hope for my second home

For weeks I've been hearing about the turmoil in Ukraine. I have a lot of friends who are there, living in this now dangerous place. Having lived there for 5 months, I grew to love these people. I love my sisters and cousin. I love their culture. I love the food. I love their idiosyncrasies (despite how crazy they may seem). I love the friends I've made. I love the children that I taught.

And as it came time to leave, I found myself more sad to come back to America than I was to leave it. And I've become friends with those Doug knew from his mission that now live in Kyiv (that I have come to love and adore as well) who have a child only days younger than Emmett. 

Sseeing all the destruction going on in that nation's capitol makes saddens me greatly. I love them so much. Each of them. 

The kids I taught are now 8-10 years old. I have a couple friends there now who have children themselves and I have so much hope for those kids. I hope they grow up, knowing that there is hope for a full and free life. Freedom isn't free, but once gotten is such a wonderful thing. I hope my Ukrainian friends know they're being prayed for and I wonder if the children understand what it means. I hope they know a brighter future is there. I hope they all know how much they've changed my life and how proud of the Ukrainian people as a whole I am that they are trying to change their own. 

There is hope. And I have a lot of hope for what I have come to feel is my second home.