Race against the winter : November Mission on track

The word YES can open and close so many doors and experiences.

When Br John asked me to join him and Br Leopold on a trip to rebuild bombed houses in the Ukraine my immediate response was YES. So I sit here with the preparation for the trip being made with my mind racing with what my YES will bring.

Last Sunday we had a video meeting with the organisation who we will be joining in the Ukraine. We saw the damage caused by the war and the people working there to repair the homes of those remaining. My YES began to feel very real.

In the week we received a considerable donation that will enable us to travel to the Ukraine. This amazing news brought with it the realisation that we were able to really go.

The news from the Ukraine this week has detailed how missile and drone strikes have targeted domestic power supplies resulting in power cuts and outages. As the weather turns colder and the days get darker this will undoubtedly bring greater hardship for those who remain.

The purpose and need for what we will do is clear and I feel fortunate to be be able to give myself, my YES, to this mission.

The coming weeks will mean preparations and planning, excitement and apprehension.

I will be keeping a blog of this and the trip, I hope you find the time to read it and contribute in some way to our mission.

I pray that our presence will bring hope, light and relief to those who are suffering and have suffered during this conflict.

David

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A video from Br Leopold in the Chernihiv supply centre.

Here a well-made short video from the supply centre in Chernihiv where br Leopold has been helping the distribution teams take vital aid to villages in the region. Many people there are homeless or living in houses which do not protect from rain and cold anymore. With infrastructures destroyed or damaged and employment completely disrupted, many many people (especially the most fragile) depend on these teams bringing them food and medicine. Please keep helping.

An insight into who the refugees are and how the return trip was also helpful

Last night I signed up for taking refugees from the Ukrainian-Polish border to Germany or The Netherlands. An hour later, at 8pm, I set off with 3 women from the Kharkiv and Chernohiv regions, both of which are occupied or beseiged. As we drove through the night, 90 year old Iryna had left her beloved Kharkiv region for the first time, and was hoping to find her way accross Europe with a small light blue hold-all, to meet up with her daughter and 2 small grand-daughters who'd fled before her and had been calling her helplessly from the family in western Germany where they'd been received. Khrystyna must have been in her late 20's and is an accountant for a business in Chernihiv... that is, until everything changed the day her home village was occupied and her city surrounded. She rushed to make it out and to head, she too, to the Polish border and massive refugee centre. A few nights on a camp bed in the never-sleeping hangars where tired looking refugees are lovingly and d...

Br Leopold in July helping clean up destroyed houses

Now that the siege of the city had been entirely lifted, the main bridges repaired, and the frontline has stabilised at some 500 kilometers to the East, Chernihiv is busy healing the wounds and moving forward. Second half of July, I teamed up with Bo mozhemo or “Because we can”. It is a thriving association of local volunteers who are providing their know-how, energy and time to help poor families clean up the ruins of their homes and provide them with decent accommodation before winter comes. Every day they single out one or two sites and work patiently and tirelessly between 4 and 10 hours to sort the rubble, fix what is still fixable and plant the foundation of new homes. You certainly breathe a lot of dust and ashes here but still more joy, dynamism and solidarity. And from the side of the affected families, who host the activities, it is sheer determination to start over again. Could this be the real victory, a visible sign of the Risen Christ acting in the world?...

ST. JAN - CHARITY UKRAINE

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