Just a couple of thoughts I wanted to share with you.
Killed or MIA
· Going to a funeral service tomorrow: a teacher from the seminary lost a nephew. The only son of his parents, shot by a sniper in Luhansk. That made me remember that:
· Taras lost a nephew at Maidan (Feb. 20). Shot by a sniper.
· Michael, the secretary of the project I am working for, lost a cousin on the same day.
· Sasha, our baby-sitter, had a “cousin” (her uncle’s nephew) who was killed on June 17. He was a paratrooper, killed on a plane shot down by the pro-Russian terrorists in Luhansk.
· Another friend of mine from CCX ) said he has a friend who has gone MIA in Donetzk last week.
Non-lethal damage:
· I saw Natasha the Blondie, former CCX leader in Simferopol, last week. She and her husband were able to leave Luhansk, but the apartment complex they lived in was hit by an artillery shell the other day. Their apartment was not hit, but it’s hard to tell how far the fire spread.
· Vera from CCX was in the NT Survey class I taught at Eurasian IFES Institute a few years ago. Her parents’ apartment complex in Luhansk was also hit by a shell. Their apartment is OK, but the beauty parlor on the first floor is gone.
· A few years ago I met Yevgeny from Pervomaisk (Luhansk region); he is also an CCX staff member. His house is still there, just the windows are gone. But his parents spent three weeks in the basement before they were able to leave the city. He showed pictures of bodies and fragments of bodies on the streets. Incredible. Tonight I found out that the (pro-)Russians set on fire his Baptist church.
I am sure there is someone else I don’t remember now.
The figures are too small to make any statistics-based conclusion, but it looks like the scope of this war is much greater than I gathered from the news.
Praying for Ukraine,