Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 332): Dear brothers and sisters,
Our day was quiet yesterday. There were two air alarms and there was a warning of possible launches of ballistic rockets from the Black sea. Thanks God nothing happened.

Electricity outages are often now. Yesterday we had our Zoom meeting of the counselors of our center and Roman, Vika and George who are in Odessa were without electricity. They were using their batteries to connect. It’s good that we still have internet when electricity is out. But sometimes there is no connection at all and we feel cut off from the whole world.

Yesterday our counselor Angela shared her feelings with us. Vova and Angela live in Montpellier, France. They do a lot of counseling online and they work with Ukrainians in their city. They do individual counseling and work with a group. Angela told that lately she feels a lot of worries, she can’t sleep and thinks a lot about the people and their stories. Especially she is worried reading the information from the news about the children who died, the people who were kidnapped.

There is a belief that psychologists who help others have no psychological problems because they easily can deal with them. This is not true. We all are human beings and very often we feel worse than an average person in a difficult situation because we carry the burdens of many.

We noticed that people who left Ukraine often feel much worse emotionally than people who stay here. People here cope with their stress, look for the ways to be helpful to others, try to overcome their problems and learn to adjust to any situation no matter how difficult it is. I remember when I was in Romania in summer I felt very bad when I read the news from Ukraine. When you are far away everything seems much worse than in reality.

This is a message that I received from Angela recently, she writes about the group that she leads: “ It’s very important to have a place where you can come and be heard! It’s important to have people who will listen to you and stay with you in the most difficult moment. The group for Ukrainian women meets regularly now. A lot of pain, a lot of tears. There are women who have no home any more. There are women who had to run away leaving everything behind. They were fleeing without knowing the final destination. They met other people with the similar situations and now they are in France. They are safe and comfortable here but there is still a lot of pain and unspoken grief inside. Here in the group, women can talk about their experiences and share the things that they never shared before. I am very grateful to God that I can be with them, help, listen and pray with these women. I believe that this group makes the bridge for every woman to God. At every opportunity, I teach women to thank God for everything that happens in their lives. Learn to trust God with their life.”

Please, pray for Vova and Angela and for their ministry in France.
In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of Vova and Angela and the women of the group