God’s plans and provisions are often like connecting the dots. It begins with me, an international missionary from Ireland serving the Free Methodist Church in Hungary. It was March 2022; a young American woman contacted me. She explained that she had loved ones in Odesa, Ukraine, and they were running out of food because of the war. I followed up by contacting Valera, one of our Free Methodist leaders in Rivne, Ukraine, and asked him for assistance. Valera then contacted his friend Anton, a pastor in Odessa. Valera and Anton met years ago in an alcohol and drug rehabilitation center. Both men have been clean for many years and are now serving God. Anton set to work gathering food. During a break from the shelling, he took the food to the family and prayed with them.

Anton had arranged for his own family to go to western Ukraine for safety. But Anton stayed on in Odessa to serve. While preparing for my second trip to Ukraine with humanitarian aid, I contacted Anton to see if he needed anything. In the conversation, I discovered that I would be only four miles from where his family was staying. I then learned of some specific needs Anton’s family had.

A week later, I went to Ukraine and brought the family medicines, food, money and soft toys for the children. Anton and I have yet to meet, but God used an American woman to contact an Irishman in Hungary to travel with his Australian and Italian team members through Romania into Ukraine to bring help to Anton’s family. Only God can plan and provide in such amazing ways! What a beautiful picture of the body of Christ!