Crisis & Response- Ukraine

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

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I'm so excited because Mark is in the Ukraine with Anya. And so, Mark, share with our listeners, you know, what's going on? Hey, brother. I apologize for my voice, first of all.

So, by sounding a little different, it's still me, but I lost my voice on the way over. So, yeah, I'm here with the whole team. Ukraine, particularly Anya is our Director of Operations for our crisis and conflict response in Ukraine. And, you know, we've been able to help a lot of people, do a lot of good, and we're excited about the programs that we have. I thought today, having Anya here, she's given her testimony. I mean, she is a survivor of this war starting in 2014.

You know, lost, if you didn't hear her testimony and you go back and hear it on one of the shows, you know, because she had to flee for her life, lost her house, and then is now living in another part of Ukraine. And when the invasion reached this part, rather than leave, she turned around with the ministry that she's involved here, and they began to just really dig in and help people in an awesome way. And we're so happy to be in partnership with them and actually do hands with them.

We participate in all these programs as well. So, this is a show really to talk about, not just about Ukraine, but talk about how do you help people who are in the midst of a war, right, and every day wake up with the decision to say, I'm going to get up and live today, even though I may die today. And I know that's real for all of us. Like, you know, everybody is appointed under a man to die.

But when you're in an environment where there's a crazy man in a country next door that's a terrorist that's throwing missiles, and, you know, people haven't seen me in the last 48 hours, how many missiles hit this private residence and kill people, then you don't, you have to appreciate that, excuse me, that they made this decision to live here and to face this fear, but that wears on. So, I'm going to let you just kind of take it with Tanya because my voice sounds so bad. And you guys have some discussions this first half, and then the next half we'd like to talk about some of the new stuff that God has laid on our hearts here. So, Anya, wonderful to have you back as well. I know our listeners are anxious to hear that, you know, that very discussion with you. You know, what is that like for you? Hello, everyone.

It's so nice to be here again. And for us, the last couple days were rough because there was some missile attacks to civilian places. And still, while we are in the central parts of Ukraine, we need to support each other here and to find the programs which will be very helpful to all generations. Because a lot of people, right now, they are refugees abroad in different countries, and we are very grateful to every nation which is helping our country.

But still, we have a lot of people which decided not to leave, and now they are internally displaced people, and they need support inside of their country in safe places if we can say that any place here is safe. Yeah, so what is that? Can you kind of, for our listeners, give us a sense of, like, is there an air raid warning? Do you hear something and all of a sudden you hear an explosion, or what do you experience when one of these missiles is attacking? When the missile is flying to some of the targets, like, through all the direction of the flight of this missile, all cities, all villages and towns will have air raid warnings.

But in big cities, you hear the air siren, like, it's a sound which is very pressing you, and people get used to that. But still, every couple hours we have this air raid. It means that every couple hours we have a risk that the missile will hit any kind of civilian place. Because Russia is a terrorist state, and they are trying to fight not only on the front line, but they are trying to fight us on civilian places. And their target is big, huge, crowded, peaceful places where civilians gathering just for going to school, hospitals, or any kind of buildings where people just go to sleep at night. And the missile attack can just ruin the people's life. Yeah, so those not only go on during the day, but they go on all night? They go on day and night.

It could be randomly any time of our life. Oh my goodness. You then hear the response, you know, first the air sirens, and then you often will hear the response of the anti-missile response. So they're trying to shoot them down as they're approaching, you know. So, you know, that's not uncommon to think from us or those of us who work in war here, but for civilians and small children, just to hear the booming sound of them trying to shoot down the missile, and then trying to identify was that a strike or was that a response, you know.

And it gives you a real reality check when a young teenager can tell you the difference in the sound. Like they can tell you, so that was when that hit us, and that found us one of us shooting it down, you know. That's not normal, you know. And it's also not normal for all those people out there that are so misinformed to think that Russia has some right. It's not normal to shoot down like they did in the last few weeks and blow up an orphanage, a college university, and a hospital.

Those are not targets that have yet assisted anything in a war faction. So, you know, it's mind-boggling that these people can continue and continue not to give up. It just blows my mind, you know. It blows my mind even on here and her team, you know, with us that they have such courage. Right, and it kind of reminds me, you know, of London, right, during the blitzkrieg and all that.

Yeah. It's just constant trauma and, you know, there's constant fear. So Anya, can you tell us, how does the Lord come for you all in this, or, you know, how are you experiencing God through that? As a church, we become very unified.

