Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda (Day 340): Dear brothers and sisters,
We woke up in a beautiful morning. It was snowing all night and everything is white. Snow has always brought joy, but this time all thoughts are about the soldiers, about those who sleep in the trenches, who are in the open air. Dear God, warm them, please, give them shelter and everything they need.

Yesterday evening when we met in Zoom for our church prayer, Sveta, Paul’s mother told that she didn’t hear from Paul for several days. He not always can call, but every day he sends some short messages, sometimes it’s just “+”. It means he is busy, but he is fine. Sveta was very disturbed but the next day at 4 a.m. she received “+” and then later he wrote that they were very busy. We understand that they fight day and night now. We often hear the phrase “it’s hot here” in the interviews from the front line. It means they are having fierce battles.

We had a good group meeting yesterday, we had good talks and as a conclusion, at the end they all wrote a story about overcoming obstacles and then shared their stories. Our youth group played games and made a list of the things of the passed week they are thankful for.

Tanya and I always stay after the group meeting because some people want to talk individually. I talked to two women yesterday. Karina was upset because she felt not accepted by other people in the group, she needed encouragement and confidence not to depend on the opinion of others.

We talked with her how people look at us and how God sees us. During our talk I found out that she made friends with some ladies in the group and is upset that other ladies don’t always agree with what she says when we have our meetings. I explained her that we can’t please everybody and it’s normal when people in the group have different opinions.

Svetlana sat in front of me and started crying. I let her cry for a while and then she told me that her husband was diagnosed with cancer and she is so lost and scared that does not know what to do. They had to leave their home, have no jobs, no income, just small allowance that they receive as refugees. It’s good that Sergey came to the café at that moment to pick me up and we talked together. Svetlana said that her husband (his name is Sergey, too) do not want to go ahead and start treatment, he thinks everything is in vain. Sergey explained her that there are different types of cancer and many difference schemes of treatment and they should go and talk to the doctor and may be to several different doctors and see what treatment they propose. At the same time they should collect as much information about his problem ( prostate cancer)as they can. But the first thing what they should do is to come to the Lord with their problem and pray for His guidance in this situation. Then we prayed together and agreed to stay in contact.

Please, pray with us for the needs of people we serve.
In Christ,
Lyuda