KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — In Knoxville, Eastern Europeans are coming together to battle the violence in Ukraine. For Slavic Gospel Church off Fairmont Boulevard, that means giving money, sending items, and most of all saying prayers.
On Sunday night, the church held a worship and prayer night for Ukraine. The majority of the congregation has been directly impacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Many have family or friends still overseas.
"It was very heartbreaking and very unbelievable, because a lot of us, we have family there," said Aleksandr Chekhovskyy, a member of the Slavic Gospel Church.
About 120 people make up the church's congregation. Nearly 80% of those people are from Ukraine. The other 20% of church attendees are from America, Romania, Slovakia, Moldova, and Russia.
"Americans, Russians, Ukrainians, we're all brothers and sisters in Christ, right?" said Igor Cheban, a member of the Slavic Gospel Church.
Leaders say the church is united. Politics are left at the door.
"We don't take sides. We don't look at this war from a politician perspective war, we look at this war as a horror that's happening to innocent people. So in our church people may be from many different countries, but everyone's on the same page," Chekhovskyy said.
That's what's allowed this church to stand together and do whatever they can to combat the war from 8-thousand miles away.
"We understand that us being here, overseas, we're limited, we're limited, we can only do certain things," Chekhovskyy said. "We believe that the prayer is the most important weapon."
"There's certain things that we can't do anything. There's certain things we can't change in life. You know, we're limited to help. But, I know for a fact that a prayer can change things around," Cheban said.
The power of prayer and the ability to fundraise.
"Another thing we started doing, is right off the bat, we launched a fundraiser from our church, because our church has a mission to help," Chekhovskyy said.
The money collected through this ongoing fundraiser will be given to help people affected by the war.
"The money that we're raising today, it goes 100% towards families that lost everything," Cheban said. "Families that are in need of food, families that left, you know, they left their houses, they left everything,"
Although this Sunday's prayer service came to an end, the fundraising efforts are far from over for this church.
Slavic Gospel Church is preparing a fundraising event on April 30th where they will serve hot, authentic Ukrainian food for lunch. It will be an opportunity for community members to learn more about the effects of the war by talking to people who have family in Ukraine.
It is also an opportunity to donate to the Church's fundraiser.