At the Fellowship of Christian Military Ministries meeting in March, a breakout session led by an ACCTS staff member addressed the need for a multi-confessional chaplaincy in Ukraine to support troops engaged in combat, and begin dealing with a growing epidemic of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).  At the session, the group decided that another meeting would be necessary to discuss this important matter more fully.

On April 21, the ACCTS staff member led a two-hour videoconference at the CRU Military Headquarters in Newport News, VA on the Ukrainian chaplaincy.  Representatives of ACCTS, Olive Branch, Int'l, and CRU military participated in VA, with 17 others joining them electronically: CRU Military's Executive Director in GA; International Association of Evangelical Chaplains (IAEC) staff in TX and AZ; ACCTS staff in CO; Global Awakening staff in PA; other CRU military staff in OR and CA; Faith Comes by Hearing staff in CO; and resident CRU staff with representatives from the Ukraine MCF, Olive Branch Ukraine, Realis Ukraine, and the Ukraine Ministry of Defense gathered at a home in Ukraine.

In response to the current conflict, the Ukraine Ministry of Defense (MOD) recently authorized the formation of a multi-confessional chaplaincy. The purpose of the conference was to discuss how to inform, coordinate and de-conflict various chaplaincy initiatives in Ukraine, and help develop the military chaplaincy.  Individual churches have been providing volunteer chaplains to support the war effort, but there has been no coordinated movement toward a professional MOD chaplaincy.  Various initiatives have also started to address the epidemic of PTSD, combat trauma, and moral injury resulting from the conflict, but many of them are clinical rather than spiritual, and the spiritual wounds of war require spiritual healing.

Each of the conference participants shared the resources and capabilities they had to offer, and the Ukrainians detailed the issues they face in developing the chaplaincy within the six-month window set by the MOD. The challenge is finding a suitable chaplaincy structure that can receive chaplains from the churches, train them to serve the troops effectively in a multi-confessional environment, and deploy them to begin serving.  IAEC provided a paper on "Considerations when Establishing a Chaplaincy" that should prove helpful.  They also provided a PTSD training mission to Ukraine in June at which they discussed chaplaincy structure.  Other ministries are also bringing their resources to bear on chaplain and PTSD training and other support.

God appears to be using the events In Ukraine to His glory by removing government barriers to a multi-confessional chaplaincy while engendering a spirit of patriotism among the churches to provide chaplains.  During the conference, it was decided that the resident CRU staff would serve as the central Point of Contact in Ukraine for chaplaincy initiatives, and that other models for treating PTSD and compassion fatigue would be offered to the Ukrainians dealing with those problems.   Pray that God will bless these initiatives, and that Ukraine will soon have the viable chaplaincy it so desperately needs.