We are happy to report that Jehovah blessed his people in Ukraine so that our brothers and sisters throughout the country were able to observe the Memorial of Christ’s death. Several Kingdom Halls in western Ukraine hosted the Memorial for the displaced brothers and sisters accommodated there. The brothers conducted the Memorial mostly in small groups, tying in via videoconference those who could not leave their homes.

In most parts of the country, air-raid sirens sounded throughout the day of the Memorial. As evening fell, the sirens stopped. “We had been praying that the Memorial would not be interrupted because of shelling,” explained Sherhiy of Druzhkivka, Donetsk Region. “Shortly before the Memorial, the shelling stopped and there were no air-raid sirens.”

A group of elderly and infirm publishers in Nemishaeve, near Kyiv, had not been able to attend a meeting in more than a month. They had been praying to attend the Memorial. Vitaliy, an elder, helped the group to observe the Memorial. “There was no electricity,” he said, “so we conducted the Memorial by flashlight. There was no heat. We had no music, so my daughter played the violin to help us sing the songs.”

Oleksandr, an elder living in the war zone, related: “During the Memorial invitation campaign, we could not write letters to people in our congregation territory because the houses were bombed and abandoned. Therefore, we invited our acquaintances, people we met in basements, and people with whom we were evacuated. Many we met had never listened to Witnesses before. Many of them joined us for the Memorial.” {continue reading here}