Voice of Ukraine

From Lyuda Betina (Day 356): Dear brothers and sisters, Today when people will talk about love it’s a good reason to tell how God loved this world. As we meet in the café for breakfast I hope to have many opportunities to share the good news of God’s love today. Another thought is about our soldiers who are fighting now protecting our land.
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13

I talked to our counselor Roman yesterday. We discussed some issues about our work. Because it’s not easy for us to get to Odessa now Roman is leading our work there, he takes care of our office, helps our new counselor, George, to start his work in our center and does many other things. Roman does a lot of counseling and besides his work in our center he is leading AWANA ministry in his church and goes with missionary trips to Kherson, the city that was liberated from the occupation few months ago and where people have a lot of needs. Roman also studies a lot. He takes courses at the Christian university and takes many additional courses. He says he works a lot with trauma now and his studies help him to be effective in his work.

Roman shared the story of a little boy (4-years-old Sasha) that he was working with. Sasha and his mother came from the war zone and his mother began to worry about some unusual things in his behavior. During therapy Sasha was drawing pictures where he defends himself from some attacks. And he always wins because he has a fire sword. In one of his pictures he drew a victory.

Roman asks to pray for the health of his wife Tanya, on Thursday she is going to have a surgery on her legs. Tanya works in the intensive therapy room as a nurse and it’s hard for her to stand all the time during her work. Her problem is varicose veins.

We are worried very much about the situation in Moldova. We live very close to the border with this country. And the border with Trans-Dniester republic is 30 km from us. It’s the territory of Moldova which was annexed by Russia many years ago. Now pro-Russian forces became very active in Moldova provoking the coup and to overthrow the democratic government. I could feel that pro-Russian spirit even during my short trip through Moldova in summer. There are many ammunition depots in Trans-Dniester republic left there by Russian army. Russia needs these weapons and will do everything to get control over Moldova and attack us from that side, too. We ask God not to allow this happen.

Please, pray for our work and ministry and for our protection.

In Christ,
Lyuda