From Team Expansion’s Partner serving in Ukraine
Every person’s life in this region is a unique and individual story. While providing assistance in the Christian Church, we come across thousands of stories that are impossible to ignore. The stories that touch us the most are those of families with children.
One story was shared with me by a mother of many children, Tanya. Along with her children and parents, she lived in a village where the Russian occupation created many problems for them. There was no opportunity to buy bread, medicine, and other necessities in the village. Money was running out, and getting funds on their card was impossible. Tanya also needed to hide her teenage daughters from the Russians to prevent any harm to them.
Faced with no other options, Tanya, along with her three children and husband, decided to move into her husband’s parents’ house in the city, where already six people had been residing. It was not easy to live in a place where 11 people (5 children and 6 adults) shared a three-room house. Each day under occupation began with the challenge of finding food for the children and other family members.
Learning about their difficult situation, a member of our church started bringing them bread, vegetables, and medicine from our distribution.
Separated
On one of those days, Tanya’s daughters decided to take the products to their grandparents who remained in the village they had left. While they were in the village, the bigger city was liberated and the retreating Russians detonated the bridge connecting the two banks. Without the bridge, the chances of the daughters returning to the liberated city were severed. Tanya felt helpless and lost.
Tanya’s husband decided to join the military to expedite the liberation of the village. Tanya was left alone in the city with her son. And very soon, she learned she was pregnant.
Amid despair, confusion, and uncertainty, an unimaginable nightmare added to her feelings. Floodwaters approached the house where Tanya and her relatives lived, sweeping away everything in its path. Horror, tears, fear, and panic accompanied the moments when they had to retrieve the child and their documents, and head to nowhere. The water mercilessly destroyed everything in the house.
Thankfully, pregnant Tanya and her son found shelter. After some time, at considerable cost, they managed to evacuate Tanya’s teenage daughters through other countries.
Searching for Help
For now, all of Tanya’s children are with her, including the baby girl she gave birth to two months ago. Having lost all her possessions after the flooding, Tanya has had to seek assistance from various centers. However, she was repeatedly turned down because the amount of humanitarian aid reaching the city has decreased.
Almost losing hope that anyone would help her, Tanya, with her two-month-old baby, came to our church. Thanks to the brothers and sisters who sent aid to our church, we were able to provide Tanya and her children with food, hygiene products, household chemicals, appliances, towels, bed linens, clothing, and more. Tanya was shocked by the generosity; she cried, hugged, and endlessly thanked everyone involved in the assistance. She had never received such an abundance of help anywhere else.
Currently, some members of her family are attending the church. We pray that the Holy Spirit works in their hearts.
Learn more and get involved with Team Expansion’s efforts in Ukraine at teamexpansion.org/ukraine.
