Marie (Kyiv)
The Stranger at the Door
As we are driving the bumpy village road, we are amazed to spot three stork nests in a row. We stop to take a few pictures. On the roadside, an elderly lady is offering fruits from her garden. We go over to buy some raspberries. I notice the broken windows in her house and hand her 15$ instead of the 3$ she asked for. “I just want to bless you,” I say. She bursts out in tears. “You don’t know how much that means to me,” she says.
She invites us in and shares her story. How there was a knock on the door on February 28, and the Russian soldiers said: We are going to occupy your home. Do I have a choice, she asked. No, they said. You can stay in the basement. So the family of 11 moved to the basement – with no heating, no electricity, no bathroom, and a bedridden aunt and grandchildren. With Russian occupiers upstairs and the sound of them shooting at their neighbors from their own windows. Living downstairs from hell.
We walk through Ira’s beautiful garden as she shows us broken windows, bullet holes, and giant craters on the field. She says, the moment we understood we needed to flee was when they looked at my granddaughter and said, ‘What a beautiful granddaughter you have there.’ The girl is 13.
So the family waited until night and ran towards the fields. They left their village under gunshots of the occupiers firing from their own house.
We walk over to the raspberry bushes. Ira says, I have never experienced something like this in my whole life. The fruits taste different. Everything tastes different. It is as if the soil felt those explosions as well. And the fruits changed somehow.
Her granddaughter changed as well. She does not leave home at all. Using the outdoor toilet, just a few steps from the house inside the compound becomes a daily challenge. With a breaking voice, Ira shares how she has to take her granddaughter by the hand and walk her the few steps to the toilet. Nothing feels safe anymore.
The raspberries indeed taste sour.
In February, strangers knocked on her door and brought hell into her house. Today, again strangers knocked on her door to buy some raspberries. But this time it was an encounter that brought blessings, relief, and encouragement to her home.
We are humble and thankful to see Jesus leading us to people like Ira. It is not always the big gestures that make a difference. But the small act of simply listening to a person’s story.
What story does your neighbor have to tell?
Al Akimoff and Slavic Ministries Team (Kyiv, Ukraine)