The Malone Family on Mission in Ukraine

We’ve made a very difficult decision… We have been praying and seeking the Lord’s wisdom since we returned home from London.  Unfortunately, things here in Ukraine are not improving, but in many ways, things are out of control.  In the last week, we have begun seeing troops in the city with automatic weapons, a pronounced police/military presence in the metro stations (subway) that we use (I can’t say that they are in all of the stations), our road into Kiev now has a roadblock set up by the police and military to check vehicles going in to the city (these checkpoints are set up at every entrance to Kyiv city), and on Wednesday, there were some troops even in our small Brovary. Last night, coming home from Kyiv, not only was the official roadblock reinforced with sandbags, a large truck to block the road,  and 15 – 20 military personnel, but at the entrance to our city, Brovary, citizens were building another roadblock out of concrete blocks and sandbags.  All of this in preparation for the victory day holiday and the days leading up to the election. REWIND A COUPLE OF WEEKS… Mary and I began praying that God would make it clear what we were to do.  We’ve been putting off decisions in hopes of Hannah being able to graduate with her class and to participate in the Spring play that she is in.  Yet, during this waiting time, we have been praying about going to the USA for the summer.  Two of the obstacles were the promises we had made to participate in three weeks worth of camps here in Ukraine for families with special needs kids, and the feelings of our dear friends Yuri and Sveta.  We began praying that God would prepare their hearts if we were to decide it was time to step out of the situation here in Ukraine.  Yuri, since November, has been telling us “don’t worry, everything will get back to normal, and there is nothing to be afraid of, there is no reason to leave Ukraine…” Several days ago, it became apparent that Yuri was becoming worried, himself.  We could see it on his face and he stopped telling us everything was fine and not to worry. Two days ago, he said he wanted to talk to me.  With tears in his eyes he told me that it was time for us to go.  At least for the summer.  He believes that things are getting to the point that it will either rapidly get much worse and dangerous here or that things will slowly begin to get better.  And there is absolutely no way to tell which way it will fall.  If it falls for the worse, he said it would be difficult to get our large family out quickly.  He is right about that.  that’s one of the things we have considered in our decision to stay or leave temporarily.  We talked for about an hour.  At the end of that time I was agreeable that we would go for the summer.   He wanted us to leave before the election that is on May 25.  Well, Hannah’s graduation is May 22.  We were able to get tickets for May 23 out of Kyiv to Dallas.  We are VERY torn, but we know that we have clearly heard from the Lord.  We plan to return mid August if at all possible.

Prayer Needs—PLEASE PRAY

• understanding from our friends here in Ukraine
• leaving here will be very hard emotionally for us for so many reasons
• the actual trip will be very hard with the little’s (in case you don’t know, we have 8 children with us (1 is in the USA in college) and five of them have Down syndrome and are like toddlers and preschoolers)
• we need a place to stay in the USA — my mom has graciously invited us to stay with her, but that probably needs to be temporary for her sanity
• we need a large vehicle to drive while in the USA
• we need finances to get there and stay for the summer (we have some surplus from the two weeks we spent out of Ukraine in February, but it is SO expensive to fly this many people to the USA

We trust the Lord to meet all these needs, but if He calls you to be part of the answer, thank you for responding! Feel free to ask any question you have — EMAIL NOW

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