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Update 08/06/2022
We had a BBQ for our ‘guests’ and family this was the refugees present for us – remember they don’t speak English.
Whilst on Children’ Day weekend both in Ukraine and here the sun shone on happy children.
And during the party there were newcomers to Volodymyr and his church shelter from Severodonetsk the boy arriving with his mother and siblings and a few plastic bags.
We make an appeal to those involved in church groups to widen the distribution of the updates or to spread the word as we are becoming more and more involved with Protestant churches in Ukraine. Since my visit and my meetings with four church leaders it has become obvious that the best help that we can give to refugees at this moment is through the church organisations who are directly actively involved in the care of hundreds and hundreds of displaced people. There is no money available from government and the churches rely solely on their parishioners donations. We are now involved closely with three churches – Lviv, Khmelnytskyi and Kremenchuk.
You can read what you like into the attached picture but it shows Volodymyr at an informal prayer meeting by a ruined house in a village partially destroyed by bombardment and school in the open air as the building exists no more. If you would like to print the picture or have it printed professionally and could sell it to raise some money then please do so. We are thinking of having blank cards printed with the picture on the front and selling them particularly in churches. Volodymyr wishes to raise money from the picture that was painted by a well known Ukrainian Christian artist in order to organise and conduct children’ camps in the villages on the Dnipro river. The poor displaced children cannot afford to pay and we will do it for them. The thousands that are coming from the Donbas and the north east are crossing the river Dnipro in the hope of safety on the western side.
Meanwhile Vitaly just north of Lviv is also overrun by displaced families, all available accommodation is taken in the area, to the point that in his mission even the meeting rooms are used as dormitories. We are looking for another solution.
And in Kharkiv school leavers are dancing the farewell waltz in front of the ruins of their school – the Graduation Ball they performed their waltz on the 5th June. Around a third of the students gathered for this occasion. According to Suspilne, a Ukrainian media outlet, other students have not yet been able to return to Kharkiv. One of the graduating students said that his family lives 50 metres away from the school. He watched the school being destroyed before his eyes.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1533708886217306112
Don’ forget there is a war in Ukraine.
Update 11/06/2022
Regrettably Vitaly’ aid to the Kharkiv region this week was restricted to one vehicle as the shortage of fuel in Ukraine has become critical. They visited the village of Slatine, near Kharkiv and delivering the food packages there in bulk leaving them with the head of the village who would then hand them over to people in need. Since this area was under heavy bombardment they could not communicate with local people who were all sheltering in cellars. On arrival in the village they came under fire, a cluster bomb destroyed a neighbouring house not far from where they were at the time. Thankfully they were able to leave that village for a safer area without any casualties.
Then to a residential area of Kharkiv where they were able to hand out the food packages to individuals.
The next day the team held two evangelistic services in the partially destroyed villages of Pyatnytske and Kytsivka (Kharkiv district) distributing about 220 food packages with much interaction with the people. Then to the village of Pisochyn where more aid was handed out at the church there. The day ended in Zaporizhia, where they slept on the church floor and the next morning they evacuated 5 refugees to Kyiv on the way home to Lviv.
Half of the food aid we took to Khmelnytskyi two weeks ago reached Mykolaiv on Wednesday taken there by Pastor Pavel’ volunteers, there was a break in the Russian bombardment and they took the opportunity to go in and deliver. They are really brave young people just as Vitaly’ are, when I spent the night in Khmelnytskyi I met them and talked with them and their dedication to the church and to help displaced people is incredible.
Mixed with other aid from local shops to make a family pack a somewhat different approach to that Vitaly takes. In the attached video is an example of such a pack some items from UK some from Germany, some from Poland and some from Ukraine – a real multinational pack of food.
They all returned safely to Khmelnytskyi.
A stark YouTube video from the Kherson area https://youtu.be/KmMJGaeUl3A
Once again we would wish to thank the anonymous donors for their kindness, also some donors that we cannot identify and we don’ have an email address for them. I would point out that those who transfer from a Nationwide account there is no name shown simply an account number and we would love to get in touch with you to personally thank you.
Thank you all for your kindness in helping these poor people and the children.
Update 15/06/2022
At the weekend there was a party in the town square of our local small town organised by the refugees in the area to thank the local population for everything that they are doing to help them. They made cakes, provided drinks and sold sweet hearts they had made......
Here Rimma and Lev and the hearts. It was a very successful afternoon and so good to see the integration between the local people and the refugees.
Back to Ukraine.
The first time I met Volodymyr was with two of his daughters in Lviv when after cross loading the food aid we had brought from Poland we sat down in a restaurant to talk only to quickly move to shelter as the air raid sirens went off, we did however eat and talk once the all clear sounded. Volodymyr seen here with his wife and children has his ministry less than two hundred kilometres from the present Russian front line. He has three daughters, two of whom are now in Krakow looking after the physical and spiritual needs of the refugees in and around the city, the youngest two in the photograph, a boy and a girl, are adopted orphans.
We are helping him financially to partly support the daughters, Mariia and Liza in their refugee work in Krakow and also to organise and run summer camps in eight villages around Kremenchuk for the refugee children to integrate them with the children living there, to feed and provide new/second hand clothes and toys to those who escaped with nothing. None of the children have had any education for more than two years because first of all COVID and then the war. There is no money for them to own smart phones or laptops like the city children in Kremenchuk so online schooling didn't work for them and since the influx of refugee children the education crisis simply grew.
Kremenchuk is an industrial city of over 200,000 inhabitants with truck and railway manufacturing plants plus a strategically important large oil refinery and one of the few critical bridges between east and west across the Dnipro river. The whole area is swamped by refugees and it is likely Kremenchuk will be on the frontline of the war by the middle of winter, so giving the children something positive this summer is very important. The camps are for 5 to 14 year olds. This is last Sunday https://youtu.be/3TqrejFpKaQ
Meanwhile in Lviv Vitaly has a solution to the housing of refugees that I mentioned in a previous update, here Vitaly explains and appeals for donations:
This weekend we shall be in the UK in Royal Leamington Spa where the main Czechoslovak base was in the early 1940s to remember the seven Czechoslovak soldiers murdered in another war eighty years ago, no show trial or international condemnation for them they were cornered and died at the hands of the Germans after the successful operation to assassinate Heydrich, the Protector of Bohemia and Moravia in Prague 1942. Operation Anthropoid. My father was a member of the same SOE unit but did not take part in this operation.
Update 22/06/2022
There has now been four months of war in Ukraine and more than fourteen million people have escaped their homes, eight million of those are internally displaced with 27% displaced because their homes have been totally destroyed.
In Kremenchuk there are more and more refugees arriving everyday from Mykolaiv, Kherson and Donbas areas, mostly they are settling in villages where there is room for temporary shelters in outbuildings and tents. Volodymyr is attempting to visit them all in the villages around, they are in utterly desperate need of food and clothing, we are helping as much as we can with your donations. Volodymyr, his wife and daughter Anya are working everyday in a different village not only taking the essentials for them but also keeping the children amused and their minds off the hardship and the scenes of war that they have escaped.
In the west Vitaly has sourced the first container for $2600 and the preparation of the site has begun, all the labour is voluntary as is the JCB digger however the truck to move the soil he failed to get for free and each load is around $40, 30 loads are done so far with an estimated 30 loads to go.
There has been a wonderful donation of the takings from the opening to the public of a beautiful wild flower meadow on Sunday. Somehow it is most appropriate as we associate wild flowers particularly the poppy with war. Thank you to all those involved and to you all for your continuing support for the refugees inside and outside Ukraine.