Dear friends!
We are sorry not to do English summary of our activities more often! The year 2022 was a great challenge to us. However we did not managed to reach our budget for the year we did many activities! We visited:
- Bosnia and Hercegovina three times (January, May, August)
- Greece once
- Serbia once
We helped to send help to Ukraine (and its borders in the first weeks of the war). The last shipments we helped to cover was based on Heat, electricity, light… We bought and collected warm cloths, thermal- underwear, power banks, electro centrals, and candles. Those items are crucial for internally displaces refugees due the destruction of the infrastructure in Ukraine.
During the year the vans were full of – food, sleeping bags, hygienic items, medical help, sleeping pads, socks… In Czech Republic we settled six apartments for refugees from Ukraine – six from the very beginning – finding place, helping owner with legal issues, reconstructions, furnishing, food and hygienic items boxes. Ten to fifteen more families needed partial help – refrigerators, washing machines, beds, desks, … (often they lived just with mattresses!)
It was also great opportunity to share Gospel! We are thankful for Phil Moser donation of the books for Ukrainian refugees – kids and adults as well – Safe in the Storm – A Ukrainian Children’s Tale, Safe in the storm.
We also have Gospel books in Ukrainian and Russian (since many of refugees speak rather Russian). We are grateful that many people from churches offered not only help but also friendship. After the years of service within refugees, there is a group of refugees, which has open door, which is great, but also sad sometimes.
We also assisted with different services – medical needs, schools, free time activities for kids, insurance, work… (God id good! He even provided accordion for one refugee friend of ours! Which we considered as a great miracle!)
We try our best to accompany “our” families and help them to find fellowship, church. We also try to visit them! Luckily, we have been able to help with some Christmas gifts!
We had couple legal cases this year as well. However we did mostly legal advices, we did also provide legal representation for a few people. We also started on some cases of Chinese Christians in Czech again. Long story continues…
This kind of help is crucial for those people (this year mostly Afghanis, Iranians…), but it is almost impossible to cover financially. Most donors do not understand the importance.
During the year we also managed to do presentations of our work. We always try to bring migration topic closer to the public (not only in the church), since we believe, that knowledge is the power! We are grateful for every opportunity, this year mainly for Rádio 7 (Christian radio here in Czech). We were guest in two broadcasts. Advent interview in Quo Vadis was just great!
On Wednesday we did Christmas party for refugees from different countries then Ukraine in local church and it was awesome time together with people from Myanmar, India, Ethiopia, Cameroon, China and Afghanistan. We have First Christmas talk for adults, activities for kids and dinner together. Since the numbers of guests and volunteers were almost the same we hade many opportunities to talk, discuss, laugh and share Gospel. People told us, this was the true Christmas day for them, since they did not celebrate alone properly, or at all! These moments are true motivation for us!
