Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 271): Dear brothers and sisters, We start a new week with new plans and in a good mood. We start preparing for Christmas. This year all our holidays are not the same but Christmas is special. Like all churches we have our own traditions, we always had drama and special program on Christmas day. While I was thinking what we should do this year, our youth group took the initiative and told that they are already working at Christmas program. Though we can’t use holiday illumination as much as we usually did at Christmas, we still can make decorations, we can prepare special program and a number of events in the church dedicated to this wonderful season to bring the mood of Christmas to our community. It’s the season of gospel when we can share the good news very naturally greeting people with coming holiday. Christmas will be special this year.

We had a good worship yesterday, we had electricity and it was warm in our sanctuary. Four new people came to the church and I was able to talk to two new ladies. Tatyana is one of them. She came to our church in summer to receive a food bag and she visited our worship. Then she was busy and didn’t think about church. Last month she got sick and she began to think about God and to pray, she remembered a friendly atmosphere in our church and felt a desire to come and be with God’s people. As soon as she got better she came. It was nice to talk to her. She has three adult children and four grandchildren. Her husband is a former military man who went through Afghanistan war during Soviet Union time and she knows very well what PTSD is. Tatyana is very open and I hope she will enjoy the fellowship in our church.

After the worship we visited our new refugees, Larisa and Masha, at the clinic. Though we invited them to come to the group in the cafe on Saturday and to the church on Sunday, they don’t go out. Probably we should help them with the transportation. They are not communicative, they stay in their room all the time and don’t interact with other people who live in the clinic guest rooms. We will visit them again and I hope they will start coming to the group meeting that will be so good for them.
Please, pray for God’s healing work in the hearts of people. We all need His help but there are some people who live in a big trauma and God can use us to help them.
In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of our worship and