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Khmelnytskyi IDPs
Today I helped the August Mission team deliver a load of humanitarian aid goods to the Khmelnytskyi regional IDP humanitarian aid center. IDP stands for “internally displaced person.” IDPs are people who have been driven from their homes because of some disaster or hardship, but remain within their home country. This is slightly different from…
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American Dream
Yesterday I travelled from Poland to a small city in western Ukrainian called Khmelnytskyi. I plan to stay here until the end of October, focusing on learning more about Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. I may find a tutor to help me practice speaking Ukrainian, and I will probably also spend time volunteering at some…
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School in Exile
Some friends I met recently here in Poland invited me to accompany them this morning on a visit to a new private primary school in Warsaw. The school, called the Children of Ukraine Education Center, was founded by two Ukrainian women who brought their children to Warsaw when Russia invaded Ukraine. One of the women,…
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Parting Impressions
Today was the last day of my first “tour” as a volunteer at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland; it was also the first day that we played musical chairs with the kids! Most days there are so many kids at so many different…
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Save the Children
Tomorrow will be my last day of volunteering at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland, at least for the rest of October. The Polish Red Cross had initially announced that it intended to close the Aid Center at the end of October, so Ocalenie…
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Super-Active
Today was my thirty-second day as a volunteer at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Reception Point / Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland. We only had about 18 kids register in during the course of the entire day, and it would have been a very quiet time except for…
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Disproportionate Effects
Chatting with one of my fellow volunteers one morning about seasonal change in the weather we are experiencing here in Poland, we soon found ourselves engaged in a more fraught discussion about climate change. I commented that climate change on our planet has always been and still is a natural and normal phenomenon, and ultimately…
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One-Stringer
Today we were pretty busy at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Reception Point / Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland. We had about 25 kids signed in and some of them were pretty rambunctious. I guess they were “farm kids” because the boys had grime under their fingernails, and…
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Don’t Fret
The guitar is one of the most popular “toys” at the Ocalenie Foundation safe space for children in the Ukrainian Refugee Reception Point / Humanitarian Aid Center in Przemyśl, Poland. Even though our guitar only has two strings still intact, kids love to carry it around the safe space, strumming rythmically. I’ve figured out how…
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