Olive Branch has been working with Cherkasy Oblast hospital in the geographical center of Ukraine with medical equipment, educational programs, and more recently a hospital chaplain’s program. The area has a high veteran and active-duty military population, many with heart disease or cancer. During a visit by Bruce Kittleson to the hospital chaplains, the hospital administrators said the number of deaths was twice that the number of births (1900+ deaths, 878 births) in the province.

Col(Ret) Bill Barko, OBI Medical Program Director, first identified the needs of the hospital and shipped a container of medical equipment donated by Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, PA, and then recruited Chaplain (Major) Richard J. Stiliha, USA(Ret) to teach at the hospital and began the hospital chaplain’s program. Among many things, the chaplains meet with patients, hold Bible studies for the staff and doctors, and visit the outlying clinics in the countryside. Several surgeons were known to send patients prior to surgery for prayer and counseling. Many patients report better and faster recoveries with the chaplains’ support. Part of the hospital chaplain’s ministry is to abandoned children. Most often these are “economic” orphans, orphaned simply because their parent or parents find themselves incapable of meeting the children’s basic needs. As a result, infants and small children brought to the hospital for treatment are often abandoned. Most parents are simply too poor, other families suffer from the presence of alcoholics or drug addicts. These abandoned children are provided shelter and support in the hospital for up to six months and then processed into an orphanage. During the time these children are in the hospital, the chaplains provide clothing, blankets, and selected medicinal support.