News from Ukraine

News from Ukraine

Today we woke up to the sounds of a thunderstorm, at night there were similar sounds, but it was not a thunderstorm. Four rockets were fired at Odessa region this night, but praise the Lord, all of them were destroyed in the air by our air defense. It is nice to feel cool after hot days, but the sounds of thunder are alarming, although I understand that this is just thunder, not an explosion. When it rains, my thoughts are about soldiers who are out in the open.

Last week there were no messages from Paul for four days and Svetlana, his mother worried a lot. We all had no peace, because we knew that he is at the front line. And finally on Saturday the message from him came right during our church prayer in the evening, we are so glad to hear from him.

Yesterday I had a call from Alex (a young man that we met few months ago when he needed help because of suicidal mood). He is also near the front line now. He can’t tell, of course, where he is and what they are doing, but I was glad to hear his positive voice and to know that he is doing OK emotionally.

Dr. Anya and her husband Vitaliy are still here, not far from our town. But their unit can be send to the front line any time.

We are so thankful that Ivan serves in our town and can be in the church and minister as a youth leader and as a music group leader. He is very busy but finds time for the ministry. Though he military service is here in a safe place, it is very important and he does a very necessary job and faces serious challenges and needs our prayers as much as other military. The Lord blessed Ivan with an amazing wife who became a part of our church and brought with her a lot of positivity and beauty. Ivan and Lauren got engaged ten days before the war began, Lauren was an MTW missionary in Odessa. (I always have a special attitude to the missionaries because it was they who brought the Word of God to me and my husband). When the war started all missionaries had to leave Ukraine and Lauren had to make a choice, she decided to come back and their wedding became a bright happy event for us all in the midst of this terrible war. Lauren chose to be with her husband in Ukraine and could not stay at her job which she was supposed to do abroad because of the war. We prayed for a new Job for Lauren and God answered our prayers. Lauren will continue her missionary work in our church. She works with the group of teenage girls who just adore her, she sings in our church music group, she serves us with her gift of graphic designer and is a wonderful friend to many people in our church.

This coming Saturday we start a new project – a Superbook club for children. This is the ministry of our youth group. They went to another city to have training, they were seriously preparing for this project and now they are ready to start. Please, pray for God to bring children from our community and the children of refugees to this club.

Please, continue to pray for the renovation in our Refugee Center, there is a lot of progress there, but still many things need to be done. Now the first family ( Sergey and Svetlana) who moved in to live in the room that is ready, are glad to help as much as they can. They have already planted some flowers in the yard and regularly water all the plants there. We hope we will soon receive more refugees I our center.

Thank you for your help and support.

Please, send your donations to Pathway Ministries
E. Langston Haygood,D.Min.,Ph.D.
Pathway Ministries, Inc.
288 Huntington Parc Circle
Birmingham, AL 35226
(205)835-3325
http://www.pathwayministriesinc.com

In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of our church that we made after the worship, the photo of Ivan and Lauren, the photos of Inna, Alex and Ilyusha (our youth group members) preparing Superbook program, on one of the photos they are holding the poster, designed by Lauren and the photos of the renovation of the building of the Refugee Center where you can see the second entrance from the back yard and some works inside.