Britton Sharp Art

They came from 5 different churches from all over the Czech Republic. None of them have been to seminary, all of them have another job, yet each one is leading churches. Some in villages and some in cities. It was an honor to talk with them, to hear their stories. Many are from the south and areas occupied by Russia. Although there was a huge language gap (God provided an amazing translator) it was an incredible retreat. They took so many notes and pictures of diagrams that we would draw. They would talk amongst themselves furiously (many of them had never met each other) but God was at work. We are all praying about what next steps look like, do we go deeper with this group or do we open things up to the other 60+ leaders in the same situation. So we would love your prayers for discernment and wisdom. Here are some pictures from our time. The couple I am with is Leonid and Vitoria. He is from Odessa and she is from close to the border of Slovakia so she could understand my Slovak.

Yesterday is one of the days we will remember for the rest of our lives. The Ukrainian grannies invited us to lunch and prepared a feast where each dish was from a different part of the Ukraine. They shared where they were from (3 of them from now Russian occupied areas, it was heartbreaking to hear them say “strangers now live in our house”) and sang us traditional songs. They also gave us a handmade doll out of bandages that we wrapped to send to the front lines and then pens they made and gave to us. There were lots of hugs and lots of tears and we want to bring them home with us. We are excited to spend two more weeks here and see how God continues to work. We prayed for them and the Ukraine, we let them know that they are not alone. May God bring peace to the country and to the people. We are in the midst of the pastors retreat now and it is an honor to meet these people caring for others.

Today was a full good day. This morning Glenn and I helped a Ukrainian widow who was just diagnosed with stage 4 cancer move into a new apartment. While moving a thunderstorm hit, it was then that we learned for many of the Ukrainians storms are a trigger because the thunder sounds like right before the missiles and drone attacks hit. From there we met back up with Brooks and the kids who were organizing things at the center then grabbed lunch and went to roll bandages. These are from a factory in Czech and are not able to be sold. The Volunteers gather them and they roll them every Monday from 2-7pm. Because they are not sterile they go straight to the front line and volunteers have started praying over those who will need these. It was an honor to hear Ukrainian grandmothers sing songs and share Ukrainian candy which was really good with us. Tomorrow we will help with some of the kids clubs and continue getting things together for the garden.

Also the last picture is of me in the van with a sofa, carpet and lamp all crammed in. We had to move the seat which meant it wasn’t attached to the floor so it was like riding a horse through Prague.