Ukraine Prayer # 433

Ira Kapitonova
Contend, O Lord, with those who contend with me;
fight against those who fight against me!
Take hold of shield and buckler and rise for my help!
Draw the spear and javelin against my pursuers!
Say to my soul, “I am your salvation!”
Psalm 35:1-3

One of the challenges of this war is constant second-guessing of your decisions or someone else's reasoning. Most of the time, my thinking process would look like this: "How would I normally respond? — Is there a need to adjust my response because of the war (because of an extended air raid, someone's possible PTSD, or other triggers)? — What would be the best response that could consider present circumstances and anticipate long-term impact?" And most of the time, these questions cannot take more than a few seconds.
 
Working with children, I feel this burden of responsibility and a constant need for God's wisdom. Most of my students are around 9 or 10 years old, which means most of them were born after Russia started its war on Ukraine (in 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and occupation of the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions). For those first eight years, when the war was limited to the eastern regions of Ukraine, we were aware of the cost, daily praying for our defenders.
 
The full-scale invasion started almost two years ago (21 months ago, to be exact). It means that most of our first-graders have spent a third of their lives with air raids, explosions, and other very real wartime experiences. Most of these children would have few memories from before the full-scale war.
Knowing all this, learning about ways constant stress affects our mental health and cognitive skills, wanting to help our children make wise decisions in these challenging times, teachers constantly need wisdom and guidance from the Holy Spirit, whether it's about teaching a certain topic or handling a discipline issue. Please pray for the teachers and those working with children.
Since the beginning of the full-scale war,
510 children have been killed,
1143 children have been wounded,
2199 children have gone missing,
19546 children have been forcefully deported to Russia
13 children have experienced sexual abuse
2 million children had to seek refuge outside of Ukraine
over 1 million children live in constant danger because of the proximity to the active combat zone
over 3 million children do not have a healthy study environment because of the missile and drone attacks on Ukraine
I feel overwhelmed thinking about these circumstances we need to overcome, but I know that with God, everything is possible.

Today's pictures are illustrations by Andriy Yermolenko with the statistics I translated above.