From Lxxx (Day 175): Dear brothers and sisters, Our day yesterday was busy but joyful. The charitable breakfast now looks like a fun time of good friends when people come, hug each other, sit and talk, exchange impressions. Everybody was talking about the concert. Though they enjoy delicious food it looks like they come to be with each other more than just to have breakfast and it so nice to see them happy and smiling. I had some individual talks.
One lady, Sxxx, told me that when she received an invitation for our breakfast at a refugee center in our town, she felt reluctant to come. She didn’t want to open her soul to other people. But she came and felt as if something switched inside. She made so many friends and she meets with them almost every day during the week, she feels so much better now than when she first came here.
A new family came to our breakfast. A couple and their pregnant daughter. The came from Kherson but we didn’t get much information from them. When we asked them where they were from, the woman began to cry and repeat again and again “they wanted to shoot us, they directed the guns at us”. We don’t know how they escaped from the occupied city, we will talk to them later. We tried to calm them down, ordered food for them, asked about their living conditions and invited to come to the group meeting on Saturday.
As we work with refugees we see the difference and specifics of the work in a small town and in a big city. In Odessa it’s harder to bring people together. The refugees that we regularly help in Odessa live in different parts of the city and it’s hard for us to unite them in one group. So most of the work our counselors do there is individual counseling and help. There is also a problem for refugees in Odessa to find the place where they can stay, everything is rather expensive and there not many organizations that give free places to stay.
Thinking about this and about many of our clients who are abroad now but want to come back to Ukraine but their housed are destroyed, we made a decision to organize a refugee center in Odessa where some people could live, other people could come to group meetings and for counseling, where we could cook food for them and implement many projects to help a big number of people. We know that even when the war ends it will take a long time for people to heal and to restore their lives.
With these thoughts we were praying and looking for a good building for such a center. We found a very good option in Odessa and are thinking of buying it. Please, pray for guidance for us in the step we are going to make and for God to provide the necessary funds.
We ask to send the donations to Pathway Monistries organization:
E. Langston Haygood,D.Min.,Ph.D.
Pathway Ministries, Inc.
288 Huntington Parc Circle
Birmingham, AL 35226
(205)835-3325
http://www.pathwayministriesinc.com
In Christ,
Lxxx
Voice of Ukraine 