Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 233): Dear brothers and sisters, We had a night without sirens. Praise the Lord!

It’s a holiday today – the day of Fatherland Defender and this holiday has a special meaning now. Many of my friends of different ages are now in the army, protecting our land. We are very proud of the guys from our church who are fighting for us. We are proud of the workers of our medical clinic, who are now serving in the army, providing medical assistance to our soldiers. I want to say separately about the army of chaplains who serve in the spiritual field in this war. They all are our heroes today.

Among all things of yesterday there was a very special moment. Sometimes you know exactly that the meeting you have is arranged by God. On Thursday we have a Bible study for the group of refugees in our church, I came earlier to help Valeriy, our elder, who leads the Bible study, to set up chairs, prepare refreshments and drinks for the meeting.

One lady of the group, Lyudmyla, came earlier. Lyudmila is from Kharkiv and stays at the building of our Christian clinic and she loves taking care of the plants there, it brings her joy and at the same time is a recovering therapy for her. Her cat Marusya lives with her there.

It was clear that there was something on her heart. We began to talk and she said that she knew about God from her childhood, her grandmother was a believer and Lyudmila considered herself to be a believer, too. She used to go to the church on holidays was very respectful of church traditions, but now she feels that something was missing in her life.

She has been visiting our church for a while and could hear the gospel not just once. But she needed to have the personal talk with Valeriy and have all her questions answered. Some people have a special gift of sharing the gospel and they do it in a special way. I think Valeriy can do it addressing the hearts of people in such a way that they see this beauty of the gospel.

Yesterday I talked to our counselor, Roman. We were talking about our future refugee center and tried to see new directions of our work that we can start, we discussed the aspects of the work we all are doing now and how it can be integrated in one place.

We found a very nice place for the center with good location and if God blesses us to buy it we will start the work there right away.

Roman is busy like all of us. He does counseling in the office and online counseling, he is also an active blogger and you can see his videos on Facebook and Instagram where he addresses different psychological topics, gives practical tips for people with different problems and he teaches psychological self-help techniques (panic attacks, psychology of relationships, depression, anxiety, psychosomatics, urgent help for refugees, etc.)

Few days ago he did live broadcasting of a very important topic of today, he talked about survivor’s syndrome, when people who survived in mortal danger feel guilty thinking of those who died. Many people were able not only to listen but participate, sharing their experience and asking questions.

Roman’s wife, Tanya, works as a nurse in the intensive therapy of one of Odessa hospitals. She works very hard now and her work is hard emotionally. Roman asks to pray for her health.

Please, pray for our counselors, for the work we do and for us to bring fruits.

Please, pray with us for organizing a refugee center in Odessa and for a facility where the center will be located.

We ask to send the donations to Pathway Ministries 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,
Lyuda