"Can we come to Salzburg with you?"
This week has been wild, and we are so grateful for your prayers and support throughout! There are three things we would like to share with you: a story, a video, and a strategy.
A Story
One of our team members had a life-changing experience while helping at the border. After registering his vehicle with the Ukrainian embassy, he shuttled one woman and her daughter, another woman and her two daughters, and a man from the border to the Polish refugee center. The conversations in the car, and their confusion after arriving at the refugee center—“Where do we go?”—resulted in the offer to stay in touch, or even to come to Salzburg, if they wanted. The two mothers and their three girls messaged him the following day that they would love to take him up on his offer! They arranged transportation to Katowice, where they were picked up. After a wonderful meal together, they embarked on the journey to Austria! One of the Ukrainian women recollected to his wife the following day:
'I was so afraid that you were going to be super angry at him for bringing 5 women into your home! But you hugged us at the door! I was so confused as to why you would let your husband come to our country and be in danger and then still be so kind to us. But then I saw a Bible on your table. And then I knew why. And then I realized God was protecting us. At that point, I knew that me and my girls were finally safe.
We are so grateful that these women are now safe and wanted to share the generosity and hospitality of this family with you!'
Most of our team have now returned to Austria, although some will be back in Poland this or next week. One team member is still in Poland and will continue to collaborate with another organisation at the Polish-Ukrainian border over the next period of time.
A Video
Also, we can now share a video of the first supply run on 11 March with you!
We have been careful to include only information which can be publicly shared, and hope that it can shed some light on what we have been doing, and what we continue to do in this crisis.
A Strategy
We have been working on our short- and longer-term strategy to help Ukrainian and Polish churches in this crisis, called “Churches Helping Churches Help.” We are cooperating with Polish charity, Dobro Czynić, and the Polish church Kościół Wolnych Chrześcijan in Palowice as a link to other churches to make this strategy possible practically.
Your generous support has already raised 500,000 USD! This means that over the next three months, we can give 30,000 USD/month to Ukrainian churches, finance the care of 200 Ukrainian refugees in local, Polish churches, send 4 vans a week with humanitarian assistance across the border, and support border relief work administered by Polish churches.
We believe that our support can be exponentially scalable if we receive further funding. Every 5,000 USD mean one fully loaded bus with food and medicine can go to Ukraine - this help will be needed for months to come. Every 1,200 USD mean one full month of support for a family of four hosted in Poland.
All funds go through a registered charity, which provides organized help and is not limited to one denomination, making an impact all over Poland and Ukraine.
If you would like to keep supporting our work by donating, please find the relevant information here.
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