Older people should be surrounded with love and care, not fear.

However, this is not the case with Ivanova Tatiana from Maryinka, eastern Ukraine. Ten years ago, the woman lost her daughter to a car accident. In 2014, the war broke out in eastern Ukraine and a shell hit the house where her second daughter was staying at that moment and she has been missing ever since. There is no one left to care for this elderly woman. 

When we first met Tetiana back in  2017, she was in a suicidal in her grief of losing both of her children. Her legs stopped functioning and she literally crawled around the house, because she did not even have a wheelchair.

Since then, we have been visiting this woman, talking to her about God and sharing that suicide is a sin. With time, Tetyana found hope that someday she would meet all of her deceased relatives in heaven and she stopped thinking about committing a suicide. Our team was able to provide her with walkers, food, household chemicals and solid fuel for heating.

For all these 8 years, the woman’s only dream was for peace to come to the war-affected Donbass because her house is located right on the demarcation line between Ukraine-controlled and occupied territories of Ukraine. Like Tetyana, there were tens of thousands of other residents of the “gray zone” living with the only dream of peace for the last 8 years.

Unfortunately, the last hope for peace was destroyed in the beginning of February 2022 when the shelling intensified day by day, killing more and more people. 

On February 24, the war covered the whole territory of Ukraine when the terrible bombing of all major cities of Ukraine began. Thousands of people were cut off the most vital services –  electricity and water supply, food and medicines.

I think it was a wonderful miracle that Emmanuel’s team brought me this food box from ORA organization right before this major humanitarian catastrophe started.

This food set is so good! You know, I haven’t eaten butter in two years! So it was actually my dream to spread some butter over a piece of bread and have it with sweet tea” – Tetyana’s eyes were full of tears as she was sharing this with our team..

This food support project from ORA has become a supernatural miracle for Tetyana and many other people in need. After all, these abundant food kits with a large supply of food, is unprecedented for the people of the East of Ukraine. 600 families received an immediate access to food just a few days before the full-scale war began in Ukraine. Several beneficiaries are sharing with the tears in their eyes that this supply of food continues to save them from starvation until this day (considering the fact that they are trying to save food as much as they can to last longer). 

On behalf of “Operation Blessing” Ukraine, we thank the caring Dutch family for their incredible help and such a timely response. This food support is literally life-saving to many beneficiaries these days. Your help has turned people’s fear into faith, and replaced their loneliness with hope, as it happened to Tatiana.

Thank you so much!

To make a donation your can here: https://emmanuil.cbn.org/donate/sos_helpua_org

“CBN Emmanuil”