October 09-12, 2022

Fastiv, 09-12.10.2022

Praised be Jesus Christ.

​The morning of October 10 was difficult and very disturbing, we all had the feeling that it was not autumn just around the corner, but rather it was February 24th – a massive missile attack was announced by alarm signals that were already familiar to us, but the intensity and visibility of the missile attack came as a surprise. Before eight o’clock in the morning, we went about our usual business, according to plan: Ms. Vira, the administrator of the Center, together with Ms. Mazhena, left for Kyiv to take seriously ill David, who is an orphan and has been living in the Saint Martin’s House with his brother for more than a year, to the Okhmatdyt Hospital; I was preparing for the dean’s meeting, which was this Monday, the children were cheerfully rushing to the Saint Martin’s Center, to the school and the developmental space. The alarm forced all of us and the children to go down to the shelter. When the alarm lasted for more than an hour, everyone received a notification from the Emergency Service on the phones that they should have continued to stay in the shelters. The rockets flew above our Center, so low that we distinctly heard them. Three enemy missiles were shot down by air defense forces over the territory of Fastiv Oblast, fortunately, there were no casualties or damage in Fastiv. The worst situation occurred in Kyiv, at a distance of nine kilometers from the Okhmatdyt hospital, the satellite and mobile communications in the car in which Ms. Vira was driving were disconnected, they left the main road and were saved precisely because of this, because at that time three enemy rockets struck – the roar was strong and very audible, but nothing happened to them, for which we thank God!

Last night scheduled power outages started, and there were such outages all over Ukraine, because as of 11:00 a.m. on October 10th, due to the impact on critical infrastructure in 8 regions and the city of Kyiv, power supply was completely absent in 4 cities of Ukraine. All these alarm signals confused all people, and especially the children of our pained Ukraine. We are grateful to everyone who wrote or called us today, we really appreciate your attention and closeness.

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Although Monday was very difficult, despite everything, we are moving forward with hope, we accept daily numerous requests for help from people in difficult life circumstances, forcibly resettled people, but most of our efforts are directed to helping the victims in Kharkiv region in de-occupied towns and villages. We are planning the next humanitarian trip to Balaklia, Izyum and surrounding villages. We direct our steps to those villages where there were no volunteer organizations and foundations yet. Sewing workshop of St. Martin’s Center is preparing to sew blankets and pillows for the residents of Balaklia – anyone who would like to join this initiative is invited.

We sincerely thank the Vicariate of the Dominican Fathers from the Netherlands for purchasing 8,000 kg of food for the victims in Balaklia, we will deliver this aid in our nearest humanitarian mission.

We are grateful to Mr. Bohumil Buzhynskyi for sculpting the figure of Saint Father Pio for our Social Center on Kyivska Street. In these last months, we have been intensively working in the Social Center to accomodate forcibly resettled mothers and children who suffered from military aggression even in the winter cold.

We thank everyone who cares and responds and helps unconditionally in this difficult time, we thank GymBeam.ua LLC GymBeam Ukraine for 1000 units of hot cold gel thermal packs, which the company provided free of charge for the injured and wounded Defenders. We thank Mr. Artur Bula and the NSZZ “Solidarność 80” foundation in Myslovice, who donated 500 kg of rice for the humanitarian needs of victims of military aggression.

Thank you to the volunteers, friends and benefactors who are close to us in our struggle, which requires all of us to put in a lot of effort for Victory, which I believe is near!

With prayers,

Father Mykhailo OP