Not the closest

A friend of mine, a teenager during the break up of the Eastern Bloc, told me of her adventures when she was a teenager.  She and her friends went to a large factory in Odessa, now under siege, to practice their Russian. She said they went through another city that is also under siege. She said that the Ukrainean language is similar to the Slavik languages, which, along with along with one of the longest borders with Ukraine, explains why so many are choosing to flee to Poland rather than their neighbors to the south.  The conflict feels pretty close when you think of it in these terms. 

It isn't the closest I've been to conflict. Some of my most vivid memories of growing up in Africa center around the first coup. One day, we had rebel soldiers in our backyard fighting the police in our front yard. Fortunately, we lived on the 2nd floor and no shots were fired at our house. We got a front row seat to the battle--everything we could see from under the bed, where Mom told us to stay. We played the game, Aggravation.

There was also a time during this tumultuous period when I was walking down the street from my friends house to my own house.  A soldier pointed his gun and order me to halt. I pretended not to understand, though I confess I did walk a little faster. It was too warm in West Africa for us to ever dream about snow days, but we had numerous coup days. I graduated from High School shortly before Civil War broke out.

Although I never got that close to war again, I have been in war zones. In 2002, during a three month window of a peace accord, I visited my friends in an area that had been in conflict almost since I had six years before. The people were so worn down by the conflict that they no longer cared about politics, only peace. It was the last time I saw some of my friends alive.  Two years later, a tsunami devestated the entire province and ended the war. I went back then, too, for a while.

This is the first conflict that had a mass migration of refugees involved.  The church is collecting items to help these women and children. Our pastor is on the front lines. However, there are only about 500 refugees in my city. Except for a beggar woman that I saw last week who might have been a refugee, I haven't seen any. Churches and schools are collecting items for refugees in need, mostly baby things and children's clothes.  Here we pray with our Ukrainean brothers and sisters that the aggression will stop.