Megan Udinski, FISM News
A U.S. war veteran and mission pastor has put himself on the front line to aid Ukrainians, providing combat field trauma supplies.
Outreach pastor, William (Bill) Devlin, of Infinity Bible Church in Bronx, N.Y., headed to Ukraine on Saturday with a team of three other war veterans and an ABC news reporter after being invited by the Ukrainian Army.
He has served in the Vietnam War and is a recipient of the Purple Heart. According to his church’s bio, Pastor Devlin “is an international humanitarian and missionary pastor in some of the hardest places and war zones around the world,” doing everything from urban ministry to rescuing girls from ISIS.
Pastor Devlin is also a columnist for the Christian Post, and in an interview with them he disclosed what his experience has been so far. For example, he expected to take a four-hour bus ride from the Polish capital to the Ukrainian border and it ended up taking twelve hours. He described the bus as “a commercial bus with 45 other people. These were Ukrainians going back into Ukraine, and then we were held up at the Poland-Ukraine border for two hours, and then when we finally got into Ukraine, it was another hour and a half to Lviv.”
His team finally arrived in Lviv at about 3 a.m. Tuesday morning, where he immediately began “working on getting battle combat trauma medical kits in from the U.S. and from Germany,” which he anticipates could come within a week.
Devlin has also been recording his experience live on Facebook. In a Live Facebook video from March 14 Pastor Bill describes a pop-up tent with clothing and supplies that refugees have been able to get after having to leave behind most of their possessions.
In an interview with CBS News he also shared that, in addition to providing necessary medical supplies, Devlin intends to “train local people in self-defense,” saying this sort of training is necessary because “civilians need to know how to best defend their cities and towns and villages.”
The American pastor plans on spending a few weeks in Ukraine while his colleagues might remain there for four to five months, depending on the need.
Some of the medical supplies he is helping to bring to Ukraine include tourniquets and Quikclot, which is a life-saving “medicine or a gauze that allows quick clotting on a traumatic wound from a gunshot or from shrapnel.”
In addition to meeting physical needs to those in Ukraine suffering under Russian attack, Devlin is meeting with Ukrainian Catholic leaders to offer encouragement and spiritual leadership.
Pastor Devlin is urging Christians in the U.S. and worldwide to donate to widowsandorphans.info, an organization where he serves as volunteer CEO, which provides relief supplies around the globe for those in humanitarian crises.