From: Ira Kapitonova in Kyiv (Day 662):
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
Psalm 62:7
A couple of weeks ago, someone asked me where our joy comes from now, when we are nearing the end of the second year of the full-scale invasion. I will share my response here today, on Advent Sunday, when people around the world light up the Candle of Joy.
After we returned to Kyiv, our pace of life changed a lot from the slow, rather predictable, and safer life in a village.
I’d say that this year, we learn to live day by day, dealing with challenges step by step, learning to be grateful in the moment. We wake up, and we are thankful there were no explosions at night and we are well-rested. We get ready to go to school, and we are grateful to be able to travel safely through the city. At school, the children often pray and thank God that they don’t need to go to the basement (our bomb shelter). We come home, and we appreciate the chance to be together as a family because the war has separated many families.
We learn to find joy in daily struggles. An air raid might have prevented us from going out, but we could have family time in our hallway (the safe part of our apartment). A snowstorm might have paralyzed the city, but it meant the indescribable joy of playing in the snow for the kids, so we would seize this opportunity just to let them have fun. We are still worried about possible blackouts and try to prepare for those, but even as we stock up on candles and flashlights, we bought some battery-powered Christmas lights to bring joy into the darkest of nights.
I wish our days were more predictable, but I also feel like God tells me every morning, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor 12:9).
Tonight, I pray for all to be able to experience the joy of God’s love and grace — whether it is in the heavily shelled trenches or in the warmth and safety of their homes. God offers us His joy despite circumstances, yet it is up to us to receive it.
Voice of Ukraine 
One response to “12/18/2023 – On God rests my salvation and my glory;my mighty rock, my refuge is God.”
From: Lyuda Betina in Belgorod Dnestrovsky (Day 663)
Dear brothers and sisters,
Merry Christmas! Christ came into this world, we rejoice and sing praises to Him! May your Christmas be filled with moments of love, joy and the warmth of family and friends. During this season of celebration I want to express my gratitude to you all for your faithful support, love and care. It is such a joy to be a part of a big God’s family and to rejoice the fellowship of saints.
This year, our country has changed the dates of the main holidays and returned to celebrating Christmas on December 25th. More than 100 years ago when the Soviet empire adopted a new calendar Russian Orthodox church refused to accepted it and continued to celebrate all religious holiday according to Julian calendar. The younger generation in that godless country stopped celebrating Christmas; the main holiday was New Year, when we decorated a fir-tree and called it New Year Tree, gave gifts and had parties.
Elderly people continued to celebrate Christmas secretly, but did it on January 7th. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, people began widely celebrating Christmas and it became an official holiday in Ukraine, but it was still January 7. Many Protestant churches had a long Christmas season which started in December and continued through January to witness about the true meaning of Christmas to our community. Now we are happy that all Ukrainian churches celebrate this great holiday together with the whole world.
This week we send the parcels to our soldiers, to the detachment of Paul Lukoshkin, to Dr Anya’s group and to some other groups with whom we have close contacts. We know their needs and have bought them what they need now: warm underwear, woolen socks, sweets, lemons and oranges, cold medicine, hand cream, lip balm and much more. In each packet we put a card with greetings and Christmas message, we hope that it will bring warmth and joy to their hearts. Our army is now holding the line and standing at the positions that are constantly being attacked by the enemy. We ask the Lord to be their shield and protection.
We all united, people in the church and our group of refugees, everyone prepared something for our soldiers. Some women knitted warm socks, others collected things for them, made trench candles, some did shopping buying all the necessary things. It was a big joy to do it. Victor, Paul’s father, made special gifts for the soldiers. He organized in his home a production of some special details for the equipment that our soldiers use in the war zones to have connection and communication. It is very important now. Last week, we experienced a major hacker attack by the enemy on our system of mobile communications. For several days we could not make calls on our phones, In stores and banks, the terminals did not work, we could not buy things in the stores using our cards. It was difficult, but we survived and the system has almost recovered.
I had to help some of my friends who started having panic attacks due to lack of communication. One of them is the mother of a soldier who is fighting. She could not contact him and was very worried. All our counselors work hard now because there are so many needs around. Our counselor George has the hardest work right now. He is leading the group for widows and mothers of the soldiers who died. Please, pray for these women who are in a deep grief and pray for George as he is walking with them through this difficult time.
May your homes be filled with the special light that our Savior brought into this world and may the peace of God rest in your hearts, giving you love and joy
“Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel” Isaiah 7:14
In Christ,
Lyuda
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