Fleeing from the Land of the North to the Promised Land

On Monday February 28 the war in Ukraine has been going on for four days already. We are driving a group of Jewish refugees to the Moldovan border. I expected that they would be met there and taken to an airport so that they could leave for Israel. In reality, nothing had been arranged…

“I expected that they would be met there and taken to an airport so that they could leave for Israel. In reality, nothing had been arranged…”

After I explored my options to undertake something on my own, I decided to phone John and Charlotte. This Danish couple is managing different humanitarian projects in Moldova, amongst which a refuge centre. Fortunately they were able to help us!

To Israel
In a few days we were able to bring more than 1,000 Jewish refugees from all over Ukraine to safety. They usually spend the night in one of our shelters, after which they are transported to Moldova with large buses and minibuses. Then they fly to Israel from the airports of Chisinãu (Moldova) or Bucharest (Rumania).

I am writing this update as we are returning to Ukraine. I am looking back on a very special, but also unexpected time in Moldova. On February 28 I left with a small bag, in case I had to stay one or two nights. Ultimately, I stayed nearly two weeks and during this period I established the entire transportation for the Jewish refugees.

Although it was exciting at times, I now look back knowing that the Lord had everything prepared already.

“You saved us”
I remember Anatoly, a Holocaust survivor who stumbled into the bus in the middle of the night. He was exhausted after 48 hours in different buses, but his daughter said: “Wonderful what Christians for Israel meant to us. You have really saved us.”

In return we say: especially in difficult times we are there to offer a helping hand to the Jewish people.

Click on the photo to see the next photo:

In the coming period we expect many more Jewish refugees. Presently there are refugees in our shelters from Odessa, Kyiv and Bela Tserkov. Last night another eighteen refugees from Krivoy Rog arrived. They will all be taken to the international airport of Chisināu. Starting next Sunday there is a daily evacuation flight from Chsināu to Israel and hopefully also from Bucharest.

“In the coming period we expect many more Jewish refugees”

Of course we don’t know where the present situation in Ukraine leads. We hope that the war will stop soon, but that the return of the Jewish people to Israel will continue! In Israel they are prepared to receive thousands of Jewish families from Ukraine, amongst others in one of the sixty kibbutzim of the First Home in Homeland program.

Prayer
I ask you to pray for our drivers who are on the road every day for hours on end with all its dangers, for our volunteers who commit themselves selflessly for the Jewish people and also that the borders may stay open and will not be bombed. So that God’s people can be escorted and from the Land of the North can make Aliyah to the Promised Land!