Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 273): Dear brothers and sisters, It’s the third day we have no air alarms in our area. It’s so nice to have quiet nights. Some of our schools work and children who are tired of being at home all the time can enjoy their studies together. During air alarms everything stops working: stores, banks, post offices, etc. many people have to interrupt their work. But these days are peaceful and productive.

Yesterday we had our charitable breakfast and enjoyed the time together. Some of our refugees have jobs, they come early and then hurry to work, some of them come and sit for a while and we have an opportunity to talk. I talked to Leda, who lives with her mother at the clinic, they came from Kharkiv, she is a high school student. She likes to study languages and though her family is Russian speaking, she enjoys Ukrainian language, she tries writing and she also works as a tutor with junior students. She says there is no problem for her studying online, she likes it because nothing distracts her. I asked her if she wants to become a writer. She says she wants to write but not as a job, she hasn’t decided about her job yet, may be she will be a teacher of Ukrainian language at school, but she is not sure. She is a nice girl. They live in our town since spring but we met them only one month ago when they moved to live in the clinic. Leda joined the youth group and her mom comes to the adult support group.

It was good that our new refugees Galina and Masha came for breakfast. I could talk to Galina more. Masha was silent. When I asked if she likes drawing, she just nodded. Galina, her mother, is doing much better. She feels safe with us and starts opening up. Galina had a difficult childhood both her parents were alcoholics. All her life she had to survive. She has brothers and sisters but she lost contacts with most of them. From the beginning of the war their village was occupied and they had no electricity, no food. They could eat only what they had in their garden. The roof of their building was destroyed by shelling and she and Masha lived in a basement which became very cold in the fall. One day she saw a group of Russian soldiers in her yard. She was very scared because she thought they came to kill her and rob her house. She was very scared for Masha who was hiding in the basement. But they saw her poverty and showed no interest in her house, they went to explore the houses of her neighbors…

I told Galina about our group meetings, but she says she is not ready to be in a group of people. We will not push and Tanya and I will continue meeting with her and Masha.
Please, pray for our refugees and our work with them.
In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of our breakfast with refugees.