Voice of Ukraine

From Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 510):

Oh, grant us help against the foe,
for vain is the salvation of man!
With God we shall do valiantly;
it is he who will tread down our foes.
Psalm 60:11‭-‬12

A couple of days ago, we were meeting someone at a train station. We got there early, so we had time to walk up and down the platform. We noticed an older man sitting on a curbside. It looked like he was waiting for someone. Our son was getting restless, so this man invited him to sit on the curbside with him. Being a friendly, talkative boy, our son started telling him who we were waiting for. The man apparently knew the train schedule well because he asked if we were waiting for the specific train. Our son got excited that someone knew about this train and asked if the man was waiting for someone coming on this specific train. The man said he was waiting for no one in particular, just killing time at the train station. He later added that he is internally displaced and often comes to the train station.

The train we had been waiting for arrived, we met our party, and as we were leaving the train station, I saw that older man still sitting on the curbside, looking at the train tracks.

I don’t know this man’s story. I don’t know anything about his family. Perhaps he’s coming to the train station hoping to see a familiar face to no longer feel lonely in a strange city. Or maybe he thinks that if he’s at a train station, he’ll be ready to board the first train once he learns it is safe to return home. These are just my speculations, but I pray that this old man and millions of internally displaced people and international refugees will soon hear the words they anxiously anticipate.