From the beginning of the full invasion in 2022, we were like hosting refugees, and we were like personally traveling to educate people from frontline to the border and to the safe places. We were praying like by eight hours in a row. We never stopped praying.

Like the first couple of months, a lot of people which can go voluntarily to the frontline, which can go personally and educate people, which can give their houses for refugees, they will like have Zoom calls for prayers for eight hours. And right now, our church is still very active. We created the whole chaplaincy movement.

We go into the frontline. And the pastors which were caring about the people, now they're caring not only about their own church, they're caring about all the soldiers. And we are trying to let soldiers know that the church is waiting for their mothers, their wives, and even girls and kids, which they don't know.

They still become their family right now, and they are fighting for all of us. So their church, particularly ours, we never stopped our projects which we had during civilian time. And right now, we're even empowered.

So we opened more projects which can answer very important and actual relevant needs. But the most important that God gave us through all of this, He's encouraging us to keep going. So He empowered our faith.

He's speaking to us. We know when we are praying that we feel the smile of victory. We believe that God already had this victory on the cross, and we never stopped in that. So even when you don't feel God physically while you're worshiping, maybe you don't see any supernatural miracle today. You know still that even if you're still alive, and you can breathe, and you can go and help somebody, it's also a big miracle of God, which we're observing right now in Ukraine.

Yeah, I'd have to say Anya, knowing you, that it's all a miracle that God would give you such a passion, considering all the horror that your life has been. You used that to help other people. And my understanding is that there's been a great breakout of faith. A lot of people are coming to faith there in Ukraine, right?

Yeah, it's not easy, but I'm not such a hero. Even in my church, and we have like hundreds of the same churches in the whole Ukraine. We have so many, even girls, young as Anya, who still stayed in Ukraine and voluntarily helping others.

We have, even in my home room, we have teenagers like 12, 13, 14 years old. When they wasn't able to go to school and to live their common life, they were sorting food packages, doing the art therapy for kids, trying to make family events, Bible schools for families which suffered from the war. We have so many girls which didn't escape, and even teenagers, which are not suffering and not playing the role of victim, but going to help others.

Yeah, that is... Robbie, it is something else to see, and we've always said that. It's also incredible that our chaplains, our pastors, and I was observing one even this morning realizing that he has a church, and he has a church at the front line, the soldiers. And then he has a church in between, which are the civilians who used to go to church, but now their church is gone, either destroyed or their pastor left. And so this one individual is carrying the burden of so many people.

He's a pastor to just so many different groups of people who aren't actually even connected a lot of times. And I just wanted to say for a second, yeah, there's a lot of great heroes here, and Anya and the chaplains, all of them, and even those kids she just described. It's something else to see them sorting through food, and then an air raid happens.

They take a break, and then they wait for it to end, and then they go back to it. That's an incredible faith. It is, and from my perspective as well, your team going back into that. I mean, you just came out of it a few months ago, and so there you are back and with some others with Land and Rescue.

Yeah, we're excited to be here. You know, we want to help in every way that we can, and we know the tactics and skills to help in different ways. And then two, even just recently, I mean, we're trying to address. So people know we have a crisis and conflict response in Ukraine.

We also are trying to address a counter-attraction response in Europe because we didn't have the resources to do both here. So we did what we thought most important. That was help the civilians, help people be safe, train what we can, do all that, right? Now we're at a level now, though, where we're readdressing the counter-trafficking part that we are observing.

And I'll just be honest with you. I thought there was a lot of NGOs and a lot of groups doing it, and I'm sure somebody did a good job. But the intelligence that I personally gathered in the last three months, just personally, is somebody has to address it. It's out of control. The number of Ukrainian girls that are being trafficked right now in Europe that have fled this war and then been duped into a job situation, it's a lot.

And it's an incredible number, even on the dark web. So we recently had me in Poland, and including Anya was in some of those meetings, and we're going to be addressing that. And that's something that we just can't go to bed and say, well, don't worry about it, that we have to do something about it. And so in the next few months, probably the next three months, I truly believe God will give us, he's already given us the open doors.

He's already given us the favor with the right governments and the right people, and I'm sure we'll be fixing some criminality. Okay. Yeah, well, we got to go to a break, unfortunately. But fortunately, you know, it's an opportunity for all of us to be thinking, wow, that we can be praying certainly for those people, but the team as well, you know, that the Lord will protect them through this difficult time. And so when we come back, we're going to give you more on what's going on with Lantern Rescue in Europe.

