Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 258 ): Dear brothers and sisters, We had a good day yesterday with only one air alarm. It was nice because we expected that it would be the same as all previous Mondays of the last month when there were massive attacks. We pray that our enemy will run out of the rockets.

Sergey leads the Bible study group Monday morning. This is the group that our elder Vitaliy who is in heaven, led. The group became bigger and people show much interest. They study Psalms where David talks about his God showing Him as Creator, Pastor and Judge. Sergey noticed how the study of psalms changes the prayers of people and their style of praying. There was a new lady at our women’s class on Sunday – Olga, I want to invite her to this group, it will be interesting for her.

We continue distributing blankets and other stuff we received to different groups of soldiers. My cousin Valentine is working hard to supply every need of his detachment. He is very sorry that he can’t be with his friends after being wounded but he tries to help them as much as he can. Tomorrow we will pack the parcels for his group.

Our counselor, Roman, travels a lot now. He attends different conferences as a speaker. Last week he went to Chekassy and spoke about psychological help to people with war trauma. It was a Christian conference and there was a group of 70 people who want to serve and help people around. Roman also did some counseling there. There was a woman in a big distress who found the way to help herself, she began to have imaginary friends. Roman will continue working online with her.

And there was the longest counseling session Roman has ever had. He stayed with a family of a military man who came for a few days home. His name is Leonid, he is in his 40s and he wanted to talk, so Roman spent with him more than 5 hours. He shared many things about the war, the hardest thing for him to see the death of young soldiers. He sees his mission in taking the hardest things of the war on himself and help young unexperienced soldiers. He feels responsibility for them.

We often receive some special request from our local soldiers who are at war. Usually they ask for some things they need – special flashlights, warm socks, warm hats that they wear under their helmets now when it is cold. We bought some sleeping bags for some soldiers who asked us about it.

Yesterday there was a very unusual request. Our units stay in the fields where they build some protective fortifications and live there for a while, before they move to another position. They began to have a problem now – field mice that destroy their food and other things. It’s impossible to get rid of them.

The soldiers ask for cats. They promise to take a good care of them. They say that each group has pets that travel with them, usually these are dogs. And now they need cats. This is the chance for homeless stray cats to find owners and fight with them. 😊
Thank you for your prayers,
In Christ,
Lyuda