From: Douglas Shepherd (MTW L’viv)
11 years ago, on April 12, 2014, control over Slavyansk in east UA was established by Russian invasion troops under the command of Russian officer Igor Strelkov. Russians doing Russian things which mean lying, raping, murdering to name a few.
NATO did not seek to expand, countries asked to join NATO because of the Russian threat.
Russia invaded countries that did not have NATO (Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Chechnya).
Pray for the Ukraine church and people of Ukraine as they fight off these criminals. Pray that they can gain defend themselves and gain security alliances to deter an evil neighbor who repeatedly invades, steals, kills, and destroys.
Voice of Ukraine 
2 responses to “4/13/2025 — Know Your History: NATO and Ukraine are a threat to Russia the way a lock is a threat to a thief.”
I am praying that very thing–DAILY!
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April 30, 1944
J.R.R. Tolkien to his son Christopher
“The utter stupid waste of war, not only material but moral and spiritual, is so staggering to those who have to endure it. And always was (despite the poets) and always will be (despite the propagandists)– not of course that it has not is and will be necessary to face it in an evil world. But so short is human memory and so evansescent are its generations that in only about 30 years there will be few or no people with that direct experience which alone goes really to the heart. The burnt hand teaches most about fire.
“I sometimes feel appalled at the thought of the sum total of human misery all over the world at the present moment: the millions parted, fretting, wasting in unprofitable days- quite apart from torture, pain, death, bereavement, injustice. If anguish were visible, almost the whole of this benighted planet would be enveloped in a dense dark vapour, shrouded from the amazed vision of the heavens! And the products of it all will be mainly evil- historically considered.
“But the historical version is, of course, not the only one. All things and deeds have a value in themselves…No man can estimate what is really happening at the present ‘sub species aeterniaris’. All that we do know, and that to a large extent by direct experience, is that evil labours with vast powere and perpetual success- in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in. So it is in general, and so it is in our own lives..
“But there is still some hope that things may be better for us, even on the termporal plane, in the mercy of God. And though we need all our natural human courage and guts (the vast sum of human courage and endurance is stupendous, isn’t it?) and all our religious faith to face the evil that may befall us (as it befalls others, if God wills), still we may pray and hope. I do.”
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