We'll be right back. Lantern Rescue is a USA-based organization that conducts international rescue operations for people suffering from human trafficking. Lantern specializes in sending former US Special Operation law enforcement and intelligence personnel to partner with host nations and assist them in creating specialized units to combat ongoing security problems, such as genocide, terrorism, and human trafficking.

As a nonprofit charity, they offer services free of charge to their host nations. Human trafficking has grown into the second largest criminal activity in the world, reaching an estimated $150 billion in annual activity. Lantern Rescue has developed rapidly to combat trafficking. Lantern operates through a trained international network in order to rescue women and children from sex and labor slavery and facilitates holistic aftercare services. They're gearing up for operations right now, and you can go to lanternrescue.org to see how you can support them financially.

Welcome back to Lantern Rescue, and how exciting. We're getting more of the story of how God is truly working in the Ukraine, and we've got some new stuff going on that Anya, it really starts with a story from you, so tell us what happened. So we already started our therapy for kids from my DP family, and that idea came to my heart, honestly, because of my younger brother, because when we fled my native town, we fled with all my family, and I have two younger brothers. My one younger brother was seven years old at that point, and he haven't speak for one year because of trauma, so my heart was very close to that kid which needs some kind of therapy. That's how we created our therapy center. And lately, Mark got this idea about dog-assisted therapy because another younger brother, now he's 25, you will never say that he's younger than I am, but still he is the dog trainer in my city, and he have been training dogs since 14 years old, and he is so passionate about that. He opened his own company for training dogs. He has the whole team of volunteers and trainers, instructors. He participates in different competitions, but when Mark said, hey, do you want to make something for kids from IDP families, he created the whole program, how it could work, and why it's very special for him.

He was telling this testimony for us when we had supper, and he said, you know, I just don't want to help the kids from the big city. I want to rent the bus and go to the whole region and to take all the kids from small villages, which are IDPs, but they don't have so many different activities because they are stuck in the village, and their parents can't afford to let them to go to any kind of therapy. And we will take them to the real competition where a dog will show how they are going through different trials and how their owners training them, and it will be so excited. We will give them gifts. We will buy them T-shirts. We will just have their own competition. They will pet all the dogs.

It will be fun. And today he called me and said, I'm going even further. I want to look for some kid which will be the most passionate about that kind of competition, and we will teach him to train the dog and to be the part of the world's competition for kids. And he said, it could change the whole life of some kid when you will just be able to go through the village being IDP without home, without friends, losing everything, but you'll become a star with the dog. And he said, can you imagine how it will be fun? And he said, all of this is so important for me because when I was 14 years old and I was growing up in a very small town, I didn't have any activities. And my dog become my best friend, and now I have such a success with my company and everything because of one dog in a small town, and now I can help other kids to find their own way and still get calling to be also useful to society.

So it's such a great program and we were inspired because we already have some events last week, and we had like 30 kids from IDP families. It was like the best three hours in their life, I guess. They were smiling.

It was an open territory. There was like 20 different dogs, small dogs, extra small dogs, medium, extra big dogs. It was so fun. Even adults were feeling so soft. And like you are like in family because of the dog, because dog is bringing this feeling.

If you are in the family, you are inside a very safe environment. It's awesome. The idea of animal assisted therapy, I know to our listeners, we've got to have a lot of listeners. We have a lot of dogs, and we have a lot of listeners who have animals that have assisted them in some way. I've got a brother who is a quad who is a former military in the quad, and his life depends on the dog. And to be able to step into this environment and see someone new in IDP who is surviving and survived and is a trainer, and then to be able to have the vision for us to say, man, let's do this.

And then this young man really take it by the horns. We did a trial run this past weekend. We had, like she said, we had 30 families.

We opened registration in like five hours and it was filled up. We have a program that's laid out. I kind of want to break it out even further for our listeners. I don't want to do this, but we're wanting to host, not just dogs, but also horse. We're having dog and horse assisted therapy events in Keene, in Venetia, in some of the major cities that have been impacted by the war for soldiers, families, and for the kids with IDP kids.

And up front we have to buy about $5,000 in equipment to put on in the arena. And then really to hold those events from now to the end of the year, and to service hundreds and hundreds, and then to give them that one-on-one interaction, to give them the gospel. We'll have someone that we have ways that we're giving the gospel in all of this.

