March 16 – 23, 2024

Fastiv, 16.03-23.03.2024

Praised be Jesus Christ!

We begin the most important week of the year, we prepare for the Easter Holidays – this is an opportunity to do more good. This is the week when we adore the wounds of Christ and in these wounds we also see the wounds of our country, in particular after the last rocket attack, which brought so much pain and injuries and deaths. We put all our sufferings to the Cross of our Lord and we believe that He who defeated Death and Resurrected gives us eternal life and victory.

We invite you tomorrow on Palm Sunday to our church. At 10:30, an Easter fair will be held. All profits from it will be allocated to tourniquets for the Armed Forces.

Our Friends in Warsaw, Charytatywni Freta Charitables Freta, organize a fair on Freta street 10, at the church of St. Hyacinth (Jacek), which will last a whole week. Everyone in Warsaw is cordially invited.

This week, we worked very intensively, with a team of volunteers in Kherson, to create food kits for the city’s residents. Unfortunately, the need for humanitarian aid for this city and its surroundings is not diminishing. Every day, Kherson is under heavy artillery fire or aerial bombing. The city freezes in the afternoon, all residents are either at home or in shelters, the streets are empty. Since the morning, I noticed that despite these daily terrors from the enemy, the residents of Kherson are trying to return to their usual lives at least a little. They sweep near their houses, take care about flowerbeds, clean up courtyards. Despite all this horror, which is around day and night, they take care of the house and cleanliness. Returning to the usual daily activities is really very important for our mental health, and the fact that people have the strength to do this helps hope despite everything.

Our mission is primarily to support people in extremely difficult life situations, this week we distributed 3,985 food kits of basic necessities, 3,000 of them we assigned to the long-suffering Kherson. In total, this week we distributed 26,600 kg of humanitarian aid to the victims of Russian aggression to overcome the consequences of the humanitarian crisis.

Every day we receive hundreds of inquiries and requests, we respond, communicate, and entertain as best we can.

This week we would like to ask you to close the collection for 200 tourniquets for the Armed Forces. We need another 22,450 UAH, we are grateful to everyone for the smallest contribution. Thank you, volunteers, for every day of your service.

Thank you to our friends and benefactors, who still remember us and call us. Thank you to the community of Lay Dominicans from Zwolle, Frans van der Heijdt, the Netherlands, who support our humanitarian missions and befriend us, we are very grateful for your support. Thanks to Mr. Witold from the Paleolithic community, Poznań for supporting the humanitarian mission in Kherson. Thanks to Mr. Ireneusz Gajlun and his wife. I pray for everyone who accompanies us in any way.

May the Lord protect you,

Fr. Mykhailo Romaniv OP