Week 5

        It is week 11 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This week, Ukraine has gained more land and liberated some villages.  It seems they are in a stalemate now with Russia, although the shelling continues to hit the cities.  The casualties should be nothing casual, yet it seems to be the norm, as each night people are injured and some die from the shelling.   

       It is my fifth week here coming alongside the Ukrainians as a missionary. The situation is “fluid” and constantly changing. I want to share with you a first hand account of what I have seen while in Romania this past week. 

Week 5

       This week it was very important for me to get proficient with a manual vehicle. So, I stayed in Cluj Nopaca, Romania with a variety of task. One day I drove to the “Home Depot” here, and bought 45 20 liter gas tanks, and then filled them all up with diesel for those going into Ukraine. (Ukraine is low on gas and lines can take hours to fill up, if they even have gas). 

     The next day, we took two vans on a 7 hour drive to Budapest, Hungary, got dinner with a contact, and spent the night. The next morning, we headed to the warehouse in Budapest and loaded up the vans with as much food as we could put. (This food was a donation through an AIM contact and was free for us to get, that is why the drive was necessary). We drove back and dropped the food off at the warehouse in Romania to be loaded into the vans going to Ukraine. 

(This warehouse in Romania was a miracle in itself, is completely free for us to use!!!)        
                   

      As we returned back we had a house church meeting, and worshipped and prayed. A team headed out the next morning and went to Mykolaiv and Odessa in Ukraine to drop off the food.

I got put on a home schoolers gathering at the church, 50+ children who we had to entertain for a few hours, I drove one van load to the park. These were Romanian children who I got to spend time with and show the love of Christ, not necessarily what I thought I’d do here ,but I trust God is doing something.  

           I was also a driver this week for the Ukrainian children’s program, I spent a few hours each day picking up the children and parents from their housing arrangements throughout the city and bringing them to the church for a gathering time.  It is honestly a lot of fun, I have grown close to many of the children and I love the play dough. I love talking with the parents and drinking coffee and I love the Bible stories we share each day.  We do things for the children to help them process, one thing is art therapy…

        We tell a story in the Bible about God being with his people and comforting them, then we ask questions and have the children draw their answers or tell us.  Many of these pictures speak for themselves. One thing we asked this week was, “has there ever been a time in your life when you were afraid and where was God?” 

      The church we are partnering with here is apart of a transport line for Ukrainian refugees, so this week one bus of Ukrainians came through, we feed them dinner, let them shower and sleep, and then fed them breakfast to be back on the road to their final destinations. Talking with the woman who is arranging planes, trains, buses, housing for the refugees, she shared how they had been sending everyone to Germany, but now Germany is full and now most refugees will be sent to Switzerland, Finland, and wherever else they can find a good place for them.  Some of these Ukrainians have already found jobs here in Romania which is really good.    

       Another thing this week I got to do was operate the forklift. I learned how to drive the Forklift 5 years ago when I was at The Home Depot, which now we have a warehouse here in Cluj. We had a semi come and I pulled the pallets and moved them. It is really awesome getting to use my forklift skills to load up a semi truck with food to go into Ukraine!!   The semi truck driver told me that if I want to live in Cluj he would highly recommend my forklift driving skills to any company.   

    Tomorrow, I am taking a sabbath and resting well. Monday or Tuesday, Lord Willing, I will be driving into Ukraine.  Our destination is Mikolaiv and/or Odessa, we are currently planning on going into Moldava and reloading and hitting Ukraine twice.  The main concern on this trip will be the shelling, hopefully no Russians…Ukraine seems to be holding them off well.   The shelling is serious and if we spend the night we might be staying in the bomb shelters. We have some huge first aid kits and medically trained people for all sorts of wounds. Our main concern is shrapnel from the shelling. Plans change very often, because wars are for the most part unpredictable. 

      A team a couple weeks ago had an interruption when they side swiped a car and it put them back a few minutes, the man they side swiped saw the Humanitarian Aid sticker and said “You help my people, no problem” and drove away.   As the team got back on the road they got the news, a cruise missile just blew up the bridge they were on track to be on, if the crash had not of happened they may have been on that bridge.This close call really put things in perspective. Prayer is powerful.

       Thanks for reading my report from this week, please pray for us here, and for the Ukrainians!!!  Thank you for all the support.  Here are some scriptures and pictures…. 

https://ajesusmission.org/sam-osuna/ 

Still raising support^^ thanks 

“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”

James  1:27

““The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”

Matthew  25:40