Responses to the war in Ukraine
As everyone else, we in the Restore team have been shocked and saddened by the terrible war going on in Ukraine. We stand together with churches and christians praying for peace and an end to the conflict. As well as praying, we have been able to take part in helping the Ukrainian people both staying in and fleeing from their home country. We have been able to respond to this crisis in three ways.
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The first thing is that we have been going to the border of Ukraine with food, medical supplies and children appliances. Our base being not too far away from the border (6-7 hours in a car), it has been possible for us to fill our minivan multiple times to go on these border runs. We have contacts near the border that then bring everything into Ukraine and distribute to where the needs are. If there are people on the border that want to come with us back, we take them with us. It has been good to be able to help, but also really sad to see the women and children having to flee their country with just a little backpack or a plastic bag.
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The second response we have given is that we have opened up our centers for people coming through from Ukraine. Most people coming to our area want to go further on. We are not in an area with big cities, and Romania still feels too close to Ukraine for many of the refugees. Therefore many of the ones coming to us want to stay a night or two, have a shower, a clean bed and some food, before they go further west.
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The third possibility we have to serve the refugees is that we have an evacuated orphanage now staying in Prod. These young people and their leaders fled from Kyiv together on a bus and were on the bus for three days before they arrived. They are two leaders and 28 kids in the age of 4-16 and none of them have more than a few words of English. In the middle of this situation God has provided a missionary couple from America that speak fluent Russian, and that had to flee from Ukraine themselves. This has been of huge help! The kids have now stayed with us for about a month, and will stay for the oversee-able future. We try to provide food, program and safety for them and also share a little bible devotion every day. The kids have also just now been starting to o some online school.
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We want to thank you so much for praying for the refugees and for our team in this time, and also for the generous support so many of you have shown through this difficult time.
