05 October 2022
Ukrainian Refugees and work with vulnerable young adults in Sibiu United Methodist Church, Romania
These stories have been shared by Sibiu United Methodist Church, Romania and are shared with permission here to demonstrate how the Fund for Mission in Europe is being used in different contexts. The Fund for Mission in Europe is supported by the World Mission Fund. You can support these and other similar projects by giving to the World Mission Fund here.
Aliona Ladyzheva
This is a story which came during the prayers from one of our refugees at our church service in March 2022.
“My name is Aliona Ladyzheva. I am from Ukraine, from the northernmost town of the country, the town of Slavutych, which borders Belarus. This town was built after the Chernobyl accident for those people, such as my family, who responded to and made safe the plant during this terrible world catastrophe, risking their lives and continuing to ensure the safe operation of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant for the whole world, including Belarus and Russia for all these years. For 20 years, I worked on projects to create the largest movable structure - an arch over the destroyed nuclear block of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, in order to protect the world of nuclear danger.
After that, I decided that my calling should now be to create green safe energy. Therefore, for the last three years I have been working on a project to build the largest wind farm in Ukraine in the very south of my country, on the shores of the incredibly beautiful pink lake Sivash near the Crimean peninsula, occupied in 2014 by Russia.
On February 24, 2022, I lost everything. On the very first day, my wind farm was fired upon and captured by Russian invaders. The wind power plant was captured by Russian invaders and de-energized. My hometown of Slavutych is surrounded by Russian troops and is without power. People have no electricity, limited heat, and no way to cook food. All supplies of food and medicine have been blocked for 2 weeks.
And that's just my little true story about the war. However, we are 40 million, and each of us has its own story of suffering and pain.”
Aliona and her daughter spent two months with us at the beginning of the war. She was one of our first arrivals and helped us to start looking into sending transports into Ukraine. She helped us navigate through the legal aspects of doing these things and together we were able to begin sending aid to the country she loves so much. We hired her for a time to help us organise all of these things. Ultimately, she found a safe space to settle here and to begin to get back on her feet. She was able to have fellowship with other refugees arriving, and even called her friends to invite them to come and join our community as well.
Gabriela
Gabriela is a young woman living at our community center in the RAZA project. At the age of 18 she exited the child protection system last year. She is a diligent worker and has held the same job for over a year (a wonderful testimony to her character as this is difficult for many of these children to be able to stick to something like work when it gets hard). Gabriela was abandoned by her mother and left in a placement center for children with disabilities. Gabriela was born with one leg slightly shorter than the other. Through joining the RAZA project, Gabriela has found a new support system of adults who love her unconditionally and encourage her to do new things, even when they are hard. Gabriela has found a safe place to grow into her next stage of life, exploring her questions about God, her hurt from her mother, and her desire to find love and acceptance. Through numerous doctor’s appointments, Gabriela found out that it would be possible for her to have a surgery to correct the difference in her leg lengths and to then go through physical therapy to walk better. Gabriela was able to talk through these possibilities and her fears with our team and successfully completed the surgery in May 2022. She continues to seek answers, grow, heal, and thrive on our campus and with our support.