(Happenings in December 2019).
During my short trip to Israel, the birth family came to gather and celebrated the New Year with food, snow, and fireworks! Regarding my birth family, I feel like I had a ton of thoughts that all interconnected and built upon another, but now after having dismissed those thoughts for a while now, I'm lost in what I am supposed to think and feel now... it seems like a new beginning or a restart. What has been done is done and we get to move forward together in life from here, whatever time left God allows us, I hope long! My time in Israel was so special and insightful. So much learned and so much still to process. I do feel like the Lord is giving me clarity and peace of mind. I didn’t realize we would learn so much about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We heard firsthand from individuals on all sides and different perspectives and backgrounds and we learned so much from the Jewish people, both of which I knew little about before. I'm in the process of translating what all of this is supposed to mean for me.
Every time before I Skype with my birth family, I get anxious. But I’ve noticed that whenever I pray right before, whether good or bad, I usually come away from the call with a better light. Speaking of Skyping with them... I Skyped with the birth family all together, after sharing about it with my parents, and we updated each other and they were eager to hear me share all about Israel. The conversation went so very well. We laughed a lot and they asked many good questions, some that I was able to answer and we discussed many important concepts. It was neat to hear what they thought of it all. I love getting to share with them concepts they have never heard of before. During our call, I had to find some place with Wi-Fi because I wasn’t home and whenever I Skype with them in public, I have to try and ignore the looks I seem to get from people... during this call, there was an older gentleman, a stranger, sitting fairly near me and he had headphones in doing something. I had no idea he could hear everything. By the end of our Skype call, this man walks up to my table and places a handwritten note next to me and walks away without saying anything. It says, “you show empathy. Feel it”.
Natalia made it to the c-community with her long lost brothers and sisters in Christ and she has been returning every week since then! From my understanding, years ago, Natalia attended a Christian rehabilitation center after having gone to other centers prior. That was the time she found Jesus, but it definitely took her time. She made close connections there. But ever since the Russian occupation of Eastern Ukraine began in 2014, all rehabilitation centers shut down and for a while, there was a ban on public Christian faith. So many c-communities abandoned her area, except the Orthodox community. Eventually, the ban was lifted and her c-community returned. At some point in my communication with Natalia, she was inspired to search these people once she made profiles online and she found them having realized they now close by again. For several weeks, life had been keeping her from getting to this c-community until recently. When she went for the first time, she loved it! Several of these people knew Natalia in her past life. She is also involved in their small groups weekly. I long to meet these people someday!
Here is some of what Natalia said to me:
“Katya, I came from the church. I testified to everyone that you found me! The whole place sends you greetings !!! ❤❤❤ Now I will also go to my home group, I found all my brothers and sisters! ❤“... I wanted to tell you that everyone said hello to you! We had a talk that we needed to stick together and move on together, especially paying attention to the fact that we are in a dangerous and difficult time and there is a war and we want to carry the gospel to people. ❤”
“... It was so joyful in my heart to see all of mine in place! And they rejoiced and cried with happiness for me that you could find and forgive me... It was a powerful testimony of how great and mighty our God is. A prayer of faith can change everything.... We prayed that the Lord would arrange for you to be able to visit us. We shared our experiences on how to act according to the word of God and still played different games with the children."