This morning as I opened the back door, a breeze blew brown, crumpled leaves across the tips of my fuzzy, pink slippers. The thermometer hovered around 60 degrees. As tragic as this weather is for the week of Christmas (why is it I live in Texas?)----I want to tell you about another tragic weather situation.
It's in Odessa, Ukraine.
As I write this, it is now 39 degrees Fahrenheit in Odessa. However, big snow storms blow through there from time to time--like it did a few days ago. Though they don't freak out over snow like Texans do, there is something very, very awful that does happen when it snows bucket-loads.
It all has to do with the village grocery stores. When there's a sea of white painted across the countryside, the delivery trucks don't exercise the faith of Moses and make a way through. The trucks stay parked in Odessa and don't get the food to the villages.
But, remember the 160 orphans who live in Ananyevo? That means they don't have any food. If the electricity goes out---those 'pumpkins' don't have heat, either. And it's just not the darln's of Ananyevo---it's all of the orphans of all of the villages of all of the snowed-in regions outside of Odessa.
Now, that's a tragedy, indeed.
So, as brown Texas faced me this morning, I said a prayer for the clouds in the Odessa region. "Please, God, roll back the clouds over the orphanages and let the trucks make it through to the village grocery stores, and let the orphanage buyers make it to the stores, and let all of the children's tummies be full, and their bodies be warm."
Oh, by the way, we don't worry about food in America--no matter what the weather. In fact, I have the "too much food" problem. So, I'm going to make sure that before I make myself sick this week with holiday treats, that I say a prayer for the orphans of the world to have food---especially those I know about in the region of Odessa, Ukraine----will you pray, too?
Merry Christmas!
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