Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda ( Day 318): Dear brothers and sisters, At the end of the Christmas season, I would like to wish all of us to keep the joy and spirit of Christmas throughout the year. Yesterday I cooked for my parents who are Orthodox, vareniki with cabbage and potatoes, which a traditional Christmas food in Ukraine.

Orthodox people have many traditions. On Christmas eve children visit their God parents and have dinner with them, people exchange gifts and eat traditional food. There are twelve traditional Christmas dishes, kutya is one of them. This is grains of wheat or barley boiled in water with honey and mixed with nuts, raisins and poppy seeds.

This year the celebration is very modest. People don’t cook much and there is not much visiting. And our thoughts are mostly about our soldiers now who are fighting and have no chance to celebrate.

I received a lot of messages with greetings from my friends and relatives who live abroad now, most of them are in Europe. My uncle who is 75 went to Great Britain and it was nice to have a call from him. We were not close and he rarely called us but now when people had to leave their homes they think of their relatives and miss them more than ever.

We were pleased to see in the international news the daughter of our counselor Vika, Anatasia. She lives in Brussels, Belgium now. Anastasia is a professional photographer and she is also an active volunteer. So many people from Ukraine who live abroad now work hard to help our army and to help our needs.

Our church members continue their ministry of cooking for the soldiers and the group of cooks became big, the refugees joined them and now they make more pies.
I wish you to have a good weekend and blessed time with your families.
In Christ,
Lyuda