Ukraine

Last week we went to the Hungarian-Ukrainian border with the CHE team. There are five border crossings there, and every day huge numbers of refugees arrive there to flee the war. We went to all five places to check and see how we can help and what the needs are.

Some of the refugees had made a travelplan to go to family abroad and asked for help in translation when buying a train ticket. Others didn’t have a plan at all and looked confused. There were mostly women and children and occasionally a man. Men older then 18 can’t leave the country but need to stay to defend the country. Thankfully a lot of help got going, from inside of Hungary -mostly christian organisations- and also from abroad. People give generously: we arrived in one of the border crossings where there was a school converted into a refugee camp, and the gym was being used as storage place; up till meters high the entire area had been filled with all kinds of foodstuff, hygiene materials etc.

It was also great to see that many volunteers were active to offer help: preparing food, making the sleeping room in order, organising transportation. Still, there was one thing that one of my colleagues noticed: the refugees themselves were not that much talked to or prayed with. While that is at least as important as a bowl of soup or a sleeping bag. So we went around here and there to try to talk to people and pray for those who could speak Hungarian.

It was quite confronting to immediately see the consequences of a war that people themselves had not asked for, but still it turns their entire life upside down, it tears families apart and causes life long trauma’s to children. I believe that the best thing we can do in a situation like that – apart from providing food and shelter – is pray with and for them, that they may experience something of the peace of God that surpasses all understanding and all circumstances. And that with all the anger and frustration about the injustice that is being done we cry out to Jesus, who is the Prince of peace. That His Kingdom will break through and make all things whole again.