Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 334): Dear brothers and sisters,
We had a good day yesterday. It was so nice to be in the church and worship together. Sergey preached about the baptism of Jesus. Last week was an orthodox holiday that is widely celebrated here – the day of Baptism of Jesus. In orthodox culture people view baptism as a magic ritual that will help you to be lucky and healthy. Sergey explained what it means to be baptized by a baptism of Jesus “You shall drink indeed of my cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with…” (Matthew 20:23) It was good for new people in the church to hear about the meaning of baptism.

During our worship we had a kneeled prayer for our soldiers. They are in our thoughts and prayers all the time. Dr. Anya’s unit is 12 miles from the front line now. She says it’s hard to get used to constant shelling. Vitaliy, Anya’s husband, is in a different location, they are not together. Anya is there with Lena, doctor’s assistant from our clinic and Lena’s husband Sergey is fighting not far from there and her son Dr. Yaroslav is a surgeon in the military hospital in Nikolayev.

Paul Lukoshkin with his battalion has no rest. They are very busy being in constant fight. When there is no time for messaging Paul sends his mother “+” and she knows that he is fine. Sveta receives mostly “+” now because Paul has no time to write messages.
There is a good news about Ilya, Dr. Anya’s brother, who was seriously wounded few months ago. He is in the sanatorium now where he is having rehabilitation and psychological help. He walks much better and his general state is better. We continue to pray for his heart to be opened to the Lord.

Our constant prayers are now also about Sasha who is in Kiev hospital now. He had fluid accumulated in his lungs which worsened his condition, the fluid was pumped out yesterday and he probably feels better. The doctor in that hospital after examining Sasha and his x-rays told Nadya that Sasha will not walk again because of the injury of his spine. It was very hard for her to hear. Please pray for Nadya, she needs a lot of strength to be a support for Sasha. Please, pray for their children. Right now I feel a little bit like their mother. One of Nadya’s boys shows interest to the girl from our youth group and I talked to him about the right borders. I need wisdom to be gentle addressing this topic.

There is a big need for prayer, thank you for being with us.
In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of our worship service yesterday