We recently learned that five-year-old Marinka and her mother were home when a Russian rocket blew up their home early last month. Marinka’s grandfather, seeing Marinka’s little legs bleeding and crushed, heroically drove her and her injured mother through enemy barricades and shelling until he found some Ukrainian soldiers. They provided critical triage that likely saved both Natalia and Marinka’s lives. Then the soldiers called for an armored ambulance, and Natalia and Marinka were taken to the closest hospitals to be stabilized. Miraculously, they survived. However, Marinka’s leg could not be saved, and it was amputated.
Marinka is still too scared to try and stand up, as she loses her balance anytime she tries. She will need lots of rehabilitation and therapy in the coming months.
Both Natalia and Marinka will be safely transported and further rehabilitated abroad. They are now in need of ongoing support to help them work through their physical, emotional, and mental traumas. Please pray that the Lord would provide the necessary funding for their medical needs, trauma therapies, and relocation expenses—as well as for others like them who desperately need ongoing support. Pray, too, that He would hold them close and remind them that He has not deserted them in this most difficult time.
As we pray for the critical needs of many like Marinka and Natalia, the news these past few days has focused on the devastation in eastern Ukraine. Civilians are fleeing the intense fighting there as Russian and Ukrainian forces vie for the control of key cities in the country’s industrial heartland. In addition there are reports that the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, all but destroyed by weeks of shelling and now under Russian control, is at risk of a major cholera outbreak. Pray with us that God would intervene in eastern Ukraine and Mariupol, preventing further desolation and ruin. And that He would protect and provide for those vulnerable populations in this part of Ukraine who are losing hope and see no way out of their situation.
Thank you for your ongoing prayer support!
