we get people back home, especially if home had been destroyed.”
Edminster visited Ukraine in October 2025. He had two goals on his trip. The first, to see Ukraine’s situation for himself, to hear stories and attest to them. The second was to help establish support from AMI in Ukraine.
“The Alongside posture really sets us up to be able to provide help in Ukraine that might otherwise be difficult to do so,” Edminster said. “Because our whole way of doing things is about stepping in, assuming the situation that we’re being presented with and then wrapping our ministry around that.”
After Edminster’s trip, he went to AMI and gained support for the Ukrainian church. Edminster and Raychynets are in the process of establishing a partnership between AMI and the Bucha church where Raychynets will manage an account that will support strategic outreach for individuals in his community, Edminster explained.
Helping vulnerable groups in ‘waves’
Edminster realized that what is happening on the front lines is only one aspect of the war.
“The other reality of the war is that it’s basically bleeding the society, the Ukrainian society, dry,” Edminster said.
The elderly population is the group that needs the most help right now because the war has taken away their pensions, Edminster said. The partnership between AMI and the church has started with the elderly, providing support, food packages and necessary items like medicine, Raychynets said.
“Elderly people are one of these categories that they are mostly vulnerable because they have either no means to leave or to flee from the country, or they have nowhere to go or they have no one to help them,” Raychynets said.
While they are doing their best to support all those who have been impacted by the war, the most effective way to help everyone is to provide support in “waves,” Edminster explained. The next group they will focus on are orphans and children who have lost their parents, he said.
One way they are focusing on the children now is through power camps, explained Raychynets. Partnering with local municipalities, politicians and organizations, this camp hosted 200 children of veterans and “families of the fallen heroes” for a week, he said.
They were able to use facilities that would have cost thousands of dollars for free because organizations want to help support their mission.
How to help
This shows how this effort cannot be done alone. Edminster has reached out to youth ministries already in Ukraine to link them together, instead of AMI trying to create new programs from scratch. This is to build connections with organizations in Ukraine and create partnerships to help in their effort to rebuild society.
“One of the things that really stuck out to me when I was leaving Ukraine is that this kind of work is going to take decades,” Edminster said. “I’ll be dead long before this job is done. And so it’s the kind of thing that we need to have a long-term vision of what it’s going to take.”
This partnership is still developing and growing, but its impact will be seen throughout the Baptist Church of Bucha in Ukraine by supporting vulnerable groups and by helping connect people with organizations to strengthen the community.
“It is not a problem to start something good,” Raychynets said. “The problem is to maintain it. The problem is to manage it. The problem is to develop it and lead it to a certain direction.”
Raychynets explains that the best way for people to support this partnership and those in Ukraine is to first pray for them. “Pray to God that this horrible situation may end,” he said.
Raychynets called for people to persuade their legislators and the White House, telling them to address this issue and help in any way they can.
There are also opportunities to volunteer, Raychynets explained. People could join short-term volunteering stings to provide support, or they could be called to serve as a missionaries long-term. Donating will also provide support for the church. People can donate to the Ukraine Blessing Fund at alongside.org/donate.
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