My day started out organizing buckets with Gif that have been donated at Dalraida and then we moved to the warehouse where we were met by the Bryant family. The New York Avenue Church of Christ (Arlington, TX) brought 65 Family Buckets, Hygiene Bags, and other supplies to be sent into Ukraine (pictured at right and featured image). Dewayne Bryant, the preacher at New York Avenue, and his family drove from Arlington, TX to deliver a trailer filled with compassion from Texas!
Airlift Cargo arrives in Lviv!
We received word that the four pallets of critically requested medical supplies that I had driven to the Atlanta airport arrived safely on the ground in Ukraine today!
C.U.R.E.
Ron Moreton & John Munday called me today saying they were offered a complete Field Hospital, would inspect it and inventory the items. We will be shipping it from Ft. Smith, AR along with miscellaneous medical supplies, crutches, walking canes, hospital linens, and wheelchairs! This will be a great blessing to those in Ukraine!
Tanya’s Daily Note
I thought about staying and helping Maria in Lublin but I do want to come back here. So I thought about staying there Mon – Fri and coming back here for the weekend. Maria wants us to help her rent a 2-room apt and she says I could stay there as well so this way I won’t have to spend more on the rent there in Lublin. What do you think? There’s no Church in Lublin. Here I at least can communicate with Marilu, her husband and a few other Christians and there’s Oleg and his family who speak Ukrainian and are Christians.
Tanya
Even though I don’t understand Polish very well it is still wonderful to be with the brethren here and the more I’m exposed to the language the more I learn. Our first lesson in Polish was good. The girl teaching came from Kalush the same day we did. She used to teach Polish in Ukraine so she found job quickly. She has a native speaker to pronounce words for us. They also had pizza, drinks and cookies. I really liked it and want to continue. However, with me going over to Lublin and then maybe working with Maria, I don’t know how I’ll be able to keep studying. Maybe there will be free Polish lessons in Lublin as well. I’ll check.
Internet is still bad here. But at least I can connect. I’m leaving Saturday to meet you three as you arrive! Have a great and blessed day!”
Romania Connection
Today has been a roller coaster day. We were really excited about the opportunity to go into Romania and seize opportunities there. But earlier today Charita heard the Romanian customs laws were prohibitive for our goals. Special thanks to Harvey Starling, Demar Elam and Eddie Bull for all their efforts. Thankfully later in the day Charita emailed with this message:
Hello Harvey, We are still working with Cristina on this, it seems she found a company that will work with us on getting this cargo out of port. We will try it, if it works we will proceed with further assistance.”
Charita
Demar emailed and discussed the amazing efforts of brethren in Alabama with those in Romania:
We are working with the Midway Church of Christ in Jasper Alabama. Midway has sponsored the Romania mission effort for years. The border of Ukraine and Romania is 381 miles long and has five checkpoints. The Romanian Christians are working those checkpoints to assist the huge influx of Ukrainians fleeing their homes. The Romanian congregations are using church vans as well as their mission house to accommodate 25 to 30 people each night. The immigrants fleeing the war arrive at the border and number are up for the night, provided food, water and other essentials. Then they take them to Cluj, Romania where they catch trains, buses and planes to other European countries. This charitable work is producing great results.”
Demar Elam
From Ivano-Frankivsk
Greetings brother, thank you very much for your work and help to Ukraine. We now need a lot of humanitarian aid in Europe. The administration promised to give me permission to leave the restricted travel. By this authority I would like to meet you in Poland and talk about cooperation with the various locations and plans in humanitarian work. Then I will return to work in Ivano-Frankivsk. We now have never ending work to do with those fleeing Russian invaders. Many coming needs special attention. We are assured of transport and drivers for the transportation of humanitarian goods so this is good.
Ivan Skoleba
Today my brothers and I calculated that if we could make the second floor of the church building livable, it would be possible to accommodate up to 80-100 people in our room. There is also the same situation as on the ground floor but there are more rooms. On the second 10 rooms. I always pray may the Lord protect you.”
In Columbia, TN
Today in Columbia, a truckload of buckets was transported and unloaded form the Hardin Valley Church of Christ (Lenoir City, TN). Check out some of the pics from this great partnership! It has been wonderful to see the brethren join together in TN and get so much accomplished. With this load of buckets, we are making preparations to schedule a container loading in Columbia in the near future. Keep these brethren in your prayers as they continue to work hard to gather supplies to send to refugees in Ukraine and Poland.
Joining In Our Relief Efforts
Thank you for all the work you are doing! I’ve organized a personal hygiene bag mission here in Janesville, WI. I plan to have them mailed to Dalraida on March 24th in order for them to reach the loading site by March 31st.”
Malorie Smith Jackson (Janesville, WI)
Hi Mike (Lawson), Thank you so much for what you and your Church is doing. The group I have is interested in donating whatever is needed and they can put them in backpacks, if that is helpful. Also adding stuffed animals and items that children and women need. Where exactly are you all able to send the items to? Is it in Ukraine or Poland? Let me know what your process is for this and give me more details. I would like to get this to my group for consideration. This has 150people and they will be together in May.”
Thanks!!
Susan
We were also contacted by several others today who are interested in joining us and will be discussing and planning how they can help prepare donations for Ukraine in the future! If you know of a congregation, please let us know and we will get information to them that they can use and pass out to members. The Dalraida website is back online, so you can get information, graphics to use, and links to donate at www.dalraida.org/helpukraine.
Travel to Poland
I continue to make arrangements and begin packing to depart on Sunday afternoon (March 13) to Poland. I hope to spend a couple of weeks there meeting those who will help us get our shipments cleared through customs, sent on to refugee areas and forwarded to Ukraine for those in need. I will do my best to send daily reports as I do on my trips, but since we are going into areas that are unknown to us, I am not sure how the internet connections will be. Please let others know they can subscribe to my trip reports on my site.
While I am away, I WILL NOT have phone service while gone. I will have email as much as connections permit, but I will NOT be receiving any phone calls. If you need help, please contact Andrew “Gif” Gifford at (770) 596-6545 or andrew.gifford@faulkner.edu or my son John III (Johnny) at (334) 868-1900 or jlkiii@hotmail.com. They will hopefully be able to assist anyone with questions regarding our relief efforts.
John Kachelman Jr.
(Montgomery, AL)
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