News from Ukraine February 11, 2023

February 11 (Day 353)

Dear brothers and sisters,

Yesterday we had a hard day, the day when we could not relax. Around 100 rockets were launched to our territory. The rockets were sent to all regions from east to west, 61 of them were destroyed by the forces of our air defense. There were hits but the information about them is not given not to let the enemy know how many targets they hit. We heard the sounds of explosion somewhere near us but we know that it was in the air ( we can tell these sounds now).

We had a Zoom meeting with our counselors yesterday and we talked about the problem of the dark periods of time when we have no electricity. Many clients complain that they feel sleepy and can not be active during the time of outages and then they feel upset because they did not do what they planned. Our counselors say that they feel really bad when they have to cancel counseling sessions. Knowing that people need help and you can not contact them is very hard. Our counselor George shared that his war experience helped him to plan ahead and he always has some plans for the time of outages. He makes suppliers of water and food that can be eaten without cooking, he charges his gadgets and prepares some videos he can watch. Vika says that she started counseling by correspondence and during dark tame she reads with her flashlight. Tanya says that she loves to spend the time with the Lord when it’s dark, it is a special atmosphere when you light candles. Sergey usually starts heating our furnace to make the house warm when there is no electricity. I usually read or study ( the charge of my laptop lasts couple of hours) and listen to the music on my telephone. The days are becoming longer and the nights shorter. It’s easier to stand outages when it’s light.

Roman was not with us yesterday. He was invited to take part in a special event. There was a day of people with special needs and there was a program organized for people with different disabilities in Odessa. Roman was invited to be a speaker there. It was his first experience with this group of people. When we talked yesterday evening he told me how much he enjoyed being at that event. It was so nice to bring joy and make these people happy, especially now, when the war is going on. The people were so happy that no enemy attack could spoil the joy they had.

We wish you a good weekend.

In Christ,
Lyuda

P.S. There are photos of the rocket flying to destroy our life, of the sky with the smoke stripes that were left by the launch of multiple rockets, the photo of studying in the darkness and the photo of Roman, the speaker at the event for the people with special needs.