Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda ( Day 325): Dear brothers and sisters,
Every day we follow the news, we watch news on TV, read the information in news channels online, watch the programs of different experts and always discuss all this information with each other, think it over and check different sources to be sure that it’s true. I can state that we know for sure that the information we receive is true, because in addition to the media, we communicate with many people who are eyewitnesses of what is happening.

I often think about people in Russia who also have opportunities. In spite of their propagandistic mass media, they have access to internet and can watch and read other sources to compare and to think critically. Many of them had friends and relatives in Ukraine. But we see that many people in Russia support this war, they consider their soldiers heroes and with the slogans of patriotism proclaim their liberating mission. What is surprising in this that they completely ignore the losses their country suffer leading this war. According to the latest information 114660 Russian soldiers died in this war. Long trains with dead bodies from time to time head to Russia from the war zones. Many bodies are left to deteriorate in our soil. Many wounded soldiers die because there are no places in front hospitals which are overcrowded with wounded soldiers. It seems that Putin surpassed Stalin in the ability to suppress people’s critical thinking and common sense, as well as the ability to show compassion and recognize evil.

Sometimes I think about the students from Russia I had when I was teaching in the online school. I had a lot of good talks with many of them. We discussed politics, I challenged them to talk about their values and Christianity. I tried so hard to break their false stereotypes but probably with no success.

Yesterday our counselors had a Zoom meeting that we have every week. We shared the news of our work. It was interesting to hear Roman, who told us the details of his trip to Kherson. And we had a new person with us – Nastya. She is studying to be a psychologist. Nastya is from Odessa, but lives in Romania now, she became friends with my daughter, when Katya was there. Nastya works with a group of Ukrainian children there doing art therapy and fairy-tale therapy. She writes therapeutic stories to help children express their feelings. But it’s hard for Nastya to work without supervision and help. She shared with us a difficult case of a boy who came to Romania from Kerson and is very disruptive and even aggressive. Our counselor Vika proposed to do an intervision of this case and we all collected our ideas and shared experience. It was very helpful and encouraging for Nastya.

We’ve been praying for the growth of our counseling center and we see that God brings us new workers. We are thankful for George who joined us and started counseling in our office in Odessa and now we are glad to know Nastya and be able to help her in her work in Romania.

Please, continue to pray for our work and for our ministry.
In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. You see the photo of our Zoom meeting yesterday and the pictures that our counselor Tanya draws as a relaxing therapy for herself after many hours of counseling