{"id":18282,"date":"2024-08-24T16:57:16","date_gmt":"2024-08-24T15:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/?p=18282"},"modified":"2024-08-24T16:57:16","modified_gmt":"2024-08-24T15:57:16","slug":"beds-essex-and-herts-district-day-with-ukrainian-ladies-may-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/2024\/08\/24\/beds-essex-and-herts-district-day-with-ukrainian-ladies-may-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Beds, Essex and Herts District Day with Ukrainian Ladies May 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was both a humbling, and sometimes harrowing experience, \u00a0to hear the stories the three women who spoke, and during the hours we spent together, we shared our mutual love for God.\u00a0\u00a0 Never has the singing of \u201cBeauty for Brokenness\u201d<\/strong> had more meaning, there were not too many dry eyes.\u00a0\u00a0After worship, the Ukrainian women stepped up and shared their experiences and answered our questions.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We heard from one young woman, who said, with great passion, her duty now was to keep her daughter safe.\u00a0\u00a0There was some humour, as she told us, her 8yr. girl was always correcting her English pronunciation\u2026 they attend local Churches in the area\u2026 and spoke of the welcome they had received, how \u201cthankful\u201d they are on behalf of their country,\u00a0 to have the support of the U.K. and other countries in their fight to remain an independent country.\u00a0 We were also given a history of years of domination and it is quite easy to see how determined they are to fight for justice.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The word thank you<\/strong> was expressed so many times in so few short hours\u2026\u00a0 The only real give away to what they have, and are experiencing, were their sad eyes.\u00a0\u00a0A 63 yr. old Grandma, telling us, she needed to talk about her Son, formerly a teacher, now a soldier!\u00a0\u00a0There were times, when it became almost too much to absorb.\u00a0 But by golly, it made us all realise how many blessings we have.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We were shown great hospitality by the local Methodist Church, with refreshments throughout the day, and this gave us the opportunity to share companionship and catch up with other dear Friends.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the afternoon session, we wrote down our prayers for Ukraine, which we later dedicated and presented to the women, to enable them to share with their Church and Ukrainian Friends.<\/p>\n

We prayed together, sang together and at times held hands to support one another, we remembered those Sisters who had gone to glory,\u00a0and others who were unable to be with us, followed of course,\u00a0\u00a0by tea and delicious cake!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Ukrainian women wrote this prayer for us\u2026 this is what they said\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cTHANK UP FOR PRAYING FOR US.\u00a0 WE CANNOT EXPRESS OUR GRATITUDE VERBALLY, OR IN WRITING, BUT WE WOULD LIKE YOU TO KNOW THAT WE MENTION YOU AND YOUR KINDNESS IN OUR PRAYERS.\u00a0 GOD BLESS YOU ALL.\u00a0 LOTS OF LOVE FROM UKRAINE\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please keep them all in your prayers.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

I could feel how these women benefitted from sharing with us older women.\u00a0\u00a0We benefitted also.\u00a0\u00a0 So often we feel there is nothing we can do, get overwhelmed by different situations, but God finds a way to use us.\u00a0\u00a0The young women had spoken openly about missing their family members, but for just a few hours, they seemed to relax and we could feel God\u2019s Spirit midst the gathering.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Slowly came the smiles.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We ended with this Ephesian blessing:<\/p>\n

Be imitators of God, as His beloved children, and live in LOVE, as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Our new friends \u2013 Ruslana, Maria, Anya, Maria and Sveta<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was both a humbling, and sometimes harrowing experience, \u00a0to hear the stories the three women who spoke, and during the hours we spent together, we shared our mutual love for God.\u00a0\u00a0 Never has the singing of \u201cBeauty for Brokenness\u201d had more meaning, there were not too many dry eyes.\u00a0\u00a0After worship, the Ukrainian women stepped up and shared their experiences […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9120,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[83,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-events","category-district-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-15 04:27:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9120"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18282"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18282\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mwib.org.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}