News from Ukraine April 7, 2023

April 7 (Day 408)

News from Ukraine

Dear brothers and sisters,

Easter season is a special time when we come to the Lord and in our thoughts try to walk with Him the way to the cross. This is the time when thinking about His sacrificial love we give our hearts to Jesus with a desire to serve Him sincerely and humbly.

In Orthodox culture where traditions often overshadow the essence of Easter holiday, people think more about the right food to eat and the right rituals to do during the lent. And Easter is celebrated in our country one week later than in the west. We hope it will change. Many Orthodox churches in Ukraine belong to Russian Orthodox denomination and experience rejection of the society now because of their open pro-Russian position. Our prayers today about the spiritual revival of our country. People have so many spiritual needs that can be filled only by Jesus Christ. We thank God for the opportunity to witness about Jesus to so many people during this hard year. We are so glad to see the changes in our group of refugees. Every Thursday we have a Bible study and we see how people grow, it’s nice to see how God draws them nearer and gives them desire to read His Work and come to the church.

Heavy fighting continues in the east and our cities are still being bombed. The enemy tries to get control over all Donetsk region. Bakhmut is a city that is almost completely destroyed, there are fights for every house, for every street. We pray for our soldiers. We do not know exactly where our youth leader Paul is fighting now but we know that he is somewhere in that hot area.

We don’t see many soldiers in our town now, before we could see them in the streets, we used to talk to many of them in the café where we have our meetings. Few weeks ago the units from our town were sent to the eastern area. When we were having a breakfast with refugees on Tuesday two soldiers came into the café and looking at them we understood that they have just come from the war zone. They looked weary and their faces showed no emotions at all. They were in no mood to speak, so we just gave them little gifts with brochures. I don’t know their names but I keep praying for them.

We regularly talk on phone to Sasha and Nadya. Sasha is recovering after been wounded and though his recovery is going slowly we are glad to see his improvements. Two weeks ago be began to stand but he was standing with a support. This week Nadya sent a video where he stands without any support, he practices to bend his knees and probably soon he will make steps. Their children are doing well, they all study. We help them with food and other things they need. We are glad that they come to the church and participate in our Easter program.

During this year, working with refugees, we gained a lot of experience helping people with war traumas. Among the people we worked with were people who had lost their loved ones, people who survived under bombs, who witnessed deaths, whose homes were destroyed, people who escaped from the occupied territory. All this time we’ve been thinking about Refugee Center where we could concentrate our work and do group meetings, individual counseling, projects of rehabilitation and also organize rooms for people to stay. We were thinking of organizing this kind of work in Odessa and were looking for a place for it but finally we decided to start this work in our town. There are several reasons for this but first of all we choose this place because it is safer here and many refugees keep coming to our town. We have good resources for this ministry here which have been created for the last year. We have a group of faithful volunteers, a support of the church and medical clinic and it is much cheaper to buy a building for this work here. We found a nice building in a good location, we think of buying it. It is in a good state but needs some improvement and renovation. Please, pray for us to be able to buy it and organize our work and ministry in that place.

I send you all greetings from the team of our counselors. Thank you for your prayers and support. Have a good Easter season! May God fill your hearts with special joy as you say “Christ has risen!”

In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos our Bible studies with the group of refugees and the photos of the building that we are going to buy for the Refugee Center