I think the total is only about a total of $20,000, really, to successfully do it. So I don't know if we've got a listener. We haven't touched with Canines for Christ and people like that who may want to partner with us, but I feel like animals, Robbie, I just know in America we've got so many people who would love and depend on the loyalty of their animal. Somebody out there would love to give $5,000 to take care of all this equipment.

Somebody else would like to say, hey, I'll take a hold, you know, an event, you know, and our company would love to do an event for $5,000. I just think it's a beautiful thing, and I love the pictures and videos that I've already seen. I can't wait to go to one myself. I think I need the therapy as much as anybody, so I can't wait to do it. You know, it's so true because, and Mark, you know this well, that my wife has been through so much trauma, you know, this year and the loss of her mother and the loss of her niece, you know, suddenly to COVID. And, you know, I just have seen her in this trauma, and then we lost our dog, which I thought was going to be truly just like, oh, no, this is going to put Tammy over the edge. But interestingly, the Lord, and I know completely that the Lord provided this other dog that Tammy loves dachshunds, and we got this little toy dachshund. And if you could see like the joy in Tammy's face to have this dog in her lap, and she has something else to her that, you know, like your friend that had, you know, it makes such an impact. And I think, wow, God, look what you're doing, you know, and I know the same with horses because I taught special needs for all those years at Calvary. And I know the horse therapy and the dog therapy, and oh my goodness, what an amazing thing that God comes to the rescue in so many ways with this. And it's so cool that Landon got to be involved in this, and now, again, our listeners have a chance to not only pray that God would provide for this, but obviously if God puts it on your heart, and you know what your animal means to you, you know, wow, it's pretty simple.

You go to LandonRescue.org and, you know, see how you can pray, see how you can give. I mean, it's just an unbelievably cool opportunity. Yeah, it's the first animal-assisted therapy for sure in all of Ukraine, especially during a war, and there's no more needed time to have.

I will not lie. I saw the post. I was like, Google, like, do Ukraine have any dog-assisted therapy? The Red Cross have-assisted therapy with dogs, but it's like one dog, one some kind of teacher, and very small circle of people, but like this kind of competition, and all of this, all our ideas, this massive event with all the balloons and everything, nobody doing that.

Yeah, it was cool. We had, this first trial run, we had balloons with dogs, the right logos and a logo about the event, and we had tell the listeners, just in this trial event, some of the things you had right there for the kids, and some of the games they actually did. So we had the food court, which is very important because everybody wants to eat something when you come to see how dogs are running on the field. We had the competitions where owners were running through different equipment and trails with their dogs. They were participating in that competition for different prizes, very expensive ones, so they were so excited about that, and kids, they had opportunity to participate in different activities, and for that they had like balloons, lollipops, the different prizes, so many different stuff, which was just fun.

But then they could just observe how dogs were running and trying to win something very, very expensive. So it was fun because you were trying to hold this excitement, who will win, like a small dog or a big dog, who will take this first place, but also this excitement, even adults, even parents had the therapy at that moment. They brought their kids, thinking that they will help them. But adults were even more excited about taking the dog than kids, but also because there wasn't a therapy, it was such a good environment for them too, just to hang out with guys of their age, because the kindergarten are closed right now because of the war, and schools are closed. And the kids are raising in the environment where they're just stuck at home, and it's not right because they are not socialized at all.

So such events helping them to just be a kid, just to grow up to their childhood and all this fun. When my mom watched the video of this event, she said, I can't believe that you did that in the middle of the war. Anybody who will see that, they will think that it happened somewhere in Poland or in Hungary or in Germany.

Nobody will say that it is the central part of Ukraine in the middle of the war, because everybody's smiling, all the dogs, family atmosphere, all the food, everything is so bright and fun, and you can't believe that God can do that for them to forget about the war and to help each other. Well, I hate we're out of time. So I know you're listening, you can hear the joy that has come out of what Satan meant for evil, God is using for good, and the cool thing for all of us is we can take part in that. Again, both by prayer, because you all are known about this, you can share this podcast or this broadcast, and by all means, go to landandrescue.org and add your financial contribution if you can.

So Mark, last word? Hey, pray for us. We got a lot going on in the world. Definitely got a lot of cases in the Caribbean and South America region, and the task forces are really going at it, doing a great job. And then here, just pray for the task force, particularly over the next three, four weeks, if you would, just lift us up in prayer. Oh, we will certainly do that. Ananya, God bless you and all that God's doing through your business. It's amazing how you continue to do things. Thank you so much, guys, for the update. God bless. Thanks, brother. This is the Truth Network.